Life With Mr. Malik (ON HOLD)

Chapter 16: Halloween Horrors

I spent the next few days in the retirement house where my mom's parents were for three reasons. Number one, I loved Grandpa Ben and Grammy Laura. Number two, I didn't want to see Zayn or anybody in the band and even turned my phone off so none of them could text me. And number three, whenever I paid a visit to the retirement house, one of the co-owners always made sure there was a mountain of bacon for breakfast. You could say I was lovable.

That, and his son had a major crush on me a few years back.

Personally, I would have loved to have gone out with his son. He's really cute and dorky but at times, he creeped me out, texting me things like "You're out of milk." and "Wow, I love that new poster you put up."

If those were the kind of texts he sent me just as friends, I didn't want to know what he'd tell me if he were my boyfriend.

Anyway, today's the third day of my stay here in the house and like every other morning, Grandpa Ben wanted to play Scrabble before going down for breakfast.

And like every other morning again, I lost . . .

What?! It's like playing a game with a living, breathing dictionary!

"Aha!" He exclaimed while clapping his wrinkly hands together. With a toothy grin, he placed the letter tiles on the board and formed the word 'Chowder,' using the O from the word I had previously spelled: poo.

I'm an excellent Scrabble player, am I not?

"How come you always get the good letters? I keep getting consonants! Do you know how hard it is to make a word out of a J, K, X, S and three Ls?!" I said with a huff, shoving my tiles into the green sack.

"Old man's luck." He said with a laugh.

"Old man's fingers probably," I said after we had stored the gameboard inside one of their closets. "Maybe as you grow older, your fingers develop some sort of magnetic powers that enable you to attract luck. Hence, the good letter tiles."

Grandpa Ben and I discussed the probability of my theory being correct all the way to the ground floor where they took their meals. Saturday meant Veggie Day (the bacon thing didn't apply on weekends, sadly) and I was probably the only person who didn't like this arrangement.

Like, think about it, if you're old and you know your time is limited, why not indulge in good things? Why ride Alice in Wonderland's Teacups at Disneyland when you can ride Space Mountain? Why order the a cheeseburger when you can get a double cheeseburger?

I'm just saying oldies need to understand that time is gold.

I just wanted to stand on my table and go "LIVE, OLDIES, LIVE!" But if I did, every inch of my body was a hundred percent positive I'd be the one who wasn't living.

When we had sat down on a table near the window because grandad said he liked watching the mid-morning golfers, two servers in white aprons set plates of seafood salad on our table.

One of them said, "Here you are, Laura. Didn't forget to remove the oysters this time."

I looked up from my unappealing breakfast and asked the server. "What's wrong with the oysters? Why is my grandma getting special treatment?" I immediately looked at my grandma, my eyes wide in fear. "ARE YOU DYING?!"

Grammy Laura smiled at me even if she was fully aware how many heads had turned in our direction at my last sentence. I really need to keep my mouth shut sometimes. I know, I know.

You don't need to remind me!

She reached for my hand, stroking it gently. "Calm down, Alexa. I am not a big fan of clammy food, that's all."