Abandoned

Prologue
Bob Gweeni was sitting in the waiting room reading a newspaper feeling anxious. His nine-year-old daughter Iantha was next to him, playing with her favorite toy, a stuffed platypus. They had been sitting there for several hours, waiting.

"Daddy?" Iantha crawled into her father's lap. "How much longer?"

Bob sighed and looked at his watch. "Any minute now, dear."

A nurse popped her head into the room. "Congratulations!" she said. "It's a girl!"

Bob and Iantha quickly followed the nurse into the hospital room. Iantha's mother, Hilda, was laying in a bed holding something wrapped in a blanket.

Iantha peeked between the layers of cloth. Inside was a wrinkled pink thing that stared back at her with big, black eyes. A dusting of red hair lay on its head.

"This is your new sister, Iantha. Her name is Trixie." Hilda said but Iantha wasn't listening. There was something in those eyes. Something that told Iantha that there was only room for one girl in Bob and Hilda's hearts.

And that girl wouldn't be Iantha herself.

Chapter One
An explosion rattled the windows of the Gweeni mansion. It was followed by yelling, the opening of a few windows, and a fire alarm going off. A family rushed out of the house: a middle-aged man and woman, and two girls, one four years old and the other thirteen. Soon a firetruck pulled up in front of the house and several men jumped out. They immediately hosed down the smoking house and left without a word.

The minute they were gone Bob Gweeni turned to Iantha and yelled, "When will you learn? I've told you over and over that inventing is dangerous! We could have been killed!" He stomped back into the house and returned minutes later with his arms full of Benson burners, beakers and chemicals, all of which he dumped into the trash cans next to the house. "There! I hope that will teach you! No more inventing in my house!"

Iantha frowned. Her father had threatened several times about taking away her supplies, but she never thought he'd acutally do it. She glanced at her younger sister, Trixie, who had a smug look on her face, like she was anticipating this very moment for quite some time.

Iantha's mother glared at her daughter and led her family back into the house, where Iantha immediatly raced into the basement.

"Don't even think about inventing down there!" Hilda called after her.

Iantha figured that she wasn't really disobeying since she was not thinking about inventing at all. As long as she kept the words "invent", "inventing" and "invented" out of he rmind, she was perfectly innocent.

To be continued...