Chapter One; Part Two

 “Beep! Beep! BEEP! BEEP!” My alarm clock got louder and louder as I neglected to turn it off.  Finally, I reached up and hit the snooze. For the fourth time. I looked up at my clock. 5:25. Crap. I’m supposed to get up at 5. I have 5 minutes before Chris takes over the bathroom. I shake myself awake; grab a bra, underwear, my favorite pair of jeans, and a cute shirt. Then, I run to the bathroom like a maniac. The bathroom is across the hall, which is about, 20 feet long. 5:27. I forgot to mention, we only have 2 bathrooms with a shower, and the downstairs one is Mom and Richards’.

I turn on the shower and strip. 5:28. Crap, the water’s still cold. Oh, well. I hop in the shower. I put my shampoo and conditioner together to make it go quicker. I hate doing that. The clock is still visible from inside the shower. It’s 5:30. I rinse out my hair, and skip shaving, even though I kinda need to. 5:32, Chris’s a little late. I slab on some zit medicine, and get out of the shower. “Knock! Knock! Knock!” Just in time.

     

“Just a minute, let me dry off!” I shout.

            “NO! Do it in the other bathroom!” Chris argued.

            “Give me 2 minutes. Please?”

            “Fine, but hurry up!” he said, giving in.

              When I got out of the bathroom, my hair was wrapped up in my towel, and I was dressed.

             “Morning! Sorry I took so long. I over slept.”

             “Figures,” Chris mumbled, and I stuck my tongue at him.

When I got in the other bathroom, I took my towel off my head. I put on cover up, even though I don’t have any zits, I like to be safe. Then I carefully applied mascara, blush, and eye-shadow, which set off my green eyes. I brush and blow-dry my long, reddish coppery hair. It falls right below my waist. It’s 5:47. I still have a while before I have to go downstairs and eat. I decide to curl my hair. I turn on the curling iron. While I wait for the iron to heat, I carefully apply my candy apple lip gloss. The curling iron beeped, and I curled my hair for about ten, fifteen minutes. Oh yeah. I look good.

            Downstairs, I can smell eggs and bacon sizzling. Yuck, I hate eggs. At least there’s bacon!

            “Good morning, mom!” I say cheerfully as I give her a big hug, and kiss her on the cheek. “That looks good.”

            “Well, good morning, hon! How did you sleep?”

            “Pretty good. How ‘bout you?”

            “Good. Do you want some bacon?” she asked.

            “Sure! Do we have any strawberries?” I ask, opening the fridge.

            “Look in the back.” I looked over the grapes, the apples, last week’s soup (which I wasn’t positive was really soup), and found the strawberries. “Could you grab the milk?” The milk was right in front. I grabbed onto the handle, and almost dropped it, but I slid the strawberries across the island and dove for the milk. At the last second, I caught it. “Thanks.” Luckily, Mom didn’t see my little mishap… I grabbed two colorful, glass glasses out of the washing machine, and poured each of us a glass of milk. I popped a strawberry into my mouth.

            “You look cute today!” Mom complimented. I looked down at my outfit. I had on my destroyed skinny jeans with a pink t-shirt that had AEROPOSTALE splashed across the chest.

            “Thanks.” I looked at my feet. Oops, I forgot to get a pair of socks. My mom dished me up a plate of bacon, and I scarfed it down.

            “I gotta go get some socks,” I told my mom.

            “Mmm-kay.” She was already absorbed in the newspaper.

Chapter One; Part One

I looked up from my fluffy pink pillow that I got for Christmas last year. Yuck! I looked at my picture board, and saw about thirty pictures of me, my family, and my friends. Right under that, my antique dresser sat. It was overflowing with shirts. I’ll have to pick that up…

       

How could Richard do this?  My brother, Chris, is moving out, because of him. He is 26, and lives with us (Richard-my stepfather, my mom, and me) while taking college classes, so he doesn’t have to pay any rent. Richard is constantly getting mad at us. You want examples? OK. He hates our 4 month old Golden Retriever, Mattie, and whenever she barks, he threatens to sell her, or even put her to sleep, if we don’t train her. Once, when Chris, mom and I went to dinner, and we were a half-hour late, because it took a little longer to eat then we first thought, and we got stuck in traffic on the way home, and he blew up! He does not know the meaning of “calm down”. I even got grounded for a week for “sassing off”, when I was trying to explain what happened. Then I told him he’s not my dad, so you’re not in charge of me, and another 2 weeks were added on. At least I had no place to go. Now, Chris and I were a little to busy with homework to help him run to the grocery store where he said he had to buy, “a hundred things”.  Then he actually had the nerve to tell us that he was tired of our attitudes, and said that with one phone call, he could send me off to boot camp, and convince Rachel, my mom, to kick Chris out. I was sent up to my room to do my homework, and Chris took a walk, leaving his homework on the kitchen table.

To take my mind off things, I tried to read my history book. It didn’t work. If only I were 18 instead of 16, I could move out of this dump. OK, I shouldn’t call it a dump, it’s the nicest place I’ve ever lived in, witch isn’t saying much, considering the other places we’ve lived. But it’s like, 200 times better than before. We always used to live in a two bedroom apartment, a half-house, or a town-house. We were pretty poor, but managing. Well, if you call living on Raumen Noodles paid by my mom’s half-time job at Burger King and Child Support managing. 3 years ago, Mom secretly started dating Richard, saying she was going on job interviews or going out with her friends. The next year, she introduced Chris and me to him, and told us that they were engaged. When he went home, we asked her why she didn’t tell us about him earlier. She said that she didn’t want us to get attached to him in case it ended badly. But when we asked why she still didn’t tell us when things got pretty serious, she just said to drop it. She obviously still hadn’t been sure if things would workout, or there was something about him that made her not want us to be around him.  When they got married, we all moved into his 3 story house with a bathroom for each of us, separate rooms for everyone (except Richard and Mom, of course), and a bedroom to spare. Did I mention that Richard owns his own mall, and rents out spaces for stores? So, he’s practically a millionaire. OK, he is a millionaire.

Yeah, the house is small for somebody that rich, but we have a beach house the same size in Florida, and one that is a little bigger than our home out in California. We live in rural New York; we just have a really big house, and a lot of property.  

 “Kendra! Phone!” my mother shouted over the T.V. blasting downstairs, Richard watching some stupid cop show.

 “Who is it?” I questioned.

 “Mallory.” At that I ran downstairs, eager to talk to someone who understands me, besides Chris. Mal is one of my best friends.

 “Hey Mal! What’s up?”

 “Hi Kendy. Oh, nothin’ much, I just finished my homework, and I was bored, so I called you. How ‘bout you?” Mal said in her stuffy voice, the result of many allergies.

 “Other than Richard blowing up at Chris and me for no good reason, like usual, not much.” I said loud enough for Richard to hear.

 “Wow. What happened?”

 “Chris and I both have tons of homework and he wanted us to go to the grocery store and help him out. We told him we were busy, and he threatened to send me to boot camp and kick Chris out! I’m surprised that he hasn’t figured out that Chris has been looking for a place to rent ever since he got here.” I filled Mal in on all the details about Richard’s fit, while she wowed and mmhhmmed at all the right times.

Mallory Bedford is a tall, skinny blue eyed girl with blond hair that falls down in long locks. She doesn’t fit the stereotype at all. She has had a 4.0 grade average since the third grade, is a walking dictionary, and can recite the whole Declaration of Independence! If that’s not smart, I don’t know what smart is. I had to hang up on Mal early to finish my homework. As Mal is pulling off straight As, I have all Bs. Scratch that. I have one A in science. I’m not jealous, I’m just saying.