Meet Me at Home

Chapter 1: Last Day of School

December 1916

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!

The sound of the morning rooster is what woke Esther up. She groggily opened her eyes and squinted at the bright sunlight peeping through her curtains. She slowly sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes, heaving a big sigh.

She looked to the clock on the wall which read 7am. One hour and a half to get ready and go to school. Today was the last day of school and last day of finals before Christmas vacation, and Esther was excited. After this holiday, she just had to go through next semester until she would be a high school senior, then after that, university. Esther enrolled to the university of Harvard and she and her whole family were static when she received her acceptance letter, and nothing was going to stop her. Not even the countries currently at war that she and her family had been hearing about in the news. As long as America was out of the picture, they had nothing to worry about.

Esther rose from her bed and stretched, getting her tired muscles out of her system. She then made her way to the bedroom of her 2 younger sisters, Agnes and Tootie. Esther quietly opened their door and saw her sisters cuddled up in one bed, seeing this made Esther smile warmly. Tootie must've had another nightmare last night. Even though those 2 were a trouble-making duo pretty much all day and all night, they were extremely close and inseparable.

Esther walked towards the sleeping girls and bent over to stroke their hair to wake them up.

"Agnes, Tootie, wake up. Time to get ready for school." Esther said softly.

"I don't wanna go to school." Agnes whined and went back to sleep, ignoring her sister.

"But it's the last day of school." Esther replied.

"What difference does it make?" Tootie asked, now being her turn to whine.

"Well after today, you don't have to go to school until next year." Esther countered.

"Well in that case, we'll just start today." Agnes said.

"Yeah, skipping one day wouldn't hurt. No big deal." Tootie added.

Esther sighed at their stubbornness, but she wouldn't give up just yet. She thought for a few minutes before coming up with a solution and smiled.

She turned around and glided across the floor to the door. She then said,

"Alright, if that's your final decision, more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for me."

This caught the girls' attention and bolted upright in bed.

"There's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?!" Agnes asked.

"For breakfast?!" Tootie squealed with delight.

"Mhm, once I make them of course. But since you girls are probably still exhausted from staying up late last night playing, I guess I'll just take the lot." Esther pointed out then disappeared from the girls' sight to walk downstairs to the kitchen, smirking to herself.

Her ears then caught the sound of loud footsteps stomping on the carpet, but she was prepared.

"Excuse me!"
"Coming through!"

The girls shouted, weaving their way around their sister to get ahead of her. But Esther reached over and grabbed the back of their nightgown collars, pulling them back and bringing them both to walk along with her on each side.

"Hey! That hurt!" Tootie retorted.

"Yeah Esther! Ow!" Agnes groaned. Both girls rubbing their necks.

"No running in the halls, young ladies. You should know that." She scolded the girls using her mother voice.