Our Summer of Direction

Chapter Four

“Katie Elizabeth. Wake up and clean up this pigsty of a room!” My mother demands at 8:30 in the morning.

“Mother, I didn’t even know this time existed in summer.” I groan trying to put a pillow over my head. My mum takes my pillow and whaps me over the head with it.

“Get up now. I won’t tell you again.” She says in her threatening ‘mum voice’. I realize she isn’t playing games and I jump out of bed careful not to wake up Emilea.

“Thank you.” My mother says coming in 5 minutes later.

“I will have breakfast finished at 9, so make sure you have Emilea awake.” She says leaving my room. I glance around and realize pigsty really isn’t that far off of a word to describe my room. I go ‘round collecting laundry from every known corner of my room, and I throw it down my laundry chute in the bathroom. At 9 when Emilea and I go downstairs my room is actually tidy.

“I will have your laundry finished by the time you are ready to pack tonight.” My mum says sliding two plates of eggs and bacon towards us. We dig in, as we do with all of my Mum’s cooking.

“Mum we are going to Asda today; do you need me to pick anything up?” I ask when we put our plates and silverware in the dishwasher.

“Well, I don’t think so, but I will call you if I end up thinking of anything.” She says tossing me my car keys.

“KK!” I yell running to the garage. The drive to Asda is very short. The search for a parking spot was not.

“Finally! I never thought we would make it in!” Emilea moans as I grab a wagon.  I laugh and we head to the craft section first. We get two sign boards, two white t-shirts, a pack of 5 sharpie colors, printing press letters, and puff paint. Once that is securely in our shopping wagon we head to the food isle to stock up on snacks. We grab a few Aero Milk Chocolate Bars, a 6 pack of Barratt Dip Dabs, Barratt Sherbert Fountains, 2 boxes of Bassets Jelly Babies, Cadbury Buttons, Cadbury Curly Wurlys, Cadbury Dream Bars, a Chewits Strawberry Pack, 2 big bags of Haribo Gummy Bears, JG Cola Fizzy Balls, a few American Skittles, and a package of JH Chocolate Coins for Gavin. Emilea also grabs a few bags of chips.

“Dude, our wagon is 90% candy…you’re splitting this bill with me.” I say stepping in line for a register.

“That’s fine. Yummy! I cannot wait to sink my teeth into a Curly Wurly!” Emilea grins pulling out her wallet. “That will be 59 pounds and 84 pence.” The cashier says. I do a quick calculation in my head.

“That’s 29.92 apiece.” I say handing her my half. Emilea also coughs up the cash and we leave the store. When we get home we unload quickly and Emilea hides our candy stash upstairs. I grab the chocolate coins and run into Gavin’s room.

“If mum finds these, I didn’t give them to you.” I say handing them to him and kissing his head. He grins and shoves them under his pillow. When I get back to my bedroom Emilea has all of our poster and t-shirts making things laid out. We work on the concert things for 3 hours. The end product is with both of us having shirts mine says I <3 my boys on the front and Mrs. Styles on the back. Emilea’s says I <3 my boys on the front and Mrs. Horan on the back. Our sign have Emilea with Niall! You’ve got that One Thing! Mine says what makes Harry beautiful? EVERYTHING!!! We pop in a film and lay around being lazy until 6 when my mum calls us downstairs for supper. For once in our lives we casually walk downstairs and sit down like civilized human beings.

“What’s for supper?” I ask.

“Homemade shepherd’s pie.” My mother says with a smile.Emilea and I eat slowly savoring every bite. When we finally go back upstairs after dishes we watch Zombieland until we fall asleep dreaming of our trip.