Never Been Kissed

- THIRTEEN -

                                                            -• THIRTEEN •-

Opal spun around in her floral party dress, holding onto her hat as she twirled in the grass on the front lawn.

“—no one comes in,” mom continued to rattle off baseless instructions to me as if I couldn’t be trusted alone. “Don’t you dare leave the house. No loud music; you know how Ms. Perkins hates it. I won’t have her going to the Neighbors’ Guild again and filing a complaint. Don’t mess up the house, I just cleaned it—”

I rolled my eyes. “Mom, relax. How many times have you recited these same instructions to me during my life? I could recite them off the top of my head and you still wouldn’t be happy, you know that?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just making sure you’re following my rules Amber. There’s leftover lasagna from last night if you get hungry. I’ll be home around six.”

I nodded, reaching for the door.

Mom stepped off the stoop, and then suddenly turned to me. “Don’t you forget what I said Amber Montgomery.”

I nodded, raising my hand to my forehead to salute and offering a stomp. “Sir, yes sir!”

She rolled her eyes at me before she turned to my little sister. “Come on Opal,”

“Yay!” the child screamed, racing excitedly across the green grass to mom’s car.

One of Opal’s annoying friends from swimming lessons had invited her to a tea party, and Opal was excited, because she’d never been to one before. She’d spent hours looking through all her storybooks at what those little English children wore to have tea. She arranged her stuffed animals on the floor with my old china set, pouring water into their cups and pretending to speak in a British accent. She was even wearing gloves! My sister was nothing if not thorough.

They waved at me as the car pulled out of the driveway and onto the curb, before it quickly sped away, off to fruit juice in tea cups.

I closed the front door and raced to the kitchen.

Mom was gone. This meant that the pantry was mine to reign without her critical eye. I was going to eat as much junk food as my stomach could hold and laze around in front of the TV watching nature shows (I was a geek, anyway).

I grabbed a giant bag of corn chips and cheese dip from the fridge before I raced to the family room, pouncing on the couch in a comfortable position and turning on the TV. I immediately switched to the nature channel. There was a marathon on today about African animals and I wasn’t going to miss it.

I settled in to watch the documentary, slowly dipping my corn chips into the cheese dip with fascination as a cheetah leapt across my screen in a flashing blur of exotic tan and black.

“The cheetah, is no doubt one of the biggest felines after the lion inhabiting parts of Africa...”

The doorbell rang.

I groaned and pretended not to hear it, sinking further down into the comfortable couch cushions. I wonder who that could be. The doorbell buzzed again, echoing through the entire house. This person was persistent. Why wasn’t he or she gone after assuming like most normal people that no one was home?

When the doorbell rang for the fifth time was when I sprung up off the couch, disgruntled that I’d been interrupted. I stomped into the foyer and viciously pulled open the front door, greatly intending to lash out at whoever dared to darken the front step with their presence.