Mollie + Chester

Chapter Seven

Chester sat on Mollie's lap, watching as his owner seemingly fell asleep while the boring old lady talked.
"And then, you simplify and it's done," she looked up from her page, clicking her fingers in front of Mollie's face. "Are you listening?"
Mollie nodded, fiddling with Seth's silver locket around her neck. "Uh, huh."
The old lady narrowed her eyes through her thin gold rimmed glasses. "Then solve this problem." She wrote another maths problem onto the page and Mollie stared at it blankly.
"When am I ever, in real life going to need to add fractions? It's not like I'm going to say; I have one half of a cake and another third and then add how much that is. I'm going to say I have two pieces of cake!"
The old lady sighed. "Mollie, you need to learn this because it's what kids do, they go to school and learn things and their minds grow..."~
"What's the point?"~
"Well..." The teacher looked as if she were thinking of an answer to this question. "Let's just do some English work. Did you write that story I asked you to write for homework?"~
Mollie leaned on the table, head in her palms, and sighed.~
"Okay then, I will take that as a no."~
"What's the point?" Mollie whispered so quietly Chester barely heard her. He jumped up on the table, on top of the scribbled on sheets of math paper and rubbed his nose against his owner's arm. He could see tears welling up in her eyes.~
"What's the point of anything?"~
The old lady looked as if she didn't know what to do.
"Everyone keeps telling me that I'm a kid, I should do kid things, but why? Honestly, calling me a kid is like calling a cat a pig. The kids all around here get to play outside and do whatever they want! But mostly, they don't know."~
"Don't know what?" The lady asked.
"They don't know that people die all the time. They get to be happy and... And..." Mollie looked up, searching for the right word.~
"Oblivious?" The teacher supplied.~
"Yeah, like they don't know the bad things, only the good things. But I know the bad things and I don't want to know them anymore."~
"Mollie, you don't have to be oblivious to be happy, look at everyone around you, look at your parents and your brother and..."~
"Nobody here is happy. I haven't seen Dad smile for five years, Mum always cries and Seth has a fake smile all the time that is so big and fake happy. We are not happy. It's not fair."~
"No, it's not fair. Bad things happen to good people but these things make us stronger, Mollie. They make us appreciate the good moments in life and we learn how to overcome the bad moments."
"Except for us, there are no good moments." Mollie moved her arms she was hunched over on the table, her short hair fanning out and covering her face.~
"Mollie, look at me. There are plenty of good moments. You got Chester," Chester looked around, hearing his name. "That was a good moment, and what about when you and your brother were laughing at cartoons when I came, that was a good moment."~
Mollie didn't say anything.~
"I think that's enough work for today, just write that story for me for next time and I'll find something relevant to do in math." The lady packed up the strewn pieces of paper, shuffling them into a pile and forcing them into a bulging folder.~
"Mrs Downer?" Mollie said as the lady was leaving. She stopped in the doorway and looked at the little girl. "Thank-you."~
Mrs Downer smiled. "I'll see you on Thursday, Mollie."~
Chester meowed, still sitting on the table and Mollie laughed. "You'd better get off the table before Mum sees," she said to him.~
He meowed again and she folded him into a hug, burying her face in his soft orange fur.~

Seth was at his course so I snuck into his room and turned on the laptop, tapping my fingertips on the desk as I waited forever for it to start up. Chester had curled up into a little ball on my lap, purring softly and occasionally kicking his leg as if he~were having a dream. I signed into my account and saw Toby was online as well. He talked first.
Toby: hi
Me: hi
Toby: what are you doing?
Me: nothing...
Toby: you have to be doing something, it just said 'Mollie is typing...' So you were just typing.
Me: but now I'm watching for you to respond.
Toby: so you are doing something.
Me: okay, yes.
Toby: yes.
Me: what are you doing then?
Toby: sitting out on the lawn, watching my duck Pip. Do you want to see her?
The webcam request came up on the screen and I pressed yes. Seth's camera on the top of the laptop screen turned on and my face appeared in a little box at the bottom. Toby waved from his little box on the top and turned his laptop around so the camera wasn't facing him. I saw the yellow grass with the green roots growing and a little white duck waddled past.
Toby: That's Pip
The duck quacked and Chester looked up, having heard the noise. He meowed and jumped up onto Seth's laptop keyboard, pressing on some keys and accidentally sending a message to Toby.
Me: That's Chester.
"Mollie, where are you?" Mum called from downstairs.
"In Seth's room!" I heard Mum coming up the stairs, her footsteps banging on the hollow wood. She came in and stood behind me, her hands hovering above my shoulders because she was too scared to touch me. It was like that all the time, ever since I was five and I woke up in hospital being told I had cancer. All I had needed was a hug from Mum. She hadn't even been able to take my hand.
"Who are you talking too?" That was the other thing about Mum. She hardly did anything other than organise perfect tea parties, clean the house to perfection and look after me. The weird thing is she always seemed too busy doing things to actually talk to me. Today was a rarity.
"Toby," I answered pointing to the screen. "That's his duck Pip."
"Who's Toby again?" She turned Seth's wheelie chair slowly and carefully around so I faced her and she sat on the bed.
"I met him yesterday, at the hospital."~
Toby had turned the laptop so it faced him again, this time the duck Pip was sitting next to him, nipping at his shirt.
Me: Toby wave to Mum.
Mum ducked out of the way of the webcam, sitting down on Seth's bottom bunk bed and Toby waved, smiling with all his teeth. Because the webcam wasn't very high quality you could barely see his robot head gear that sat amongst his floppy brown hair. I wondered if I looked normal to Toby and anyone that walked past at his house.
"Well, dinner is cooking and I had nothing to do so I thought I'd come and talk to you." Mum twisted her fingers around as if she were nervous to talk to me. I was thankful Toby couldn't hear this awkward conversation.
"Okay."
"So, how was tutoring?" She raised an eyebrow when I wouldn't look her in the eye.
"Alright, we did fractions..."
"What?" Though, we talked to each other as if we were strangers, she knew exactly what I was thinking based on my facial expressions. Mostly, she knew when I was hiding something.
"Nothing, fractions are annoying and why do I even have to learn them?" I would love to go back to school with Alyssa but Mum hated that idea. She needed to be able to protect me at all times. But, maybe since she was actually trying to listen...
"Mum maybe I can..."
A beeping noise went off downstairs and Mum quickly got off Seth's bed, jumping as if she was on fire. "The pasta is ready!"
And she was gone.
I swung the chair back around to face Toby and saw he was still on the webcam, scratching his duck on the head who was still trying to eat his shirt.
Me: your duck is trying to eat you.
Toby stuck out his tongue and pushed Pip away.
Toby: well, your cat is... your cat is cool, I have no insults.
This time I poked my tongue out at him
Toby: where are you?
Me: in my house...
Toby: no, which room. Is that your bedroom? Because don't girls have pink walls and fairy posters?
Me: no! My room is not even pink
Toby: what colour is it then?
Me: purple.
Toby: with flowers on the blankets?
Me: maybe.
Toby: so you aren't in your room?
Me: no, it's my brother Seth's. I'm stealing his laptop while he is a university.
Toby: whoa, he's old. My oldest sister is sixteen
Me: Seth's only eighteen!
Toby: but he is finished school
Me: he finished last year. He just started uni now.
Toby: what is he doing?
Me: some science thingy. He's going to be a doctor
Toby: cool
Me: cool
Toby: how did your check-up go anyway?
If we weren't using the webcam I could have lied and said it was great but Toby could see my face. I didn't even have to say anything, he knew already.
Toby: just have hope.
Me: that's stupid. How can one little feeling make everything better?
Toby: it just does. It makes you have fun and then you don't think about the bad things.
Me: but the bad things are always going to be there.
Toby: just because something is there, doesn't mean you have to think about it. You don't think about the dust flying about in the air, it's always there and you always breathe it in but nobody ever cares about it.
Me: but that's different.
Toby: not really.