Setting: February, 1910, Great Britain.

                            Chapter 1:  Books

Effie Burns loved books. The lovely, warm feeling of your finger grazing over a crumpled parchment, the smell of fresh, empty pages, and above all, the places you could travel to. Effie could launch into endless worlds of possibility and splash through the shimmering, clear water of a deserted island. But that wasn't all. Creating these novels was just as fun. Pondering paragraphs and crafting characters. That was how she met most of her friends. Adventurous Alice and astonishing Anne were much better than any real friend ever would be. They were always bright and hopeful, never hurting anyone. It was as if someone had placed a rainbow over their heads.

Of course, Effie did indeed have "real friends" but she detested them horribly. Verity and George just did not match up to the characters in her books. She always dreamed they would be daring like Captain Crusoe, or any other valuable trait. But they were impatient and rather impractical, unfortunately. And so, Effie does not refer to them as friends but strangers who she has no interest in whatsoever. But enough about this, the story will never progress if I don't get to the point. You see, it all started with a book.

Effie adored the book her grandma had given her for Christmas. It was old and worn, like any good book should be, and whenever the pages turned, you could hear a loud crinkle that made Effie sigh with satisfaction. There was nothing in the world that mattered more to Effie than that book, and she had promised herself that it would stay with her forever. But the book, buried beneath a mountain of blouses that Effie had forgotten to wash, had other plans. 

Not all books like to be read, you see.