My Ticket Out

Chapter 2: Trials

I woke up and leisurely got up. I was wondering what was going to happen. I was worried like I am every day at third to last. I look wearily to see if I could find my mother anywhere and she is nowhere to be seen. I became worried when ever mom gets a call she reacts really fast. I began to think the worst. I find my dad awake and I was confused. What time was it? I looked at the clock come to find that it was only 9:35 AM.

"Where's mom?" I asked

"Your mom was supposed to take you with? You must've not responded well." My dad replied.

"Where! Where was mom supposed to take me!" I yelled worried and in shock.

"In front of the judges for the game. Supposedly the guy in last got ahead of your mom. Must not have gotten ahead of you the government usually calls about something like that." Dad stated.

I continued my worries and my anxiety spiked. I started walking around the room senselessly thinking about the game and hoping that this wasn't a reality. Hoping my mother would be nice to me and not beat my score. But who knew what she had to get. Was it to get a head of my score because the guy got a lousy 18,400 points and she could make the money for the family?

I was worried sick I was still wondering where my mother was then I heard it the phone ringing.

"Was it for me?" I thought to myself.

I slowly walked to the stand in which the phone was but I just couldn't bring the strength to pick up the phone. I felt lazy and didn't want to know what was going to happen to me or my mother for that fact. My brothers all walked out in sync wondering if the phone call was from some hot chick or something. I didn't answer because what's the point.

Jason raced to the phone thinking it was for him because I didn't respond. He assumes a lot and I don't like that. I just walked into my room not wanting part of anything and turned on the master system and practiced. While I was playing the game I overheard something ere. It was Jason yelling at my dad to talk about something that was supposedly important.

"Dad! Dad! Where did you go? I need to talk." Jason yelled.

"What about?" My dad asked.

"The judges." Jason said.

"I'll be in the living room in a second." My dad replied.

"The judges... Do they want something or someone? Are they going to do something? Why are they calling now? Is this a reminder that mom's not coming back?" I thought.

I didn't want to hear their conversation anymore. I just wanted to ponder over what was going on but I could hear thumps in the hallway. I could tell from anywhere that those were my father's feet and I had a feeling that there was going to be more added to the story. All I thought of is my mom screwed me over.

Playing this stupid game, you see this is my nightmare. As you already know I am in the bottom three and with the other two coming in front of me, if that happened I have to beat the person within twenty-four hours. The worst part is I don't know what score I have to achieve which makes the scenario harder to prepare for.

I opened my door just a crack to hear my named being yelled for. I walked over with my head down in shame awaiting for the next words my father was going to say to me. I knew they weren't going to be good.

"Jocine, do you have any idea who that might've been?" My father asked awaiting a snappy answer.

"I got the memo dad. It was the judges and I have twenty-four hours to beat the score of the person ahead of me." I replied solemnly.

I got everything ready and my brother Lance tagged along and brought his portable DS and they had Astro Warrior a portable version of it and he offered it to me to get some extra practice. I turned it down because I knew that that wasn't going to help. Although I didn't play I watched a little to get a grasp of some of the patterns that I could run into as a result of the game. I knew that I wanted a better score than I currently have but I knew that that wasn't going to happen without some knowledge that I had yet to obtain.