Chapter 1: Panic! At the Disco
*Alice's POV*
"Ali, can I borrow some money?" asked Louis, taking a seat beside me on our mum's white leather couch.
I've always wondered why my mum bought white leather couches. She has a family of ten and we're not the most pristine people you could meet. I mean, I am; but that's only because of my slight OCD.
Louis is probably the messiest out of all of us. He's constantly trailing mud and sweat through the house and I just can't stand it. The smell, the colour; it just disturbs me in every way possible. I like being clean and germ free at all times. Louis, on the other hand, just doesn't bow down to the rules of basic hygiene.
Lottie isn't exactly messy or dirty but she's pretty and popular and she bows down to the rules of fashion and beauty. This means make-up, fake tan and nail polish. It gets everywhere. Fake tan is constantly leaving an orange glow to the floor of the shower and it leaves stains on every clean surface. Including mum's white leather couches.
Fizzy is actually quite clean. She doesn't wear too much make-up and hardly ever covers herself in bottled tan but she's quite clumsy. This means spilt drinks and toppled over bowls of cereal on a daily basis. I can't really blame her for these things, seeing as she doesn't mean for them to happen and unlike her two older siblings; she apologises when they do.
Daisy and Phoebe, like Fizzy, are quite neat and tidy. They try and keep everything where they're meant to be and they always tidy up after playing. Unfortunately, they're terrible at choosing suitable locations for their activities. For example, they play on their iPods when they're in the bath and they do arts and crafts on the WHITE LEATHER COUCHES. Now, I know I can't exactly give out to them. They're only nine and they're too young to know any better. But it's quite hard to contain myself when they lean their paper on the white leather and don't just colour outside the lines, but outside the paper.
Then there's Doris and Earnest. They're not even a year old so they definitely can't help anything they do but they're babies. And I have a theory that "baby" means "atrociously messy being" in some ancient language. They spit up and they dribble and they stink and I can't deal with it sometimes.
Don't get me wrong, I love my family but they just don't know how to be clean. My mum tries her hardest and my dad did too when he lived with us. A while after they got their divorce my mum met Dan and he's great. He completely understands my need to be clean and respects all of my choices.
Mum has really been a great help over the years, always helping me remove stains and mop up spills. She has also taught me that it's not completely necessary to wash my hands every time I happen to touch another person. I hardly do that at all anymore. I don't have tantrums or cry or scream at people anymore. It just makes me a little uncomfortable when ever anything isn't clean or orderly. I choose to suffer in silence nowadays.
"Why?" I asked, placing my book mark between the pages of my battered copy of "One Day" and put it on the coffee table. I felt like Louis' sudden need for money would have something to do with an ingenious plan of his that I was going to hate.
"I need to buy food." He explained, scratching the back of his neck. He tends to do that when he's nervous. He must know that I'm not going to like this plan of his.
"For?"
"A little get together I'm hosting tonight."
Oh, no. A party. He couldn't be serious could he? Not after last time.
"Louis, no, not another party." I complained, flopping back onto the couch and placing my hands over my eyes. I very nearly exploded during his last party. There was just too many people and too many drink spillages and too much pounding in my head and not enough Ben and Jerry's. Ben and Jerry's is like heaven in a tub. It makes everything better.
