Honey and the Pug

Part 2 The Conspiracy

It was eight pm, just after sunset. Technically speaking, Honey's mother hadn't specified what Honey was supposed to watch on the walls, and after living for fifteen years under her draconian rule, Honey had learned how to exploit loopholes. Everyone's smart teleportation bracelets were hooked up to the great cloud, a vast sprawling cloud of information and entertainment that hovered above every planet and space station. Instead of reading her copy of The Evil Skin of Pluto, Honey turned her bracelet onto projection mode, creating a mind map of information about dogs and animals. Most of the information was incredibly old, outdated and referred to many cartoon Pug characters from over a thousand years ago.
Before the seventh grade, Honey's bedroom had gold walls covered in purple hearts with an aqua sleeping pod and shelves filled with dolls her father had let her pick out every birthday. Every doll had its own name, outfit, and epic life story. Honey had a wooden chest filled with the precious antique books that had belonged to her great great grandmother. She would spend her spare time marvelling at how the pages actually turned! Her fingers would trace over the colourful pictures of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Rapunzel, marvelling at their giant eyes and tiny chins. But that was before Honey was told that she had a baby sister on the way.
"You're the big girl in the family now, Honey, and in this family, toys and fairytales always belong to the baby." Mother had explained as she marched Honey into the stark white attic.
Honey's old bedroom had been handed over to the baby who for some reason needed a sleeping pod and sixteen boxes of clothes. Secretly, Honey resented the whole thing, but she knew better than to complain. Mother would just logically and cooly argue back until Honey would find herself running back to her bedroom, defeated. It was the same defeat she felt when wearing the socks her mother chose, styling her hair in pre approved braids or watching carefully-selected documentaries. Most of the time it was easier just to go along with it, but sometimes a tiny spark of defiance would spring in Honey's heart. Weeks had passed since Honey's old bedroom had been taken and occupied, and she had ignored her mother's every attempt to get her to decorate her new room "like an adult" with mature shades of deep eggplant and bronze. A few days ago, Mother had shown Honey some sensible furniture codes in practical dark shades that never showed stains. Honey then asked for codes for inflatable floating furniture and a giant neon-pink light hanging from the ceiling. A stalemate occurred and instead, everything stayed in its new white sterile state. Even her sheets glowed a clean chilly white in the artificial moonlight. But Honey didn't mind. Having a boring, sterile room was one of the only things she could really control.
There was a sudden scratching sound at the tiny attic window and Honey got out of her dull pod-like bed, twitching aside her beige curtains. The pug was back, sitting in the window's flower box on top of Mother's  prize crystal roses. Honey felt her fingers clinch the edge of the curtain as her breath caught in her throat. Nothing could prepare her for once again seeing the dog's wrinkly face and bulging eyes.  For a brief moment she considered screaming but instead forced herself to breathe in deeply. Euphoria Jones, the Archaeologist hero from The Evil Skin of Pluto didn't scream when she encountered a tomb filled with cyborg vampires. No, a calm rational approach was best.
Slowly, Honey unlocked her window and opened it an inch.