This book is part of a serie call The Nightmare room there are two other books that complete the saga, I would recommend this book only if you like fiction and adventure somewhat.
Have you ever had a friend just because your mother and her mother are friends? But you dont like that friend at all. Have you ever had a person that is always competing with you ?
This book is about a girl April ,who is force to be friends with Pam. Pam and April are very competitive with each other, Pam is the popular girl of the school and april just goes there. April is jealous of how popular Pam is so she decides to prank her. During lunch April and one of her friends trick Pam into thinking that April has real magical power and can control a person. At the end of the school day April and her friend went to April's house when they get there April checks the mail and finds a letter with her name, it was strange because she almost never got a letter. In this letter she is invited to compete against eleven other kids for ten thousand dollars. She call Pam to ask if she had received a letter too, but she said no. I remember this one time when one of my friends also did a prank to some other friends and all of them where really scared, it was funny in the end.
The story takes a twist from April's and Pam's rivality to a small story of a girl named Deborah. According to the people living in the town she is a witch. All the people in the town consider her as a curse because she was born with a birthmark on her face shaped like a moon, also becuase when she was born a lot of weird and bad things happen a cow with two heads was born, a man of the counsil pulled two live mice from his ears and has been deaf ever since, their crops where destroy by grasshoppers, something that had never happpen before. Children would chase because they thought she was weird becuase she wanted to learn too, only boys were allow to learned back then. She would be chased and the kids would throw rocks at her, and call her names. We can see that the humans have always been prejudice and scared of what they think is different.
One day when she is being chase she turns and tells the kids that she will cast a spell that will make them turn into chickens, and scared they stop chasing her. The next day the mother of one of the kids ask to the counsil to hang her becasue of what she has done, turning her only son into a chicken. Then to make things worst theres a huge fire the consumes most of the town, she goes to the town and she is being watch, the man of the council grab her and trial her at that moment, becuse she is to young, they will not kill her, but she will be exile to a near by island where she will have to live alone without anyone else, just her and she must leave the island right away and never come back.
The story goes back to April, she is on a boat to the island where the competions for the $100,000 dollars will take place. When she arrives she is so excited, when she arrives sees that most of the kids have more skills than her and she starts to question herself , if the letter was really for her or they made a mistake. When all the kids are in the island, they have a meeting, they have a list of the kids, her name is not on the list, and when she was about to go back to her house, a girl started to bleed from her ears and April took her place for the competition. Weird things start to happen people are getting sick and are going back home, Her team over comes most of the obstacles and they become one of the finalist to compete for the $100, 000 dollars. They were all very happy and tired because of all the challenges , so they go to sleep. In the morning when they wake up they can see the last three boats taking off without them. April and her friends think that is part of the new challege but soon will learn that they have being left there to their luck.
