Little Red Riding Hood

The sunlight flickered through the blinds on my bedroom window, blurring my hazy, sleep-ridden vision further as I tried to wake myself up. Shooting a glance at my phone, I saw that it was 10am. Fantastic. Nothing was better than having a long, uninterrupted sleep after the harsh early mornings that came hand-in-hand with the trivial school life. Weekends; you have to love them.

Rubbing my eyes, I slowly stood up and got out of bed, thankful for the carpet in my room that protected my feet from the potential cold of wooden floors on your average November morning. This time of year, there was usually snow on the streets and the leaves on the few trees planted around Brooklyn, New York would litter the concrete and go mushy underfoot. This time of year, I would usually wake to Mom cooking pancakes on the stove, and the smell would waft around the apartment, tempting us out of the warmth of our dreams into the real world.

Of course, today there was to be no warm welcome from the pancakes.

There hadn't been such a warm welcome to the day since Mom found herself in the hospital last week, and so Dad was staying with us in the apartment. I don't know why he even bothered to help after Mom got sick. He walked out on me and Mom when I was barely out of my crib, and he hadn't shown his face around the apartment since then. He should know how unwelcome he is around here, I thought to myself, and it was true. I don't know what planet he had just come back from, but if he thought he would be welcomed back into our lives with open arms, rainbows and fairy tale music then he thought wrong.

Tying my hair back into a wildly crimson ponytail, I grabbed the nearest hoodie I could and sleepily slouched my way into the dining room to start working on breakfast. I was proud of my hair. Red as tomato soup, and with black streaks running through it, it cascaded straight down to my shoulders, and really annoyed my dad. Mom called it artistic, and agreed.

Dad sat at the table, his usual black coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other hand. He was your typical New York guy: thinning hair, 5 o'clock shadow and that little extra around the waist, and the foul manners to go with it.

"Morning." I tried to be polite, even if it was wasted on a pig like him. He didn't even look up from his paper; he just took a long drag from his cigarette and coughed. I smirked slightly at this; he had been smoking since long before I was born, and he still had his smoker's cough.

"Coffee?" I asked, offering him a refill. The guy was so polite this time, he just shoved his half-empty mug forward without even saying please or thank you. I knew he had barely any manners, but this was just pushing the limit. However, instead of making a fuss, I just got over it and did what I had to do. I couldn't be bothered trying to make more trouble for myself doing something stupid, and it would certainly have gotten me into more trouble than necessary by kicking up a fuss. After pouring him a coffee, and receiving the expected response, I checked the fridge for food. Due to the snow levels, many of the shops we regularly shop at had shut before Mom went into hospital, and so we had stocked up with the usual supplies: canned goods, pasta and other things that had a long shelf-life. We had bought so much that we needed to take two taxi trips to the apartment, but when checking the fridge this morning, I could see why the greedy pig sat reading his paper had become so fat around the waist.

"Dad, we're out of sugar, canned beans, spaghetti in a can, pretty much everything." I sighed, thinking about our situation in my head. "We basically have no food."

"Well, order some in then. Use that website that is on the TV." He finally put his paper down and looked at me, which only took about half an hour of effort on my behalf.

"All the shops are shut, and I'm fairly sure that not many people will do any sort of delivery Dad, there's 4 feet of snow outside." It never ceased to amaze me just how ignorant this guy was. Sometimes, no, most of the time, I was embarrassed to be related to him.