Name: Kathrin McKane
Age:16
Occupation:Waitress
Social Security:I know this how again?
Applying for:Diamond Lane-Help wanted poster...
Hobbies:Drawing, reading, making fun of people, depends what your view on a hobby is...long list...
Anything you'd like to say about yourself: I hate the world.



I fshed filling out the form. Isighed and hoisted myself off the chair and over to the main desk. I handed over the paper and the woman at the desk was smiling as if all the world was so beautiful and perfect and innocent. Thought I knew it wasn't.

"Here." I practically shoved the paper into the woman face. The woman didn't even flinch.

"Thank you for applying. Have a nice day." I thought for a moment...that woman was too happy for me. Her red lipstick was a bit smudged. She'd caked on eyeliner and mascara like it was her job. She had a small crooked tooth. She was wearing a red pencil skirt and a blouse.

"Whatever." I mumbled. She looked confused for a moment but then went back to her cheery self. I sighed again and walked out to the front doors. All the sudden I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped. I turned around to find a girl about my age probably smiling. Just like that I was mad. I mean REALLY mad.

"Did your momma tell you to go around and scare people?" I gave her an evil look. She shoved out her hand.

"Hi. Naima." She smiled. When she finally realized I wasn't going to shake her hand she slowly put it back in her pocket.

"Kathrin." I still gave her an evil glare. She kept smiling.

"Nice to meet you Kathrin." She grabbed a pen out of her pocket. She walked over to a desk and grabbed a small piece of paper. She started to write something on it.

"Well Naima, it's not very nice to meet you." I glared at her as she handed me the paper. I took it and looked at it. You had got to be kidding me. On the paper wrote,"666-9087." I looked up at her.

"I know your new here. I live down the street from you. You live in the blue house on the corner right?" I nodded. Then I remembered her. She was the girl that had watched us take stuff in from our house.

"So you know...if you ever need anything..." She looked a bit nervous. "You like to intimidate people don't you?" Her question surprised me.

"I guess I do." She nodded like she understood.

"Well, just so you know I never lie." I started laughing. She just stood there silent. I looked up at her.

"You have go to be kidding me." Her face looked serious.

"Never." I was a bit shocked at her serious tone.


"Oh come on...not even a little white lie?" She shook her head.

"Never." I looked at her, puzzled. Then her face brightened up again. She looked around.

"This place is so fancy...with diamonds everywhere..."

"Hmm...I wonder why they call it Diamond Lane then." I was trying to offend her. Instead she saw it as a joke and starting laughing. I guess she noticed I wasn't laughing and she stopped. Still, she smiled.

"Well, it was nice to meet you Kathrin. See you later!" She started walking out the doors. But then I called out.

"Hold on!" She turned back and smiled at me.

"Yes?" She walked back toward me.

"Why were you watching my family move stuff into our house?" She looked confused for a moment.

"Ohhh...Well the thing is...I'm fascinated by the whole process of moving. I've never moved my entire life. I've been here,in the same house, all my life."

"I thought you said you never lie."

"I don't! That's the entire truth."

"Right..."

"It is!" I started walking toward the door.

"Bye!" She yelled behind me. I didn't answer back.







* * * * *


Today, I was told I got the job at Diamond Lane. Apparently, I have to go through this crazy training thing to handle diamonds. It's dumb. I also found out Naima AND my sister Hayden got a job there. My sister is 19, three years older than me. And apparently, Naima is 16 like me. I was not the most pleased person when I found out. It's a month training course and it's a hundred miles away. We have hotel like things. It's weird. But we can buy anything we want from the place we're staying. The catch is that we have to stay in the building. We aren't allowed to go outside. Now, not that I mind being cooped up in a building for a month, it's just I sort of liked BREATHING! But, I'm going anyways.







* * * * *


We're here at the Diamond Lane Training Center (or DLTC). Here at the DLTC, we cannot set foot outside. The walls are soundproof so no one outside can hear inside. That also means that anyone inside can't hear outside. A month of no news! Oh well..it's not like I read the paper in the first place...All three of us(Naima, Hayden, and I) are all staying in the same room.


"Wow! Isn't this place AMAZING!" Naima sort of exaggerated the fact that it's AMAZING.


"Yep.." Hayden mumbled something after saying this, but I couldn't hear her.


We all walked down the hall to meet the woman who was the owner of all the Diamond Lanes. We walked in the find a conference table and a woman sitting at the end. She turned around. Her eyes were cold and her skin was a bit pale. Other than those two flaws though, she looked flawless.


"Welcome." She smiled. Her voice sent chills up my spine. We all replied some sort of hello and she continued,"I am the owner of Diamond Lane. I am going to be your trainer." She looked me straight in the eye while saying all of this. From the first moment I walked in the door her eyes had been on me. She got up off her chair and walked over to me.


"You...must be Kathrin."


"Yea.." I replied. She smiled at me. She walked over to the other two.


"And you two must be...Nima and Hidan." Naima and Hayden looked at each other.


"Actually it's Naima."


"And mine is Hayden."


"Oh well, it's nice to meet you girls." She started out the doors of the conference room,"Come along. We have much work to do." She scurried out as we followed her.


We ended up in a room that was dark. She pushed in a number into a keypad and the lights went on. Not automatically, but one by one. We walked down the hallway. At the very end, there was another door. She turned to us.


"Anything you are to see in this room, in this very building, is to be kept a secret. Every single thing." She looked at us sternly.


"We promise." I guess Hayden felt the need to answer back. Me and Naima nodded as if approving this. The woman looked at us for a moment. Then it looked as if she remembered something.


"Oh, so sorry, I forgot to tell you my name!" I guess I didn't notice it, but she had no name tag on like everyone else here,"My name is Cheryl. Sorry, I must have forgotten in all the excitement." She turned back around to the door. She punched in some more numbers into the keypad. The door opened and we all went in. Behind us the door sealed tightly shut. It was as if she wanted no one else getting in.


As soon as we walked in the door, the one thing we all noticed first was the diamonds. A giant, no HUGE, stack of diamonds sitting in the middle. There had to have been more than a million. Each all sparkling as the light hit up against them.


"Wow." That was all I could manage. But, Naima and Hayden looked amazed, too. I guess they just couldn't say anything.


"Welcome...to the Diamond Hall. Yes, I realize it's not a hallway but a room. This is where each one of you will get personally trained one at a time. Any volunteers to go first?" She looked straight at me. Naima and Hayden were wondering around the room. They were looking at the ceiling trying to figure out if it was diamond, too. Apparently, Cheryl was a mind reader,"Yes. The ceiling is made of diamonds." They both looked back at her. They're eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of their head. I sighed deeply.


"I'll volunteer to go first I guess..." She smiled at me.


"Lovely. Nima and Hidan...let Joe escort you out." They looked confused, as did I. Then, a large man came from the back room with a tiny nametag that said,"JOE." He was huge. He was almost as big as the stack of diamonds. I looked over at Cheryl. Her face looked like it was getting older by the minute...


"Joe, please escort these ladies to the restraunt floor, please." He nodded.


"I really shouldn't...but food does sound good right now..." You see, Hayden is on a diet. She has specific times when she eats. Plus, her number one rule is to NEVER eat from restraunts until after May. It was February.


"Hayden. Just go eat." She looked at me. Cheryl looked at me and smiled. This morning she looked in her twenties. Now she looked like she was in her thirties.


"Fine." Hayden, Naima, and Joe all walked out of the door as it tightly sealed behind them. Cheryl turned her face to me.


"Will you excuse me for one second? I need to get something." I sighed.


"Yea..." She smiled and walked behind the pile of diamonds, but from then I didn't see where she went. A few minutes later she came back, looking as if she were twenty,"Welcome back. That old reducing cream works really well doesn't it?" She looked worried for a moment.


"Yes." She said it quickly. She looked nervous. Soon, she relaxed,"Let's begin."






* * * * *


Hello. I am now dangling over a cliff. There are diamonds at the bottom and I don't feel I need to know how sharp they are. Now you're probably wondering how this happened..when Cheryl said,"Let's begin." She must have actually meant,"I'm going to push you over a cliff now." Of course she pushed me over as soon as I asked her about this rumor I heard of diamonds making you look younger. Apparently, she didn't take it as a joke.


"Yes it's true." I looked at her. She was crouching down looking down at me.


"What's true?" Now, you may be wondering why I'm asking questions at a time like this. Your answer is, I don't know.


"Diamonds make you look younger." She got up and went over to the pile and grabbed a diamond. I noticed she looked in her forties. She put the diamond to her face and sliced it across her cheek. I stared in amazement. The cut healed and her face brightened. She looked back in her twenties.


"How old are you?" She started laughing and there was a smirk on her face.


"It's not polite to ask a ladies age." She still had that smirk on her face.


"I'm not trying to be polite! How old are you?!" Her face went serious.


"194 years old." I looked at this woman. Her face was the face of a twenty year old...not a 194 year old. There was no way she could still be alive. It's impossible...or was it?


That's when i remembered something. No one looked over the age of thirty at any of the Diamond Lanes. Even though Joe was huge, he still looked young. That smile on the womans' face at the desk where I applied...it was fake. Then, I noticed wrinkles..those kind of wrinkles you find on fifty year olds.


"You pay them...with diamonds."


"You're a smart girl, Kathrin." She smirked,"Too bad you'll never get to use that brain of yours." She stepped on my fingers, the last thing that was stopping me from falling. Then, I was falling.


One thing about long falls...you always have time to think. I remembered when Cheryl took the diamond over her face and cut it. It automatically healed. If the diamonds cut me, it would heal quickly. I started laughing.


Everything stopped. I stopped falling, but I could still move. It was like I was walking on air, which I practically was. I saw Cheryl coming down a flight of stairs down to me. She stopped in front of me.


"Why are you laughing?" I looked up at her and smiled.


"Didn't have this very thought through did you?" She looked at me.


"What are you talking ab-" I tripped her and time started moving again. I ran up the flight of stairs just as Cheryl began falling.





* * * * *


"Hey Naima." I waved to her in the school hallway.


"Oh hey, Kathrin!" She walked toward me.



"Pretty odd summer, huh?" I smiled.


"Yep." She smiled.


"Ok. Ready to go?"


"Yep." We walked out the front doors of the school and into my private jet. Nah, just kidding. We walked to my car and we went to Target. I looked at the sign out the side window. It read,"Diamond Lane. Make your skin look younger!" Hah! Diamonds making your skin younger...how dumb is that?