Finding Her Voice

Chapter 4 New Style

I woke up in the morning, not to my alarm clock but by pudgy, little fingers. Those pudgy little fingers had a needle in their hands. Who was the owner of the pudgy, little hands?

Angus. Always Angus.

on the other side of my bed, but all I could think of right now was that I'm not going to school and I'm too tired to think! But sadly I can't skip. I don't skip. It goes on your permanent record and blah blah blah. The bottom line is if I did that, I would be in a whole lot of trouble. And plus that just isn't who I am. I don't skip. Never have and hopefully never will. And then I realized my brother having a needle in his hand wasn't normal and the fact that he had an evil smirk on his face should worry me. I looked to my right where my alarm clock was so I could shut it off since Angus woke me up already. I wouldn't need it to ring loudly and be annoying for no reason. But the thing had read at three O'clock in the morning! "Um," I stuttered, trying to find words and handle this as an adult would. "Angus, I need my sleep and so do you. So is there a reason as to why you would wake me up at three bloody o'clock in the morning?" In the last six words I just spoke, I sorta lost my cool and yelled a bit. Uh-oh. I hope I didn't wake anyone.

My dad and mom came in so, I guess I didn't do a good job on the whole 'trying to keep calm', thing. "Keep it down! It's three o'clock. Inside voices." Dad said.

"Yeah not everybody's up yet and why are you guys up? You should be sleeping like everyone else in this house is trying to." Mom had said in her motherly voice.

"Yeah, what your mother said." Dad agreed with my mom while rubbing his eyes. Clearly just pretending to care. They were both still sleepy and both still didn't see my room yet. My mom finally looked at her surroundings and screamed. Then my dad wondered why she was screaming. He looked at her in question. She had her hands cupped around her mouth, too shocked to say anything. She removed one hand from her mouth and pointed to my room. He finally looked around to see what she was pointing at and when he looked at my room and newly colored walls, he had yelled at me. "Lila, what has gotten into you? First, your hair and now your walls?" So much for being quiet.

That got my older brother's attention and I could hear him getting up, along with Carter. "What did Angus do now?" My brother asked, groaning.

"We're kind of trying to get our beauty sleep here. We have school, you know." Carter added, coming into my room while rubbing his eyes with his palms.

If you're wondering why he acts like he is a part of this family, it's most likely because he basically is a part of this family. He spends a lot of time at our house. It's like his second home. I hate that Kevin has such low expectations when it comes to friends. His best friend is literally the devil. Very sad how I have to put up with seeing him more than just in school. Why can't Kevin just have school friends like a normal person? I mean, if he gets lonely he can always get a dog or something. But, I guess I shouldn't complain. I don't really have the best luck when it comes to friends either. But, at least I don't prolong the torture and make my family suffer by inviting them into my home twenty-four-seven. They are only school friends, I had made sure of that.

"Why does everyone always assume dad's yelling is because of me?" Angus asked, annoyed at such accusations.

"Because it's either you or Lila and Lila doesn't get into trouble usually," Carter spoke in a low, groggy voice. He's in for a treat. All he has to do is step into my room. He's like a zombie in the morning. Needless to say, Carter is not a morning person. Neither am I, but I guess Angus is since he woke me up at an unreasonably early hour in the morning on a school day. Sometimes I wish I was born an only child or maybe Angus could be sent off to boarding school and Kevin to college. That way, I would be an only child. But no such luck because here we all are in my room.