Diane Young [Camp NaNoWriMo July 2014]

Diane Young [11]

11

The first person that I notice is his mother - or who I'm hoping to be his mother. She had pretty green eyes and a pointy nose that stood out on her face. Her lips were bright pink and upturned into a smile aimed in my direction. She was shorter than I had anticipated, considering Elijah's galloping height.

The man stood next to her had dark hair and similar coloured eyes to Elijah, so I guessed that he was his father. He was very tall and was staring at me with curiosity. The last person, a girl around our age, was practically the carbon copy of him. I figured they must've been twins. She was also short, however, and her hair was a slightly darker shade of brown.

"Mommy West, Father West, insipid Ruth West, this is Diane Young, but call her Diane." He introduced.

"Hi, Diane!" His mother said. "Welcome to our house across the pond!"

"Did you just call me bland?" Ruth snapped.

His dad gave me a very bright smile and then left the room. I noticed he had a paintbrush in his hands. Elijah put his hands on my shoulders and started to steer me away, but then we were ambushed by his mother and sister.

"Is she staying for dinner?"

"Probably. Mommy, do we have any strawberry related things at home? Diane Young eats strawberries like no man's business."

"We do! We do!" His mother pumped her fists in the air and then rushed towards the direction of the kitchen.

"So she's the punny one, yeah?" Ruth asked, waggling her eyebrows. "Where are you taking her to then?"

"To see Dukerella, of course. Get out of my way, insipid Ruth West."

At the mention of Duke, my ears perked up and I peered around the apartment nosily looking for him.

"You're vapid, Elijah West."

He gasped loudly and then removed his hands from my shoulders, to place them on his hips. "How dare you call me something as horrendous as vapid?!"

They argued for a bit, their voice volume decreasing as they exchanged insults. I stood around not knowing what to do with myself before backing away into the living room.

The walls were half painted, and soft rock music was coming from a radio on the side. His dad was painting a big blue flower on one of the plain white walls. He saw me coming in and smiled once more.

"Hi, Diane, wasn't it?" He said, turning back to his flower. I recognised it as a pink Amaryllis flower. It was an amazing painting, really, he captured all the small highlights in what he had painted so far.

"Hello Mr West." He made a face.

"Call me Kurt. Mr West makes me sound like I'm Kanye."

Elijah West slid into the room via his socks. "There you are, Diane Young! I hope Father West over here wasn't telling you to call him Kurt. His name's Benjamin."

I saw Mr West start to frown. "And it could've worked so well.." He muttered.

Once again, he started to steer me away, this time into the kitchen where his mother was washing some strawberries. His sister was sitting down on the dining table in the corner, typing away on a laptop. Elijah and I sat with her.

"I didn't know you had a twin." I stated.

"You didn't ask me to tell you if I had a twin or not." He said.

"Why wouldn't you tell her you had a twin any way?" Ruth asked him, not looking up from the laptop.

"Just because. I don't go around disclosing information about myself all winny ninny." He grabbed at his hair as if he were looking for Duke, and once he remembered he wasn't in his hair, he stood up and ran to get him.