I’ve always been a troublemaker. That’s just how it is.
When I was six, I threw my pencil at my teacher. She was learning us how to write our names, but asking a six-year-old to write down Deirdre Gallagher isn’t fair, and throwing my pencil at her was my way of telling her.
That’s me: if something is not how I like it, I’ll let you know.
Coincidentally, I was sitting next to a girl named Rosemarie Lawrence. She handed me her black pencil and said, smiling, our names were just too complicated. And from that moment, we were inseparable.
Rose and I made a perfect team; I was the loud one, always getting in trouble because of my big opinion, Rose was the silent sweet girl that saved me from detention more than I can probably count.
While I was throwing books at my teachers, refusing to make my homework and driving everyone crazy, Rose was being the perfect student that every single teacher liked.
When I grew older, I learned not to bombard teachers with things, but I still was a loud and annoying student. I got detention average twice a week. All the concierges knew me and liked me and gave the the less dirty jobs to do. I wasn’t asocial or anything, I just refused to do what I didn’t wanted to do.
Rose used to wait for me in the school library; she was making her homework when I was in detention. Conversely, I waited for her when she had something to do; like extra PE lessons because she couldn’t catch or throw a ball properly.
Everything we did, we did together. There were only few things Rose didn’t know about me, and vice versa.
So when my sister Aurelia got our mom to say yes on a holiday with the family of her best friend Alexis Horan, I said fine, under the condition I could take Rose with me. I’m not going to survive a holiday in France with those people without Rose.
And here we are: crammed together in a tiny car on our way to the lake of Annecy, a city in France, nearby the Swiss border.
‘How far still ‘till Paris, mom?’ I hear Aurelia ask through my music. I’m almost fused to my mp4. It’s one of my most holy possessions. I can’t live without it: music is a part of me.
‘I think maybe an hour,’ my mother replies. ‘I think even less.’
‘And from there another six hours to Annecy, right?’
‘Indeed.’
I sigh.
Rose is sitting next to me: she’s asleep. Her head rests on my shoulder, her hair is tied up in a messy bun.
When mom stops the car in Paris, Rose wakes up and yawns.
‘We’re in Paris,’ I say.
‘Je ne parle pas le Francais,’ Rose grins, and we get out of the car. (x)
Aurelia smiles at me. ‘I suppose you two get lost in Paris on your own?’
Aurelia’s my sister. She’s almost twenty and looks nothing like me. Our mother is a pale English woman, our dad a son of Albanian parents. He has four kids; Aurelia and me, and Nathalia and Jason with his new wive. All his children, except me, have this beautiful mocha-colored skin. But not me. No. I have the pale skin of my mother, including the freckles. Luckily, I do have the thick, auburn hair of my father, combined with my moms curls, in contradiction with Aurelia, she’s got the straight hair of our father and dark blonde colour of our mom.
‘Uhm, yes,’ I agree, and I grab Rose’ arm to drag her away from the car.
‘Be carefull, okay?’ my mom says.
