Autumn Leaves

Chapter 11

Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved by the author.

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“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

-          Winston Churchill 

We all stopped and looked at each other. Who on earth rings someone else’s doorbell at four in the morning? In a flash, my mum straightened herself up, dried her hands and slowly opened the door.

                Part of me was honestly, foolishly, ridiculously hoping for it to be Michael, but unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was just some random drunk guy and a bunch of his friends, obviously trying to play ‘Knock Knock Ginger’, or ‘Doorbell Ditch’, or whatever the hell they called it over here. He was only halfway down the path when we opened the door, and he obviously heard the door. Clearly trying to get away quickly or hide himself, he half staggered and half dived into one of the bushes on the side of our driveway.

                We all looked at each other as if to say ‘I don’t even know’ and my dad sighed, going outside, picking up the drunkard (who was passed out in the cold, the idiot) and carrying him to his friends who watched in bewilderment as my dad gently placed him at their feet. Luckily, they were on the pavement (or sidewalk, as I now have to call it) linking to the main road, so we didn’t have to force them to move away.

                Such idiocy is beyond my comprehension.

                After that, we finally got Harry to get into his pants and trousers. The four of us then just sort of walked round the house, deciding which room was whose. All of the rooms had en-suite bathrooms, and one of them was a really strange shape and had a hole in the wall. Not like it had been knocked through; it looked like a reading nook in the middle of a wall made of bookshelves. I got that room, of course. I actually had enough books to fill it up, and more besides. My parents got the biggest room (naturally) whose bathroom was strangely bigger than the actual room itself. Harry’s room’s bathroom didn’t have a shower in it, which was good since he could accidentally jam the tap or something and drown us all in our own house (not that that would realistically happen, but just in case).

                By that time, it was about six in the morning, and we figured that at least one supermarket or convenience store had to be open. The previous owners had left the fridge for us, because they had bought another one that actually had access to the internet (more specifically Twitter) and had about fifteen games to play on it. Sometimes, I don’t know what to say. They bought a fridge, a contraption used to store food at a cool temperature, to play games on and tweet about their food. To be honest, Instagram would have made more sense.

                We found a supermarket quite nearby, surprisingly, and it was already open! As we went round the shop Harry and I were bombarded with sights of these strange, colourful junk foods we had never even heard of before. Then, I saw Pop Tarts.

                “Mum mum mum mum mum,” I called, dragging her over to the shelf, “please can we get these? Indira said they were really nice – “ I stopped when I saw my mum shaking her head. “Please please please please mum!” I pleaded. “Just to try them! Just once…” I tried to persuade her.

                “I’m sure one time won’t kill them, Imogen.” My dad assured my mother with a smile. “After all, you can feed them with healthy, organic vegetables for the rest of their lives.” At that, my mother relented and grabbed a box of the chocolate ones off of the shelf.