The Apocalypse (A Parody)

Chapter 2 or I Lose My Kingdom (a.k.a The Basement)

Once we’d been properly introduced, Jake seemed alright. Apparently, he’d been looking for the bathroom and had gotten (miraculously, since there are only three rooms on the second floor) lost. His dog was called Rover (how original!) and my mother didn’t seem to mind that a dog the size of a small pony was drooling all over my carpet. I was ecstatic; I never really did like that carpet.

 Then Jake disappeared into the bathroom after carefully shutting the dog out. And all Hell broke loose. “You never told me that we were going to have a tenant,” I whisper/screamed at my mother. “But I did, honey, don’t you remember? My friend Jen’s son?”

A vague memory of my mother telling me something like her friend Jen going into hospital with cancer and her kid coming to live with us for a year. They were supposed to rich or something. (I mean, they had a summer house in another country, for God’s sake!). I just couldn’t see why he couldn’t have stayed in one of the numerous houses they obviously owned, with a nice housekeeper to look after him. I said as much and my mother gave me one of those this-poor-boy-might-lose-his-mother-and-you-are-being-so-unkind-it’s-unfair-you-already-greeted-him-by-screaming-your-head-off looks. (Trust me, mothers have looks for everything. Like the scary Why-does-your-teacher-want-to-see-me to the vengeful, ever popular, you-can't-come-to-Disneyland-cause-you-broke-one-of-my-precious-crystal-glasses-which-are-worth-more-than-you look.)

“He’ll go to your school…” Why me? This was turning out to be like one of those soppy vampire fics my sister reads these days. Personally, vampires are no good if their motto doesn’t read ‘Murder and be murdered’.

“…he’s staying in the basement.”

Whoa, backtrack. “What?! He can’t stay in the basement. I need it,” I didn’t care that sound travelled well through our walls, some things cannot be communicated with enough passion if you whisper them.

“Shh,” my mother gave me one of her ‘stern looks’. “You don’t need the basement. You have your own room.” (Did I mention that I relived a nightmare because my mother told me the exact same thing when my sister was born?)

“Uh, yeah, but that little monkey that lives next door just can’t keep it down.” In other words, I needed peace and quiet to blast music ‘cause sometimes headphones just don’t cut it.

My mother wouldn’t budge. “But my stuff!”

“No buts, Ally. You’re going to have to deal with it. It’s just for a year.” And she swept out of the room, leaving me trying to catch flies with my open mouth.

“If you keep your mouth open like that, you’d have caught enough flies to skip dinner,” a deep resonant voice suggested. I whipped around. Jake was standing there, with Rover at his heels. I shut my mouth and tried to arrange my face into a murderous glare, but he was grinning. (Have you ever tried not to grin when a super hot guy is grinning at you? It’s probably a universal law or something).

“We need to talk.” he said.