Abnormal

Chapter 6

The last textbook slammed shut and I was finally done with the school year. Summer was here at last, and I couldn't believe I would get to spend it on something other than rummaging through piles of homework. I didn't exactly have a plan for how I would use my newfound freedom, but surely anything would be better than school. Free at last, I jumped out of my seat, put on some flipflops, and headed outside into the eighty-something degree sunny day. 

But before I had even run off of the porch, the dreaded voice called out to me. "Where you going, Vivvie?" she said.

"Nowhere, Jo. Just wanted to be outside for a while." I said.

"I want to be outside too," she said.

"Don't you have something to do other than follow me around?" I asked.

"I can be wherever I want to be!" she said.

So much for freedom. I was free from books, but I'd never be free from the whining Jo. 

"Go find something to do, Jo," I said.

"No! I don't want to!" she said.

"Well, you could at least stop bothering me!" I said. 

"I'm not doing anything to you! You're mean!" she said.

"I'm not mean, I've been doing school for months on end and now I want to enjoy my break without a little pest following me!" I said.

"I'm telling Mom!" she said. 

"I don't care!" I said. 

With that, she went inside and slammed the door. I didn't have my helmet or the proper shoes, but I just couldn't stand being around that nuisance any longer, so I grabbed my bike and rode off down the main road, away from the town. It was hot out today, but I couldn't go back now. Once I had set my foot out of the yard, it normally meant I needed some time to stay out of the yard so that when I did return, I could return in a better state of mind. Today, I was agitated and I needed some space to myself without people to annoy me. Where could I go where no one would annoy me? There wasn't one particular destination I normally went to. I just kept going and going, until I didn't need to go anymore. 

  I didn't always ride away from my problems. Sometimes I just endured them, and other times I walked away from them. But even when I found a way to escape, I knew the escape was only temporary. Sometime I would have to go back home and face the monster under my roof. Sometime I would have to return and face myself. 

That time hadn't come yet, though, on this particular trip. I estimated I had about two more miles to go before I would be ready to turn around. So, sweaty and parched, I pedaled on, following the path of the road through the fields surrounding me. The sky was that wonderful dreamy summer light turquoise, branded with clouds like stretched out cotton candy.

Out about half a mile ahead, a woman with a wide-brimmed sunhat mowed her grass. I didn't mind the smell of the grass itself so much as the smell of the gasoline burning mower, which only got worse as I came nearer. It was a risky move, turning at the next road that came up, but I made it anyway to avoid the smell. This road was one I'd never been on before. Sunflowers bloomed up on the sides of it, waving at me in the slight bit of wind that now cooled me. Someone must have planted them there. Perhaps they too had an annoying sister and needed something happy in their day. 

I rode on through the desolate street, with houses scattered far apart at first. The ones I did see were just farmhouses, similar to mine, with white paint and black shutters and occasionally a colored shiny tin roof, sitting there complacently in the sun as they'd done for perhaps a hundred years or so before then. Some had flowers in the beds up in front of them; sometimes a garden of tomato plants behind. They were few and far between, the houses, but they seemed to stretch on forever. I forgot about time as I kept riding down that street on this lazy humid day. 

A monster [type of dog] awoke from its nap on a porch, descended, and came running at me. The yard was big, but it was fast, and I wasn't close enough to pass the house before the dog would reach more nor far enough to turn back and escape that way. So I did the only thing I knew to do, I shrieked as the creature bolted for me. It would be upon me in the blink of an eye, my fate was sealed: three, two, one...