The Devil Child

Chapter Sixty

 Doing art without her parents finding out was harder than Polly thought it would be. She had no privacy, and nowhere to hide her art. If she tried to sketch, someone was bothering her, and she was afraid of her parents finding her art things and throwing them out.

She needed an alliance, and she needed one fast. However, the only people she knew were her siblings, and Alex.

Her eyes lit up. Alex. She didn't like him, nor was she interested in who he was as a person, but he was her escape. The only way to get out her house and out from under her mother's thumb.

She stuffed her art supplies in the plastic bag they came in, but she wondered how she was going to get out of the house with them. She'd come home with no adult in sight, so bringing the supplies in was easy.

Getting them out was harder.

Downstairs, she eased open a window, took out the screen, and dropped the bag out. She was silent, praying her mom didn't walk in. Her dad was at work; he wasn't an issue. Her mother, however, was more noisy.

After wrangling the screen back in the window, she closed it then approached her mother in the kitchen, where she was cooking something in the oven. Her mother looked like any other ordinary mother when she cooked, but Polly knew better than to trust the illusion.

"Mom."

Her mother spin, startled. "Polly, what? I'm cooking." Even those words sounded accusatory, like Polly was up to no good. Like she was the devil child her mother always painted her as. If she were weaker, she'd begin to believe that perhaps she was a devil child. Completely evil, to the core.

"Is there anyway you can ask Alex if he wants to... hang out today?" By hang out, Polly was hoping he'd let her draw at his house. As far as she was concerned, Alex didn't care about her wellbeing at all, or who she was. He knew she was gay. He wasn't interested in her. There was no reason to pretend to actually like him.

It was getting her parents off of her case that she was interested in.

Her mother smiled, clearly pleased. "Let me call him! Go put something nice on!"

Polly looked down at the dress her mother had given her this morning. It was considered 'nice' in Polly's book, but she was going to argue. Not after her mom was about to help her achieve her goal of practicing the art of her story.

When she returned to the kitchen, she wore a new dress, a frilly blue thing, and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, high on her head.

Her mother smiled her approval. "He'll be here in a little bit. Let me get you something for that outfit."

Like what? Polly wanted to ask, but she held her tongue as her mother disappeared into the bathroom, reemerging with a blue headband. Of course; accessories meant everything. Polly wanted to tell her mother that dressing up like a doll wasn't going to make Alex like her, and it wasn't going to make her like Alex.

Her mother messed around with the dress collar, then she took a step back and smiled, really smiled, and clapped her hands. She was happy in that moment, seeing her daughter dressed like she thought little girls should always be dressed.

"You're such a pretty girl."

Polly's cheeks reddened, and she hated that. She hated that she like her mother's praise. A few days in this house and she was already becoming someone else, someone to please her parents. She told herself it was all for the game, but even then she didn't feel like it was a rational reason to act like she was.