A Truelove of Turtle Doves

Chpt 2 - Mainly Friends

I was grounded for a week.

After receiving the cane.

Personally, I think my father had a bit too much fun with the cane. Although, my sarcastic comments probably didn't help my cause.

I was lucky that Josephine and Lauren are the best persuasive conversationalists I have ever met. They brought my grounded time down from a month to a week, which is very impressive, considering my parents, after making a decision, are about as movable as a stone wall. Well, when I talk to them. Clearly not when anyone else does.

Since I was confined to my room for a week, I had plenty of time to sketch. If I got bored of that, there was enough room in my room to do a few small laps.

It was modest, compared to the rooms my parents and the Hardinge's had. The walls were a beige colour, with dark beige patterns running over them, the ceiling was white, and the floor was a dark wood. A king size bed was up against the wall on the left, the headboard against the wall, with plain (Favourite/Colour) drapes hanging over the top of it like a canopy. The bedspread matched the drapes. There was a large mahogany chest of draws against the wall next to the door on the left, an empty glass vase and a range of candles sitting atop it.

On the right side of the room, in the farthest corner was my desk, made of the same wood as the draws and the bed, with pencils and sketchpads, watercolour palettes and paintbrushes, half finished art pieces and glasses of paint water. In the middle of the right hand wall was a massive fireplace, with pictures of Greek and Roman mythology carved into the wood. Candles sat atop it, and an ornately decorated mirror hung on the wall above it. It wasn't lit. Frankly, I wasn't sure why it was there. We only ever stayed in the house in summer, so fireplaces were unnecessary. I liked the carvings though, so I suppose I wasn't too bothered.

Closest to the door was a wardrobe, which is were all of my finest clothes were stored. They also happened to be my least favourite, so as I result, I generally avoided going near it. A finely made, circular rug of (F/C)'s and (2nd/F/C)'s sat in the middle of the room.

And then there was the window seat. My room had one, rather large window right in the centre of the back wall, and two smaller ones on either side. If you walked through the door, into my room, you would enter and be facing the large window, perfectly in line. In front of this large window, was a window seat that was large enough to double as a single bed. It was piled with blankets and pillows, and offered the perfect view out onto the town, the port and the sea beyond. It was probably one of my favourite places, and was much better for drawing, rather than sitting at my desk and craning my neck awkwardly out of the smaller window on the right.

That was where I spent most of my week. Sitting, staring, and drawing. My main focus was the pirate ship. Unfortunately, at this distance, I couldn't get a good close up of it, even if I sat on the window ledge outside (which I tried, and narrowly missed getting caught).

Lucky for me, then, my grounding ended sooner than I had anticipated since the week passed surprisingly quickly. Usually, it would feel like an eternity.

While I was sitting at my desk, staring rather pointlessly out of the window (I had been drawing, but there was only so much drawing you could do for 7 days straight before you lost your mind), I heard voices approaching my door. At first, I'd expected to see my parents walk in and give me a scolding about something - it was incredibly like them to find something to blame on me, even if I hadn't been present for said event. They once claimed that I burnt part of the kitchen down. I had been at a friend's house. My friend's mother had backed me up. I was also 9.

However, it soon turned out that it was not my parents (thank any and all lords above), but Josephine and Lauren. With the way that Lauren threw the door open and how Josephine practically screeched about the state of my room (it's seems I had become very disorganised in the past week), it really couldn't have been anyone else.