An Excerpt from the first chapter of my novel

WomanSkirtFan8

Lisa arrived home from school one Friday afternoon. After getting off the school bus, she began walking back towards her house. Turning the corner just down from the bus stop, she walked onwards. As she approached the house, she noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the road with the bonnet up. It appeared to be broken down. Lisa couldn't see anyone nearby so she immediately assumed that the owner must have gone for help. She eventually reached the front gate and then made her way into the driveway.
The house itself was a fairly standard two-storey semi-detached council house. It had three bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen, bathroom and living room downstairs. There was also a smaller shower upstairs as well. At the back there was a medium-sized garden. After getting inside, Lisa made her way upstairs to her bedroom.
Once she'd changed clothes, Lisa folded her school uniform up very neatly and then placed it in her wardrobe to the left of the door. She then sat back down on her bed,with her mobile phone and iPod charging in the electrical socket just under the drawer. Taking her diary and pen off the drawer, she then began making an entry:
"Dear diary.
Had a fairly ordinary day at school today, apart from that fight in the school canteen at the 11am break! Goodness me! What a mess was left afterwards!I can't say for certain, but I strongly suspected that maybe Sharon and her gang were the ones behind it."
Lisa stopped writing. She got up from her bed and stretched herself. As she did so, she felt a sudden, sharp cold tingle in the back of her neck. She walked over to the window and looked down into the driveway. Down below, standing just outside the main gate was a rather tallish-looking woman. She appeared to be very professionally dressed in a suit.She had been standing beside the broken-down car talking on her phone. Lisa guessed that she had been talking to a local mechanic. This unknown woman had stopped talking on her phone and was now looking directly up at Lisa.
Lisa then watched as this unknown woman walked into the driveway and up to the front door. A few moments later, Lisa heard the doorbell ring. She immediately left her diary and pen on her bed and went downstairs and opened the door.
"Hello, young lady." said the woman with a smile. "My name is Maeve and my car appears to have broken down. I was trying to ring the local garage but my battery has gone dead. Could I come in and use your phone?"
"Yes of course. "replied Lisa. "Come in. I'm Lisa by the way."
"Thank you Lisa. I'm so sorry for being such an awful pain like this." replied Maeve as she followed Lisa into the hallway.
"Oh not at all. We sometimes get this kind of thing here. You're not the first, Maeve." answered Lisa as she led Maeve into the kitchen.
Lisa showed Maeve where the phone was and she then let Maeve get on with making her phone call._____________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile Andrea and Katherine were at the local supermarket to do their weekly shopping. They had just parked in the car park on the right hand side of the building. While Andrea went over and paid for the parking ticket, Katherine jumped out and bounded almost effortlessly across the car park towards the line of shopping trolleys.
Andrea walked much more slowly, stopping a few times to say hello to a few people she knew. As she made her way towards the entrance, she noticed a group of young teenagers having around outside. They appeared to be quite a boisterous bunch. It then very quickly became apparent as to why.
"Excuse me!" she said to a staff member as he pushed another unused trolley back into the line.
"Yes madam. How can I help you?" he asked rather politely.
"Could you tell me where those young people got that alcohol from?" she asked.
"Probably from the local off-licence down the street." he replied slightly out of breath.
Andrea nodded rather solemnly.
("I'll have to have a word with those people at some stage!")
Meanwhile, Katherine was busy bouncing around from shelf to shelf putting, throwing almost everything she could see into the trolley, which was just over half-full.
When Andrea eventually found Katherine she moaned,
"Oh no Kathy! Not again!"
"Why?! What's wrong with it?" exclaimed Katherine rather innocently.
"We don't need all of that stuff! It's just too much!"
"Yes well. Each to their own." replied Katherine somewhat casually.
Andrea was not about to have an arguement with Katherine. It had been an extremely long day's teaching and she was feeling pretty tired.
"Alright Kathy," she sighed. "But we WILL need to at least some of that stuff out. We just can't afford all of it."
Katherine let out a rather unhappy moan.
"Come on!" Andrea said trying to sound as soothing as she could taking the handle of the trolley.
Even though she wasn't too happy about it, Katherine took a number of items out.
"What else do we need?" she asked after a moment's thought.
"Eh? Milk. We're going to need more milk." replied Andrea.
"I'll get that. Be back in a moment." Katherine said making her way towards the far end of the supermarket.
As Katherine headed off, Andrea grimaced slightly.
("Lisa?!...What on earth?!....No!")
Katherine had reached the dairy section. She had just picked up a large milk carton and was about to head back, when she suddenly started experiencing an extremely serious and painful migrane.
She just about managed to put the carton back on the shelf before she dropped it. She then held on to the shelf's edge, she began breathing in and out extremely deeply.
A member of staff saw this and came up to see if she could help.
"Are you okay, miss?" she asked.
Katherine eventually managed to recover.
She stood upright.
"Yes thank you. I'm fine. Just got a little bit of a headache." she replied.
Katherine managed to pick up the carton of milk and then made her way back to join Andrea, who had finished the shopping and was now making her way back towards the checkouts.
When Katherine eventually rejoined Andrea, she had already paid for the shopping and was now making her way towards the exit.
The group of young people were still hanging around outside.
As Andrea walked past them pushing the shopping trolley, three of the young men whistled at her but she just slowly shook her head. She continued walking until she reached her car. Once there, she opened the boot and began loading the shopping into it.
Katherine, on the other hand, had already seen the unwanted attention that Andrea had just received.
She felt a little bit jealous at his.
"Well then!," she exclaimed rather bitterly. "I can see that you're getting all the attention again....as usual!" as she got into the passenger seat and closed the door. with a slight bang.
"I can't help that!" replied Andrea rather innocently as she got in, having already put the shopping trolley back with the other ones.
"Of course you can't!" snapped Katherine somewhat bitterly. "You're the only who ALWAYS gets the most attention!"
Andrea closed the door and put her seatbelt on. She then turned to Katherine.
"We're not going to have this conversation yet again, are we Kathy?"
Katherine just remained quiet, even though secretly she was privately absolutely seething underneath.
"In that case then, let's go home." Andrea said starting the engine.
Katherine also did likewise, though she never took her eyes off her slightly-elder sister.
Andrea put the car into gear, released the handbrake and they drove out of the car park, turned right and then continued on their journey towards home; ironically passing right by Maeve's occult shop in the process, although neither of them at the time had any idea of just how significant a role this shop would later on play in their lives._________________________________________________________________________________
Back at the house, Maeve finished her phone call and had just left.
("So that's Lisa! I can't wait to meet her mother!')
Maeve went back over to her own car. She rather casually put down the bonnet, got into the driver's seat, closed the door and then miraculously started the engine without any great degree of difficulty and then drove off.
By now, Lisa was in the living room watching some afternoon television when Andrea and Katherine arrived back home.
As they drove into the driveway, Andrea couldn't see any sign of danger. Pulling up and stopping just outside the front door, both women could see that the house appeared to be exactly the same as when they had left it. Everything appeared to be okay.
"Looks like you were imaging things again Kathy!." remarked Andrea as she stopped the car.
"I don't accept that!" snapped Katherine as she got out and headed straight for the front door.. "I'm telling you I know what I saw!"
"Well there's nobody here now!"
Lisa opened the door. The next thing she knew Katherine had swept her up in her arms.
"Lisa! Are you okay?!" asked Katherine as she held her rather tightly.
"I'm fine thanks Aunty Kathy!" exclaimed Lisa. "Ow! You're squashing me!"
"Let her go Kathy!" Andrea said rather sternly.
Katherine let Lisa go. Lisa gasped for a few moments but eventually maanged to regain her breath.
"Is everything okay Lisa?" Andrea asked as she opened the car boot.
"Apart from Aunty Kathy trying to kill me?! Yes mum. Everything's okay!" replied Lisa.
"Good. You can help me bring in all this shopping then so." Andrea replied.
"Why don't we just use our, you know, "gift"?" Lisa asked.
"No!" Andrea replied rather firmly. "We can NEVER use our "gift" in public! Too dangerous!"
"Okay then." Lisa replied taking two of the shopping bags out and carried them back into the house.
"Oh my!" she remarked. "That's an awful lot of shopping for three people!"
"Well it should be." replied Andrea. "It cost enough."
As Andrea carried the extremely heavy bag into the hallway, she winced suddenly.
"Ow!" she exclaimed, arching her back slightly in pain.
"What's wrong mum?" Lisa asked as she placed the last two bags just inside the door.
"I seem to have done myself an injury!" Andrea exclaimed.
"Well then. Why don't you go into the living room and rest for a bit. I'll get Aunty Kathy to help me with this shopping."
"Good idea!" Andrea said as she gave Lisa an affectionate kiss on her head. She then headed for the living room while Lisa and Katherine then took the rest of the shopping into the kitchen.


This is part of the first chapter of my novel.