Riff (The Prequel)(west side story)

Chapter 1

Smoke rose thick across the apartment kitchen. The black cloud surrounding me was choking.
"What did you do, Mary?" Ron yelled from the sitting room. He was busy watching the basketball game on the television. Their television sucked, but it was the only device in their home besides an old wall-phone.
     "I'm making your dinner, Basketball Brain. If you don't like it, make it yourself!" Ron's older sister, Mary shouted back.
     "Oh please, I could do your job eighty times better. You act like I'm five," Ron retorted.
Mary snorted. "Yeah, because fourteen is such a mature age."
Ron huffed. "And being seventeen means you can order everyone around!" He muttered.
     "Come sit down!" She called to him.
      He stood up, each vertebrae cracking as he stretched. As he pulled out this chair, he caught a foul whiff of burned butter.
     Mary swooped bye him and swiftly delivered a platter of black circular disks. He then figured out what the stink was. It wasn't difficult for Mary to notice her brother turn his nose up at her concoction.
     "Potato pancakes," she explained. "Breakfast for dinner."
     "How could you burn pancakes?" Ron sneered.
     "They aren't burned!" Mary defended. "They're just thoroughly cooked."
"Jeez," Ron muttered. "What a lovely Day-Before-the-First-Day-of-High-School dinner."
Mary chuckled, her bobbed cocoa brown hair bouncing. "Speaking of High School," she began. "I believe you're old enough to get a job now."
Ron snorted. "A job? Seriously?"
"This is 1941!" Cried Mary. "Every dollar we can get helps. Sooner or later the bank'll come and snatch up our home! We'll be livin' on the streets!"
"Why don't you have a job then?"
"I babysit."
"What about Mom? Can't her job keep us afloat?"
"Are you that dull, Ron? A garment factory doesn't pay much!" Mary snapped.
He put up his hands in innocence. "My bad." Ron was above sick of the struggling life he was born into. Moving from place to place all around Manhattan—wherever was cheaper. Now he sat at the table with his older sister, eating burnt potato pancakes with his mom at work and his dad who-knows-where.
How lavish! He thought sarcastically.
     "Anywho, you'd better get to bed. School's two and half miles away and your bike's busted," Marly told him.
     "How wonderful."
     "Well ya shouldn't have been jumpin' off the curb so recklessly last week with your buddies!"
     "They're not buddies, they're Jets!" Ron snapped.
     "Sorry, sorry," Mary said. "Where did you come up with such a foolish name for your band anyway?"
     Ron shrugged. "Just guy stuff, ya know?"
     Mary smiled softly. "Sure, whatever you say."