The Aftermath Of You

Chapter Eleven

Startled awake at an ungodly hour by the sound of a lawn mower underneath her window, Toni found herself propped up on pillows with her pink pilot's hat snugly pulled down over her hair and a half empty rum bottle in one hand. She suppressed the urge to scream as her foot hit the floor, blaming the idiot mowing lawns at six thirty on a weekday.

She hopped angrily down the stairs already preparing a very nasty look for whoever dared to wake her. But as she entered the kitchen her eyes alighted on the person in question, circumnavigating the house on a ride-on lawn mower, like a shark circling its prey.

Toni dropped combat style to the floor; gasping out in pain. She eased her broken ankle into a better position. She heard the mower getting closer ready to circle in front of the house, then it idled for a few seconds. Toni tried desperately not to breathe, for fear that the air being expelled from her body would be enough to alert the fox terrier that was her mother. The mat her nose was resting on sent particles of dust up her nose which ended in a large sneeze. Followed by a deathly silence.

THUD, THUD, THUD. Toni stood up with a sigh and hopped over to open her window.

"What are you doing?" her mother screeched over the noise of the mower.

"I'm just about to start cleaning the house." Toni didn't even know why she bothered to answer ; she could have been making thousands of dollars on the stock market whilst performing triple heart surgery on the neighbour's dog but there would only ever be one reply.

Her mother's voice hit high decibels. "What are you doing that for?"

"Well, I've decided to change my life around a little."

"You know what you need to do?"

"I have a funny feeling I'm about to find out," Toni snarled under her breath.

"You need to go and see my friend that works at Baker's Buns; she could probably give you a job."

"I don't need a job."

"How are you going to pay for things then?"

"The same way I always do; with the money in my savings account."

"Well then, you can start to pay someone to come around here and mow your lawns. I'm not going to do this for you any more. You don't even thank me."

"I never asked you to mow anything."

"But someone has to do it because they're overgrown all the time and people laugh at you. They think you've gone insane! You're so ungrateful; you won't even make me a cup of tea."

Toni sighed. "Do you want a cup of tea?"

"Yes!"

"All you had to do was ask." Toni filled her kettle with water and put it on the stove. "You'll have a cup of tea in exactly five minutes."

"Why don't you buy an electric jug? That kettle is too slow." Her mother's head was poking through the window like a horse's head from a stable door.

"I had an electric jug, but you took it off me."

Silence, lips pushed tightly together... Lulu backed away from the window and got back onto her lawn mower.

"Didn't want to talk about that, huh?" Toni whispered angrily. She picked up Granny Smith's writing book and skimmed through. Write by hand. Handwriting connects more easily with the soul. Well... she was doing that already!  She was born for this whole writing caper.  As she waited for the kettle to boil she searched through her house the pen she'd used.