Emma: Seventh Grade

Chapter 38: Deadly Mistake

Emma sat at the kitchen table with a knife in her hand, trying to open her new ombre hair kit she had received from her aunt and uncle as a Christmas gift. Holding the brightly-colored cardboard box tightly against her chest, she carefully sliced the blade through the tape that was holding the box together. After sliding the contents of the box out onto the table, which consisted of three different colors of hair chalk, a spray bottle, and a mirror, she sighed as she realized that every single item was covered in plastic wrap.

After Emma started feeling better, the family had gathered by the Christmas tree in the living room to open each other's gifts. Along with the hair kit, Macie and Jack had given her a new set of clothes, a couple of movies, and a manicure kit. From her mom, Emma had received a couple gift cards for the mall, so she and her friends could go shopping there.

The gift opening had gone relatively uneventful, except for Catie and Ramsey's boisterous yells. They continued to be loud and obnoxious in spite of Emma casting angry glares at them across the room, and because of that, she had developed a painful headache. But hopefully they would leave her alone for a while, since they got new toys, so Emma could color her hair in peace. 

Emma wandered around in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers until she found a scissors. Carefully picking it up, she carried it back to the kitchen table and started cutting open all the little packages of hair chalk, one by one.

Just then, a chubby hand reached over and briskly grabbed all the hair chalk away from Emma's reach. To Emma's disgust, she turned around and saw Ramsey holding them above his head and snickering mischievously. "Come and get it!" he laughed as he started running in the other direction.

"Ramsey!" Emma yelled, jumping up from her chair and chasing after her cousin. "Give me those!" She chased Ramsey out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bathroom, where she found him holding the hair chalk above the open toilet, a huge grin spread across his chubby face. "Ramseyyy!!!" Emma screamed at the top of her lungs. "Don't you fucking dare!!! Give those back to me right now!!!!" She reached up towards the hair chalk, but Ramsey was several inches taller than Emma and was able to hold them just out of her reach.

"Emma! Quit that screaming!" Emma's mom called from the living room. Her voice, which sounded perfectly happy moments ago while visiting with Jack and Macie, now sounded annoyed and upset.

"Oh! Ya hear that, buttface?" Ramsey snickered. "You're in big truh-ble!" With the hand that was clutching the hair chalk, he made a downward jerking motion towards the toilet, making Emma think that he was dropping them in there.

"I said DON'T!!!!" Emma screamed instinctively, grabbing around Ramsey's wrist and trying to pry his hand open with her fingernails. "Give those back to me!!!"

"Emma!" Her mom yelled again. "What did I tell you about screaming?!"

"Ramsey's trying to throw my hair chalk in the toilet!!!" Emma retorted as Ramsey yanked his hand out of her grip and took off running. Emma chased him out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into the living room, where the adults were busy picking up the wrapping paper and packaging that was scattered everywhere.

With an evil grin spreading across his face, Ramsey effortlessly tossed the three hair chalk pieces behind the Christmas tree. "Go and get 'em, buttface!" he laughed.

"Mom!" Emma yelled, hoping for a bit of support from the adults. "See what he did? Make him stop!"

"Calm down, Emma," Uncle Jack replied nonchalantly as he bent down to pick up an empty gift bag by his feet. "Ramsey's just playing with ya."

"Yeah, that's just the way he is," Aunt Macie added, holding open a big, black garbage bag full of crumpled up wrapping paper. "He didn't mean any harm."