summer of '17 • jenzie

2 ↝ eating & fighting

Mackenzie Ziegler
8 June 2017

•••

"Dinners ready!" Mer yells faintly down the stairs. Us kids all scramble out of our chairs.

"Coming!" Lauren yells back, speaking for all of us, as we run upstairs. God, the food smells amazing.

"This looks so good." Maddie says when we reach the kitchen, catching my eye and rubbing her stomach. I laugh.

Johnny and Darian serve themselves first, and by the time us girls are finished there's hardly any left.

"I told you," Mer says, turning to my Mum, "It's like feeding elephants!"

"Boys." Lauren then says, rolling her eyes. We all giggle together.

Mer has made an amazing spread; chicken, potatoes, gravy, salads, sausages, corn– you name it, it's there. Being the last one to serve themselves, I look over and see that the only seat left is next to Johnny. I sigh, and he grins at me.

"Heyyyy Mack Z– sit next to me!" He says enthusiastically, and I groan at the use of my old nickname.

"Seriously?"

"Mmmhmm!" He replies with a mouth full of food. After rolling my eyes drastically, I make my way to sit down. Placing my food on the table I act as though I'm going to sit– and Johnny pulls the chair out from underneath my feet. He whines when I don't fall for his stupid trick.

"Nice try pretty boy." I say straight faced, dragging my seat back to where it originally was and sitting on it. Lauren grins. She holds her hand up for a high five, and I clap it while Darian laughs at Johnny.

"You think I'm pretty?" Johnny says cheekily, batting his eyelashes, and I throw a screwed up napkin at him.

"Oh whatev–" I start to sat, and stop in the middle of my sentence when Johnny throws something at me.

It's a sausage I realise, emitting a shriek.

"You idiot!" I yell, and then punch him in the arm as hard as I can. The boys crack up laughing, and I even see my Mom and Mer try to hide their smiles between mouthfulls of food.

"You are so lucky our Mums are in here– you would get it if they weren't." I say annoyedly, taking my napkin back out of his lap. I wipe my top before picking the sausage up off my legs and dumping it on his plate. "And now I have to wash my top."

"I'll give you my shirt?" He offers, shrugging, and I scoff. Whatever.

"I'm serious." He says, grabbing the hem and pulling it off his body.

His absence of a shirt tells me that he still has those rock hard abs; perfectly toned and everything. Why can't he just hurry up and get fat? I mean, he eats more than I do anyway.

I want grab his shirt and shove it up a place where the sun doesn't shine, but Darian beats me to it– snatching it and holding it high above Johnny's head. The look in Johnny's eyes seems to say challenge accepted as he stands up fast, banging his gangly frame on the table and trying to swipe it out of Darian's hands.

This time, all us girls turn back to our food, either wincing or giggling. I can't explain how many thousand times this has happened over the summers we've spent here, which is a lot.

"So Maddie, how has school been?" Mer asks, ignoring the boys wrestling around the kitchen and living room. I now wince as I see Johnny punch Darian in the stomach, laughing, and I wonder how they do it. That must hurt. Diverting my eyes and ears as Maddie starts talking, I roll my eyes as I've heard this speech many times before. Schools great, I'm the student council representative, I won this award... blah blah blah. I get it Maddie, I'll always be in your shadow– but what happens next takes me by surprise. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
"That's great sweetie!" Mer cuts in, interrupting Maddie's rant about how she wants to become class president. Smiling, she turns to me who's now trying not to laugh at the expression on Maddie's face. That's never happened to her before. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
"So Mackenzie, how have you been doing?" Mer asks lightly, and I swallow my food, still internally laughing at Maddie.

"Life's been great actually." I smile, setting down my knife and fork. "I've been working part time for Abby– helping the little ones in all their dance classes and all that stuff."

"That's great hun." Mer says, just as the boys come to sit back down, buzzing. What they hadn't noticed yet was that Lauren switched their plates, so Lauren's empty one was in Johnny's place. I cough, trying to keep my grin at bay.

"That was so– wait, where did all my food go?" Johnny says confusedly, and his voice cracks deeply through the sentence. We all burst out laughing, and I trace my finger over the slight blush on his cheeks.

"Are you embarrassed pretty boy?" I tease, and he slaps my side lightly before turning to look at Lauren, holding out his hand.

"Give it back Lauren."

"I thought you were too dumb to notice." She grins, handing back the plate with a slightly miffed expression.

"Never." He says, taking back his food and looking at me through the corner of my eye. I blush.

After a while of more casual conversation, everyone leaves the table because they've finished eating. John and I have forever been the slowest eaters, and all the others used to whine at us because they wanted dessert but we we weren't finished dinner. I smile just thinking about it.

We sit there in silence, just eating. Mer and Mom are watching TV in the next room, and Lauren and Maddie have gone downstairs. Darian, weird as it is, is doing the dishes.

Johnny gets up, having finished dinner, which pulls me out of my reverie and reminds me I'm finished too. We discretely add our plates to the pile of dished that Darian's washing and run downstairs; trying not to laugh. When I reach my room, we really do start to giggle.

Breathlessly and cheeks red from suppressed laughter, he then says "You've changed."

I frown, but it turns into a smile at his next comment.

"It looks really nice."

Slipping away, he walks across the hall and shuts his bedroom door behind him. My smile becomes greater when he disappears, and I lean against the door with a blush now gracing my cheeks.

Well that was a good end to a good night.

•••

[1114 words]

I hoped you liked chapter number two! Keep voting please, it means a lot to me :)

*edited