"What the heck?" I spoke to the empty room. Something was going on, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what it was. Banging rang through our house like someone was taking a giant hammer to the room. I vibrated in the air, making my head swirl around like a toilet's water flushing. Weird comparison, but true.
I scampered out, holding my hands over my ears. They nestled nicely into my plain brown hair, and I took a firm grip on it. It was early in the morning, but not too early. I was up and changing already. Being interrupted during that process really didn't do much for me. I was wearing the school skirt and my socks, but with no shoes. On top I had a fuzzy hand-me-down from Luna, who ran a size bigger than me in everything. It was very handy. The shirt wasn't my kind of thing, but a shirt's a shirt. Fluffy balls of pink fabric were attached every few inches to the royal purple felt. I could feel that my hair was a crow's nest, greasy and haystack-like.
"What is happening? What are you crazy people doing?" I screamed into the air.
"We're not doing anything honey." My mother replied sedately, almost certainly from in front of the television. I ran down the hall, bare feet uncomfortably sensitive to the freezing wood, and entered the kitchen. I was right in my assumption. My whole family was actually there.
"Come join us sugar." My dad nearly pleaded. Once it had become pronounced how different I was from them, he had been trying to bring my closer into the family circle. His gave me his best puppy-dog imitation, widening his brown eyes and pouting with his thin red lips. It was completely stupid looking for a grown man to be doing. His nose was rather too large for his face, and hung off like a beak. Though he was, surprisingly, only slightly overweight.
"You know that I only watch TV on weekends. And I have to get to school early today to prepare for the exams." There was indeed standardised testing on our planet, though I was pretty sure that they didn't actually review it. In third grade William and I had foolishly decided to examine that idea. We wrote potty words all over every page, and there had never been any retaliation. Our teachers had been angry with us, but that was normal. It wasn't for anything in particular as far as we could tell.
I made the rules in my family. Some might even say that I wore the pants in this household. But that is totally sexist, so I wouldn't tolerate it.
"So, what is that noise?" I demanded, wincing as a new bang knocked my brain out of my ears.
"I'm not sure."
"You haven't even bothered to look for the source of a loud noise that is shaking our home?"
"Is that a criticism young lady?" My father was suddenly stern, daring me with his eyes to say yes.
"Indeed, it is." I defied him. He was left speechless, and sat there for a while staring at me. I suppose that he was attempting to think of a punishment for me. But his normal one, taking away the television, would have absolutely no affect on my life. I could see the wheels spinning. All he knew how to do was take things away, and there was nothing that I had to really take away from me. If he took the contents of my room, he wouldn't get any luxuries. He would just leave me without furniture or clothes. Both of those would embarrass him more than me too. And I had grown out of my rusty bike years ago. The only thing left to take away was privileges. And he couldn't exactly take away my right to look out the window, or go to school. But when I saw his eyes light up, I knew he'd come up with some moronic idea.
"You're not allowed to wear those new shoes of yours. For a whole month!" I sighed, trying to portray defeat, so that he wouldn't try anything more. With a victorious smile, he turned back to the commercial for a cell phone network. As soon as he turned, I grabbed back my stolen grin.
YOU ARE READING
Different Planets (ON HOLD)
Science FictionMy brother and I are writing this together; I'm writing Anna's part and he's writing William's. Anyways, William and Anna have been best friends their whole life. Then William's parents pick up and move to a whole other planet. They're devastated an...