Four Seasons

Chapter 1- Summer

"Camellia Bluebell Spring, come here right now, or you are going to be late for school!"

There was an immediate response coming from a direction that Summer was definitely not expecting.

"Actually, I am done already, I was just waiting for you. And did you have to say my name like that? Not cool, Summer Lily, and my name is not Bluebell."

It could have been if she hadn't intervened, Summer thought to herself. Their mom had a thing for seasons. She had been so overjoyed to have four girls, her very own four seasons.

Camellia really needed to be thankful that Summer had been old enough to object to her baby sister being called Spring Bluebell, instead of the compromise that was Camellia Spring.

But even then, people had still called her Bluebell for most if her life.

Summer's eyes widened in surprise when she stepped into the kitchen, she had not expected to find Camellia already downstairs, let alone done with all her preparations. Raising the girls on her own was hard, and one of the most difficult things was getting Camellia and Autumn out of the house each morning.

And now with Autumn in college, she only had to deal with Camellia. From Autumn, all she expected was good grades and no carryovers.

That wasn't to say she didn't have problems with Autumn because now they fought more about what the acceptable time for coming back home was.

But that was a fight for another day, right now, she barely had enough energy to deal with Camellia. She preferred messing up as a guardian one sister at a time, that way, she could at least tell herself that she had tried.

"What do you want?" she asked with suspicion.

She walked sideways towards the gas stove to make herself a cup of tea, not trusting that her little sister wasn't up to something. Miracles like these only ever happened when Camellia wanted something and she dreading to find out what it was.

Summer honestly did not have time for this right now, she was starting a new job today and she had to be focused, she did not want to be late for work on her first day. It was a miracle that she had been given the opportunity to work a local job, and she did not want to mess that up.

She could not afford to lose another project, the company might just drop her this time.

"Who says I want anything?"

"Camellia, stop playing games with me, I need to get to work soon. We cannot afford for me to lose this project, if I do, this will be the third strike. I told you what that means," she said moving around the kitchen, putting things away as she went.

For the longest time she worked only from home and it allowed her to do things at her own pace, but she now had a local job where she had to leave the house and that meant she had to clean as she went along. One of the downsides to this whole local job thing.

"I know, but we have 25 more minutes before the bus comes for me, and before you get your kombi to go to work, that means we have at least 15minutes left in this house," Camilla argued.

"Like I asked, what do you want?" Summer asked getting tired of the conversation already.

All Camilla was doing her was reminding her of the long track that was ahead of her. She lived in Strathaven and to get to the new job she had to get into town first, so needed two kombis to and from work. That was about $8 - $12 daily.