The Bet

Meet the Family

After sitting in the steaming hot bath tub for over an hour, drinking a cup of hot green tea and watching t.v, I felt like a new person. Although, the bathtub was getting cold and my knees and chin hurt, I was ready to try at another job, o.k., I was almost ready. All I needed to get ready was a good nights sleep and another cup of tea, and oh, of course, some dessert.

My dad was already sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper with his glasses barely hanging on the bridge of his nose, when I headed to the freezer for cookies. "Hello daughter," he said without glancing up from the newspaper. My dad writes a column in the Sunday paper about sports and the scores and players and all the big juicy sports news. People love his wicked sense of humor combined with his love and devotion to sports. I've heard people say he's never gotten a fact wrong.

Every Sunday night my dad tries to get us three girls to watch the football game, but we always find a way out of it, so he is left alone lying on the couch. Sometimes I wonder if he'd prefer a son instead of me to share his love of sports with him. But I've had this conversation with him and he assures me he loves me for whom I am and that he's blessed to have a girl like me to torture into watching sports,( note the sarcasm there.) My father is a real jokester, bothering my sister and myself. But we love him, seriously what's the fun in a mean, old, serious dad.

"Hi father," I said back to him.

"What ya look'n for?" He asked.

"Just maybe, possibly cookies," I answered suspiciously.

"Ooh I'm telling mom," he joked with me.

"Vicky," he called out very quietly, not loud enough for my mom to actually hear, by the way Vicky was my mom's name. "You're daughter's sneaking cookies," he said as if telling on me, but my mom couldn't hear. I just gave a very teenage eye roll and headed to the freezer, I was use to his joking by now, and by now I mean my whole life. "That's my teenager," my dad laughed about my eye roll.

After I settled down with some delicious frozen cookies and milk, mom walked in. "Why didn't you invite a friend to come over like Caroline, you know we're not doing anything tonight. You're friends are always welcome, especially Katy, maybe she could help you with your little bet, which I am so against, but as long as as it pushes you to challenge yourself I'm fine with it.

My mom always seems to have a lot on her mind to talk about. Sometimes she just says so many sentences at a time that there is no room for a comment. She is very talkative and likes attention, so I know she got in trouble in school, even if she likes to leave out that part.

"Sorry mom, I just want to figure this whole bet thing out on my own and just have a little time to myself, I said as an excuse not to invite a friend over. "Alright sweetie," she said as she kissed the top of my forehead and left the room holding a fizzy drink.

Another thing about Caroline is that she has a best friend, Lizzy, that is so close she is practically family. She has problems at home so she goes with us every where. Lizzy even sleeps at are house at least twice a week and has a key to our house so she can let herself in anytime. My mom feels really bad for her so she'll do anything to make her happy.

The only problem is Lizzy and Caroline are practically twins. There both mean, gossip loving, self-obsessed popular girls who are my older sister and get to boss me around. They spend hours in Caroline's room posting videos and texting on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and really everything. They have a lot of posting and updating status to be done. But that part about them I don't mind as much because I don't have to deal with them. They are always trying to fix me when moms not home. They say there trying to help me, by making me prettier, and by boosting my popularity up a whole new level. They put new outfits on me and make-up and model it to see if it looks good so they can wear it.

I would have to say I'm in between tomboy and girly-girl, so I don't mind it too much, part of me likes it, but I act grumpy to hide it otherwise they'd use me more often.

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The next morning I got up and posted flyers around the neighborhood advertising my new dog walking service. Right as I settled back on my couch I received a phone call. I wanted to sound professional, since you know.., I run my own business now.

"Hello, this is Lea's dog walking service. How may I help you?"

"Hi my name is Marie," she informed me. "I have three dogs: a beagle, golden retriever, and schnauzer. I need you to walk them now and tonight at six sharp."

"Okay, you're total is twenty dollars. It's three dollars for each small dog and four dollars for each large dog," I told her so she knew I was charging her right. I scribbled down her name address, dogs, money total, phone number, and time in my appointment/scheduling notebook. She continued to tell me her address and I walked over.

A/N: Sorry the update took so long I've been so busy, but I' love writing and will continue to write this book for fun and writing practice. If you have any thoughts please comment, I would love some input. I hope you have enjoyed this story so far and thank you for taking the time to read it. By the way you should also take a look at Being_Zero's story which is really good!!!

Keep reading and writing my lovely Wattpaders.