The Fallen Queen (Winner of the Write Way Award 2013) #Wattys2015 #MyWattysChoice #Featured

Chapter 24: Teenage Years

 Let me know if you can read this chapter. There seems to be a problem with Wattpad and people can't see the chapters after Chapter 10.

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Dinnertime had struck, yet Suzie had not returned from the barn.

            Jeanne sent Angie to look for her sister and to tell her that dinner was ready. She first tried the barn but Suzie was not there. She then heard voices and giggles. Quietly, she approached the end of the barn and looked through a crack in the door. She saw her sister kissing a boy. Suzie had a boyfriend.

            As Angie leaned on the door, the door suddenly gave way and she fell into the manure pile. She tried to get out, but it soon covered her head. She was drowning. What an idiotic way to die! 

            I laughed when I saw that. It was much worst than me almost dying with mashed potatoes.

            Luckily, Suzie saw my mother falling into her death trap and she pulled her out by the arm.

            After that incident, Suzie could no longer deny that she had a boyfriend. She started to go more and more often to the boy's house. She wanted to spend more time with him.

            Seeing one of his girls slipping away, Charles talked about sins. He called her a sinner. Suzie stood up to him, telling him she still wanted to go and see her boyfriend and that one day he would have to let his daughter go. She insisted she was old enough and could do what she wanted.

            Their father became angry and ran after her to give her a beating, ignoring all the guests who were at the house at that time—uncles, aunts, and cousins included. The uncomfortable guests quietly walked out of the house. They assumed it was better not to get involved. They left the family to its horror.

            Suzie ran to her room and blocked the door with her dresser. This only slowed down the angry man for a few moments. He soon broke down the door and ran after his daughter. He beat her as she ran up and down the bed, screaming hysterically.

            Meanwhile, Agnes, Emma, and Angie—the three youngest—sat on the stairs and rocked each other saying, "Daddy is mean, daddy is mean."

            When the blows stopped, Suzie simply said, "That was the last time you touch me." That same night, she moved out to live with her boyfriend. She escaped.

            Angie's dream of becoming a nun ended in high school. A religion teacher told her the story of Adam and Eve was a myth. How could that be? She thought it was a historical fact. Disappointed, she then began to doubt the veracity of the Bible, which she had always considered factual. She felt like she had been lied to since childhood, fed with illusions. She became interested in what she had forbidden herself from since the day she had decided to become a nun—boys.

            It worked for Suzie. A boy took her away from the hell they lived in. It should work for her as well.

            One evening when they were staying at Suzie's, the three girls escaped through a window. They vanished into the night to go to a pool hall where they knew they would meet boys.

            Their plan did not work. Suzie realized they were missing and contacted Jeanne. Shortly after, Jeanne opened the pool hall door and ordered them to go to the car immediately. The boys, who had appeared so tough before, became frightened by the angry woman and fled like rabbits.

            They were definitely not the heroes Angie was expecting.

            In the car, Jeanne told them what they did was wrong. She tried to convince them by telling them the story of the young girl who went missing in Roxton Pond. She had also disobeyed her parents and went out at night to go dancing. During the evening, the girl danced with the devil without knowing who he was. The devil then took her away and enclosed her in a rock on an island in the lake.