You call this fate?

Chapter 13

I woke up in the morning feeling brain dead. Looking at the clock informed me that I had slept for all of three hours, so that was to be expected.

Last night finishing up the diary had taken me three hours rather than the one I had predicted. And then there had been that hour long call with Tasha, where I had told her everything and she had told me her wise views on the matter--view that left me no wiser than when I started.

I refrained from telling her about the man named Christopher Rodwell though, contrary to what I had planned earlier. I had no idea what it was I was going to tell, and saying 'I think you boyfriend is doing something sinister' sounded terribly like it would get my head bitten off.

The alarm beside said head blared up again. I pulled my hand out of the warm blankets like a corpse and let it fall on top of it with a vengeance. It shut up and then toppled over, crashing onto the floor.

I buried my face into my pillow and groaned.

"Mommy?" Ella said from somewhere to my right. "If you don't get up soon you are going to be very late. And this is only your second day."

Why, oh why, did I have to have a smartass daughter?

"I am trying to getting up," I moaned. "My body just won't cooperate."

"Is that so? I could call Aunty Tasha for you then. I am sure she could get you out of there."

"Don't you dare threaten me, you little tyke," I warned.

"I am going to call right now. I have the phone in my hand. And I know the number and everything."

My head shot off the bed. Ella stood in the doorway, far away from the grab-range of my fingers, already dressed in her navy blue skirt and white shirt. She waved the phone in my face.

"I just pressed the first number," she called when she saw the expression on my face.

"Do you have a death wish, girl?" I asked through clenched teeth. "I am not really in the mood for jokes right now." I let my head fall back on the pillow. She won't do it, of course.

Would she?

"I just pressed the second number."

I didn't move.

"And the third, fourth and fifth."

"Go away, Ella."

"Sixth..."

"Ella, I will buy you a huge bar of chocolate if you go away."

"Seventh...."

"Fine!" I sat up in bed, furious. My hair fell around my face like a dead bird's nest. "Fine! I am up. Now get lost."

"You need to get all the way up. I have pressed all the numbers now and my finger is inching towards the call button." She showed me her finger moving in slow-motion so that I knew she wasn't bluffing.

"Ella..." I pleaded, a desperate warning in my voice.

"My finger is still moving..." 

"Why can't you act like a normal four-year old, for God's sake!" I screamed. "Our roles should be reversed."

"My finger is on the green button now. I just have to press..." She ignored my exclamation, eyes wide with the horror of what she was doing.

"Fine! I am out of the bed now!" I exploded, leaping off and holding up my hands in surrender. "You win! Now give me the phone!"