UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #1)

UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #1)

Chanda Hahn



Chapter 1


Today, I saved Brody Carmichael’s life!

Mina penned the jubilant words into her blue spiral notebook with her favorite ball point pen. She faithfully used the same pen when writing all of her entries, in hopes that it would change her luck and she could write something good in her notebook-- like today. Mina stared at the words written before her in her sloppy script and felt a pang of guilt. She started to close the notebook but paused in thought. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem… truthful. With a heavy hand and a heavy heart she added in quotation brackets next to her previous entry:

(Today was also the day I almost KILLED Brody Carmichael).

Feeling slightly better about telling the truth, she closed her notebook titled “Unaccomplishments and Epic Disasters” and tucked it in her dresser drawer with a sigh.

Nothing in the world ever went right for fifteen-year-old Mina. She was always late for class, her homework usually looked as if it had spent the evening being a chew toy for a pit bull when she didn’t even own a dog, her long-time crush didn’t know she existed, and she frequently spilled chocolate milk on herself whenever she became nervous. Mina was certain it was because she was the magnet for all the bad, terrible and so-so luck that existed in the world and therefore kept a notebook hidden in her unorganized sock drawer to prove it.

All of these events turned her into a cynic, especially since yesterday morning started out like any other event-filled disastrous day.

~~~

Mina dreamed she was flying. She was much more graceful in the air than on the ground where her feet always seemed to be tripping her up. But her peaceful dream was interrupted by the loud banging and crashing of thunder. She was no longer flying… but falling.

“Ouch! What the…?” Mina cried out, as she landed painfully on the mismatched oak wood floor of her bedroom. She had fallen out of bed. Struggling to untangle herself from her sheets and comforter, Mina saw a pair of small bare feet poking out of blue Toy Story pajamas standing next to her.

“Charlie, what are you doing?” she mumbled, still wrestling with her sheets.

Charlie, a young solemn boy of eight, pointed towards Mina’s clock that was blinking 12:00 midnight. In his hands he held a pot and wooden spoon, obviously the culprit of the loud crashing thunder she heard in her dreams. The power must have gone out again, which was a regular occurrence for their city block.

“What time is it?” Mina asked, already feeling the dread build, knowing that today she was going to be late… again.

Charlie held up one hand pinching his ring finger and thumb together to sign the number seven.

“Charlie, how could you have let me sleep in so long? I’m going to be late!”

Charlie answered by shrugging his shoulders and banging on the pot with his wooden spoon. Mina knew that it wasn’t Charlie’s fault; she was a very deep sleeper. Her mother, Sara, said that she was harder to wake up than Sleeping Beauty. In Mina’s case, though, there was no prince charming to rescue her from her snoring, and with her horrible luck, there never would be.

Jumping up, Mina grabbed what she hoped was a clean pair of jeans from a random pile of clothes that littered her floor and slid into them. Silently she thanked her mother for never giving in to the skinny jean fad, otherwise her dressing time would have doubled. Next she shoved her feet into her favorite Converse All Stars, bending the backs in the process

Picking up a blue zipper hoody, Mina gave it a cursory sniff before deeming it clean enough to wear. She ran her fingers through her long brown hair trying to tame the stray locks, which were the same boring color as her eyes; brown. She stuck her tongue out at her own reflection in the mirror and pulled on her eyelid like a bad Japanese anime.

Giving a quick kiss on her brother’s head Mina ran into the small sixties retro kitchen that was forever frozen in time and grabbed her backpack from the breakfast table. Turning, Mina heard a rip as the backpack clung stubbornly to the back of the chair. The chair won and the shoulder strap ripped off of the back of the bag, causing all of her books to crash to the floor in a heap.

Sighing, Mina threw each book back into the bag and did her best to hold it shut while she scoured the kitchen drawers for safety pins.

Hearing the crash, Sara Grime walked into the kitchen with a quizzical look on her face. She was dressed in her work clothes; tan pants, blue polo with a stitched outline of a feather duster and a smiling mop. Sara worked for Happy Maids, cleaning homes so she could afford the tuition to send Charlie to a private school. Sara worked long hours without ever complaining, which was why Mina never allowed her mother to enter her pigsty of a room.

“Mom, did you sign my permission form?”

“What permission form?” Sara asked distractedly as she put two raspberry pop tarts into the toaster for her daughter.

“For today’s field trip to Babushka’s Bakery. We are getting a factory tour. I gave it to you last week.”

“Oh, honey,” Sara wrung her hands worriedly. “Don’t you think it would be better if you didn’t go on the field trip? You know how clumsy you are. What if something should happen to you?”

“Mom, I have a paper to write on today’s trip and it’s worth a quarter of my grade.” Mina had finally found a few safety pins in a junk drawer and was fumbling with them to attach the strap back on to her backpack. She knew they didn’t have enough money to buy another one. She would have to make do with a quick mend.