Star Light Star Bright

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My mother was on the phone with her best friend, Rachel, for the fourth time that week. I was upstairs in my room but I could still hear my mother’s half of the conversation clearly, and, from what I could hear, it sounded like they were arguing.

            “But what about the money?” I heard my mother ask.  Rachel must have come back with a solution, because my mother sighed and said, “Fine the money is taken care of, but I don’t understand why John can’t watch him?” John was Rachel’s ex-husband. I wondered for a motherent if they were talking about a dog. Then I realized I didn’t care, and went back to eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Oh yeah, now I remember him saying something about that. Why don’t you just take him with you?” My mother paused for a moment, and then said, “Never mind don’t answer that question. Vegas is not a good place for a young man to grow up.” Young man? Now I was curious. “Yes I guess we will take him in. It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice. When is he coming?” she paused to hear the answer and then replied with, “Yes we will be ready for him. Ya, ya love you too. Bye.”

I heard my mother coming up the stairs and I pretended to be really into my music so she wouldn’t know I had been listening to her conversation. She knocked on my open door and I looked up at her, pretending I hadn’t heard her come in.

“Hey mother, what’s up?” I asked nonchalantly. My mother looked nervous, like she was choking on her words. “Mom are you alright?”

“Yeah fine.” She took a deep breath. “Do you remember Rachel’s son, Chris?” How could I forget him? He was the biggest ass I had ever met. He had no respect for the rules and he hit on every pretty girl he saw. Our mothers used to force us together once a year until 6 years ago, when I punched him the stomach for calling me babe and he refused to ever see me again. That was when I was ten and even now at the age of sixteen, the memory still made me smile.

“Yeah I remember him. Why?” I asked, with a hint of suspicion in my voice.

“Well,” my mother said, taking another deep breath. Her deep breaths scared me. “He’s going to be living with us for a while.”

Tread carefully, my conscious warned. “How long is a while?”

“The rest of the summer,” my mother admitted.

I gapped at her. Seeing him once a year was torture enough, let alone seeing him every day. “What?! Why?”

“Rachel got a job in Vegas.” She said Vegas like it was a dirty pair of underwear that she didn’t want to touch. “And she doesn’t want to bring him with her. She thinks it will give him the wrong idea.”

I laughed at that. “He already has the wrong ideas,” I said to my mother. “I doubt taking him to Vegas could mess him up anymore.”

This made my mother laugh as well, and I was glad I had cheered her up just a little. “I know what you think about him, but at least give him a try alright?”

“Why can’t his father just take him?” I asked, trying to get out of it anyway I could.

“John is spending the year in Brazil,” she said quickly

“Great! Let Chris see the world!” I said scowling. “Or, better yet, just put him up for adoption. I’m sure someone would take a stuck up, know it all, teenage, boy…wait, no they wouldn’t,” I laughed.

“Honey.” My mother was using the this-discussion-is-over-whether-you-like-it-or-not voice. “I have already told his mother we would take him.”

“Fine,” I said defeated. “When does the rat show up?”

“Wednesday,” replied my mother, ignoring my name calling. That only gave me two more days of summer; the rest would be torture until school started, three months later.

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Heyy!!!!Thank you so much for reading this story.

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