Where's Casper?

Tickets

I've worked hard for this. I've worked the whole summer. I've worked all of this time, just to see my dad take all of my money.

The air around him smells like wine again. I watch him grab them with his big, muddy hands and yell at me even if I don't have the guts to protest like a normal kid would.

"I've never asked you to bring any money in the house until now. I think I deserve these, right?"

No. No, you don't. I already know he's going to spend all of them on his bad habits. He drinks, he smokes, and he brings easy women inside our house more often since my stepmother passed away.

"But, sir, they're my -"

"Don't you dare talk back to me."

I take a deep breath. If he gets angry, he'll surely want to grab his belt, too, from the hanger. I look at it; my old friend, as he says. It's a thin, black leather belt that had no clasp. It was my stepmother's old belt.

That woman didn't have any kind of mercy on me. I'm glad she's gone. I'm sorry to be evil, but that's the truth. I try to answer more politely.

"Sir, I've worked hard for them, and they're the first money I earned. I want to use them to buy myself a ticket to..."

I stop because he laughs and stuffs my money in his pocket. My money. He pats my head and walks to the hanger. No, no, no! His hand reaches for the belt as my eyes widen with horror.

He takes his coat instead and starts dressing to leave again.

My shoulders relax; I didn't realize how tense they were until that moment. I know I'm either really pale or really red. Judging by my hands, I'm paler than the walls of the room, but I feel the blood rushing to my face when he opens the door smiling, mumbling something and the saying:

"Goodnight, kiddo. And stop dreaming about that damn circus. Dreams don't come true for people like us."

I smile back, knowing he's about to go to the bar. I hope you choke on your drink, I mumble, too, after he slams the door behind him.

There were days when I loved my father, and he loved me in his own way. I used to make him greeting cards when I was younger, and each time, I added a heart next to my name. He used to tell me I'm his little star, and I used to tell him he's my hero who'll always save me. What a shame those days were gone!

We live in a big house: me, my father, my brother, and my little sister. I think my father hates me for some reason because he always behaves well around them. He used to be some kind of lord until my grandfather found out he got a gipsy girl pregnant, and, from there, I resulted.

My mother ran away after I was born, and my father raised me and my adopted brother well until Iris appeared. Iris was a tall, beautiful woman with blonde hair and green doe eyes who came after my father's fortune. I don't know how he made it, I don't know why he made it, I just know every single woman who passes this threshold is here after it. His fortune. Or the fortune he was supposed to have, but spent it in a millisecond.

Iris died six years after giving birth to my sister, who is now thirteen and looks exactly like her. She died because of some sort of sickness that is still spreading in the kingdom now. Luckily, she was at her mother's house when it happened, so we didn't catch it. Father was so destroyed that he refused to sleep or eat for full days.

But I don't know what he saw in that woman. She profited off my maidenlike physical and thought it made it easier to boss me around.

Casper, do the dishes!

Casper, do the laundry!

Casper, tidy up the house!

Casper, stop complaining, I can't do all of the work in this house alone!

She entirely, totally, absolutely, did nothing, and I was the maid of the house. My story sounds like Cinderella's, but I'm, unfortunately, a boy, and it won't be that easy for me to find my prince charming who will get me out of this house in the first second.

And Cyran, my brother, already got his princess; he'll get married this winter and leave me all alone. He'll always be better than me: taller, stronger, and even more handsome.

This is a part of my story, a story about a sixteen year old boy who will suddenly disappear the night the circus arrives in town.