Beetle

Chapter 3

I throw my alarm clock against the wall. Waking up at 7:00am is bullshit. I debate whether or not the social currency is worth it compared to the torture I'm going to be subjected to by Kaylee. I don't reach a conclusion, before I hear my dad telling me that I, "better be up!"

"You heard the man." I scream and roll onto the floor when I see my smiling idiot of a baby brother in my bed, with me. "Are you deranged?" Ben thinks about it before answering, "if I was what would that make you?"
"Wow! Such a good comeback", I say with sarcasm lacing my every word. Ben flips me off which gives me the perfect opportunity to pull him off my bed. "ow!" He has the nerve to say, even though he landed on top of me; gotta say, wasn't my most smartest movement.

"Stop being a creep and get out of my room!" He slowly gets himself off of me and walks out of my room but not before saying, "you better not make me late!"

I hop back in bed to make my bed which makes about as much sense as closing my eyes to make my bed. I close them, only for a second and but I end up only opening them when my dad says, "I'll be in the car." I glance at my alarm clock that surprisingly isn't broken. Than again, that thing has survived way more abuse that a light throw to the wall.

It's now 7:26 am Kaylee is going to kill me. I grab my cheer uniform off my desk chair, praising last night Red for having the sense to leave it out.
I rush to the bathroom to pee and change. I don't have time to brush my teeth so I pop out my retainer and drink some mouthwash. I grab my cheer bag and my school bag not bothering to check either because I don't have the time or I don't really care if I have what I need. My hair isn't done and I'm pretty sure I'm missing one of my cheer shoes but now I've officially made my dad late and myself late for practice.

My bother taps his wrist which is dumb because he doesn't wear a watch. My dad doesn't say a word for about ten seconds which makes me look out the window, dreading the lecture he's going to give me. Surprisingly, he only says, "if you make me late again, I'm not driving you to practice anymore." I nod and he drops it because he got his point across, there isn't anything else to say.

I do my hair in the car and my dad sighs when I spy hairspray in my hair. My brother on the other hand, coughs and chokes a little like the little overdramatic diva he is. I don't blame him- my dad, because the smell fills the car.

I bail, practically before the car stops moving but I still hear my dad tell me he "loves me" and I make sure to say it back. My bother also says it, it's mumbled and it sounds like he's only saying it because there's a gun to his head but he still says it. Actually, the look our dad is no doubt giving him, probably isn't too off from a gun to the head. I say the three words back to my bother with equal hostility, and resentment.

I manage to only be four minutes late; no I will not round up to five because that sounds worse. Kaylee has just started doing a warmup and I quickly put my bag down, my shoes on while trying to walk over. Within another minute I'm doing the warmup; maybe I was five minutes late.

"Let's work on some tumbling passes!" I sigh, I'm a crappy tumbler and Kaylee, just like everyone on the team, knows it. I take a spot in the back of the line and watch as my teammates throw back handspring, after back handspring. I even cheer when Sophie, a freshman throws a double back handspring back-tuck. When I go, I run into a round-off, double back-walk-over. I'm not the least bit surprised when I don't get any cheers from my teammates. On the way back I try an aerial but I touch down and I even throw a cartwheel into the mix because I was running out of passes I could do.