Broken (temporary title)

Chapter 3

The chocolate is rich, and there's creamy mint filling inside. I'll try and get a piece into Striker's mouth; maybe the stench of alcohol could subside a bit. I doubt it, but it's worth a try.

The grocery owner was strangely sad today. Gave us several apples and a cereal box. We still have fifty cents left, in total from the dollar I found in the morning and the seven we got for for unpacking around isles B an and J. It wasn't much of a delivery this time. Just soaps, cigarettes, some yarn kit thing for making hats, and some other thing. I don't know, and I don't really care. Boxes are boxes, chores are chores, payment is payment. Frankly, if doesn't matter what's in the boxes. I don't give a damn what they sell, so long as we're paid for out work. Which we are, so I don't know why I'm even doing as much as giving this thought.

When we come home, I give the money left over to Dad. Well, not to him directly, but I put it away in our room for him. Actually, not directly for him. For bottles.

"Well, look who it is! Savnanna and Saharhar!" Striker songs when we enter.

"Shut up, you're drunk," I tell him with a slight smile. He called us that way back when we were toddlers. Nice he still remembers, even if he is drunk.

He holds his bottle shakily over his head and says in a deep voice, "Aren't I... Striking?"

Sahara lets out a little, "Nope!" and laughs. Just like she did when she was two.

Hopefully, if we get him cleaned up and sober, he'll be striking enough to get a girlfriend. A good one, a girl he can marry. A girl he can marry soon. There's a chance we'd be able to make up for some or he years we lost, the happiness that went with them. I doubt it, but there's a chance.

"Sahara, I need to go. We're running out of bottles," I say and point to Dad, who's out on the floor, pools of vomit near his face, tears drying under his eyes, which are nothing but the dark shadows, threatening to take over the rest of his body as well.

Sahara nods, and I leave. There's a little place a few miles down. It's on the opposite route of the little grocery, and it's like a market. I know an elderly couple that sell different drinks, Maya and Lou.

Sure enough, when I get there, Lou is standing with an old box of liquors in his arms. I but a few and browse through the stuff the others are selling. There are other elderly couples and a lot of poor adults selling items like old clothing and dishes.

I buy an old cotton sweater from a kind old woman named Winifred. It's worn-off red and has a hole in one of the sleeves, but it's warm and better than most of the other clothing. I thank Winifred and start to make an exit when I catch a tall, young girl's eye as I turn. She glares at me, then heads my way. Up close, she looks maybe sixteen or seventeen years old.

"Hey," she says in a low voice, frowning. She's dressed in nice clothes, and her dark hair is flowing, every strand neat and flawless. I feel somewhat self-conscious now, and O cross my arms over my navy-blue jacket, which is torn and dusty. "Do I know you?" The girl asks, squinting her eyes. They're a vibrant blue, even brighter against her olive skin.

I shrug and try to exit once more, but she stops me. She snatches a few strands of my hair, observing them carefully. My hair is dirty and looks dark brown, but if I had the chance to wash my hair, it would be the color of sand.

She frowns again. "You're... What's your name?"

I shrug and turn the other way. I'm not one for conversation.

"So...?" The girl asks impatiently, stroking the ends of her perfectly straight black hair. I shrug for the third time, making her scowl harder. "Damn, who are you?!" She shouts. "Stop shrugging and answer me!"

I don't even pause to think. The first name that rolls onto my tongue makes its way to the tip and jumps out of my mouth. "Mary," I blurt.

"Mary what?" She stands there, waiting, an annoyed scowl playing on her lips. I hate her. Is like to slap that look right off her. She has no right to judge me. I hate judgment. I didn't come to be judged. I came to buy alcohol.

"Mary Arnolds," I spit.

"Do you have a sister?"

Now having suspicions, I shake my was no.

"A brother?"

I think about it and nod. "Daniel. Daniel Arnold's. He's seven." I think of anything else to say, but figure to leave well enough alone. "I need to go." I turn and finally run off.

If she's some stalker or serial killer, then the more I confused her, the better.

About half-way home, I drop one of the bottles. It crashes to the ground, half of it spilling rather quickly. I paid good money it and I won't let it go down the drain (or, in this case, the dirt) just like that, so I pick up the bottom half of the bottle and pour the remaining liquid into my mouth. I was thirsty anyway.

Thirsty for fire, actually, considering how much my throat burns from the alcohol.

I catch myself subconsciously opening another bottle and gulping it down, but at this point I'm too into it to stop myself. In fact, by the time I each the tall field of familiar dead grass, two bottles out of the twelve I bought are still full and sealed, my mouth is on fire, I'm dizzy as fuck, and I've vomited five times. I lie down in the part of the grass where I fed the chicken this morning, where Striker usually sleeps during the day when Dad takes the hammock.

I puke a few more times, hard, then have a massive headache and pass out. When I wake up, Striker is blabbing to himself next to me, drunk and half asleep. Sahara's on my other side, reading an old math book I bought from a boy a few years ago at the market. It's an elementary school book, and in July we'll be thirteen, but it's the best we've got. I think it's a miracle we can still read. Our school is awful. We never actually learn anything, thanks to the pigs we call our classmates and the lousy teachers.

I sit upright and watch Sahara for a few minutes. Striker is murmuring something about whistles, and I can hear Dad's faint cries coming from the trailer.

"Gimme that," I finally say after watching Sahara's bemused, scrunched-up face staring into the book. She hands it over gently, but I snatch it, surprised by my force. I stare at the book and throw it back at her, missing by a few feet at least.

"It's a square," I announce grouchily, trying to draw the shape in the dirt. I realize I'm shaking, and so is the thing I drew.

Sahara's woozy voice reaches me. "Vanna, that's the back cover," she says slowly. "... The back, blank cover."

I ignore her, perplexed by the "square" in the dirt. I try to finish it, but there's a sharp pain in the back of my head. Or, at least, I think it's the back. Back. Back. Back. Back back back back back back back back back back backbackbackbackbackbackbackback. It's a funny word...

The square is dancing now, unfinished, screaming. It's screaming at me, at Striker, at Sahara, at Dad, at Mom, at the fucking chicken, at everybody! My hand drops and I hear a noise as my head swings back. I don't know what happens after that. I'm too busy passing out.