a beautiful nightmare - THIRTEEN

2

After school, I'm back home and my mom is doing some boy's hair. His name is Rodney. She's a hairdresser and she just dyed half of his hair blue.

"Oh, looks great. Next time we'll do orange," she says. "Hair gel, baby!" she yells through the whole house.

I know she means me by that because she always calls me her baby. I stand up from the floor, where I was just writing another poem in my notebook. I grab my hair gel from the table in my room and look for my mom so I can bring it to her.

"It's okay, Mom. You can borrow mine... again," I say, waving the gel at her.

I guess she ran out of hair gel again. Those kinds of things happen a lot around the house. Most of the time, it's my mom who borrows my stuff, especially things like hair gel for her clients. She doesn't have a salon or anything, so she just works from home. That also means that she's always around. But sometimes my sister Tracy also borrows stuff from me, but I got kind of used to all of that because we share a lot of things.

I hand her the hair gel and she thanks me.

"Oh, Rodney, I love the blue," I say, looking at his hair.

"You guys hungry? I did Italian tonight," my mom asks Rodney and another kid running around our house. That was Rodney's brother, whose hair was also blue now.

The boys grab a plate of the lasagna my mom made and run out the door with their mom following, handing my mom some money.

"Jesus. A two-dollar tip," she says, kind of disappointed. "They ate half the lasagna."

I'm sitting on the sofa, looking down at my notebook.

"Mom, you're way too generous," I say, still looking down.

I mean it, though. She really is.

"Did Dad send you the new check this month?" I ask.

"Lay off him, Mathilda. He just started the new job, okay?" Mason answers.

I didn't really ask him, but oh well. Mason always protects my dad, even though he is never around. Sometimes I just don't get him. Both of them, actually.

"We're fine. I worked all week," Mom says.

We don't really have a lot of money, which is the reason I asked if he sent the money. My mom doesn't get paid too well, even though she should. Her work just isn't appreciated enough, and my mom's too kind to say anything.

"You'd look great with some honey-blonde entertainment streaks, right here," she says, brushing through my hair with her fingers.

I love when she does that.

"It's not fair. I can't be mad at you when you do that," I say, smiling.

I finish the poem I was writing earlier.

"Here, Mom, listen to this."

"He was crippled, but only his body was cracked-"

"Yoo-hoo," someone bursts through the door... again.

Of course, just when I was about to show my mom the poem I wrote.

"Mathilda!" a kid, Kayla, screams while running toward me. Her mom, Birdie, is following.

"I have to pee, and she hasn't eaten anything," her mom says.

Yeah, sure. I hate when people are at our house, which is pretty much every day. Like I said, my mom's way too generous.

"Well, that's okay. There's some stuff on the stove," my mom replies, waiting for me to read out my poem. And again. "Mathilda, I'm sorry. I just haven't been to a meeting all week, and you know I need to go," Mom says. "I really want to hear your poem. Please start over, I really want to hear it," she says while sitting down in front of me.

I look at her and then back into my notebook. "He was crippled, but only his body was cracked. It's not simple, nor is it an easy matter to explain. Let's just leave it at that," she says and closes the holy book of lies. She covers her eyes, denying to herself what she thought happened.

"Wow, that's really heavy. And it scares me a little bit. It's beautiful. We gotta talk about it when I get back. Okay?"

I smile slightly, but deep down I know that we won't ever talk about it again because she's too busy doing other stuff. That's okay, I guess.

"Hey, can we have some of this cake?" Birdie asks.

"Oh no no no no no! Shit. That's Mario's cake! He's 12 years sober!" my mom yells. Kayla comes running toward me.

"Mathilda, I want a piggyback ride."

"Uhm, Mom? I told you I can't babysit. I have an I-search project due tomorrow."

"Baby, baby, cut me a break. You know I need to go," she says, slamming the door.

Wow, thanks, Mom, really. Why don't you cut me a break? Now I'm the one who has to take care of some kid again.