Quiet As A Mouse (Outsiders Fanfic)

Chapter 2- The Matthews' House

        I re-shouldered my duffel bag and followed Kayla up to her room, taking in the whole house along the way. 

        Downstairs there was a narrow room towards the front of the house that served as the kitchen/dining room, and then there was the living room, and the bathroom with the stairs in between and a small hallway behind the stairs that led to Aunt Kat's room.  And upstairs there was a small narrow hallway and two tiny bedrooms that were Two-Bit's and Kayla's. 

        It was small, and very messy.  There were clothes and toys and dishes and garbage covering the floor and the kitchen table and the chairs and most of the furniture in the living room except for a random section of the couch and one of the armchairs where someone had dumped the contents onto the floor in order to sit down.

        I didn't mind the messy house, mine had always been clean though, but anything different than my old home was good right now.  We went up the creaky stairs and turned down the narrow hallway at the top to the right. Kayla pushed open the door to her room, and I glanced around.

        The walls were a faded light pink, covered in water stains and cracks in the plaster that were covered up by a bunch of colorful pictures, ranging from senseless scribbles to stick figures to scenes of flowers and houses and smiling sunshine's.  The carpet was gray and so worn it felt like a hardwood floor beneath my feet.  There's one window in the room that has no curtains, but at least it's whole, not like the one downstairs in the kitchen that had no glass in it and was covered in boards on the outside and cardboard on the inside to keep in heat.

        There was very little furniture in Kayla's bedroom too.  She had a four poster canopy bed, without the canopy, and the bed was barely visible under all of her stuffed animals and blankets and clothes.  Her bed was on one side of the window and there was another bed on the other side.  It was just a box spring and a mattress, but it was neatly made up with a pillow and a few warm-looking blankets.  The only other piece of furniture in the room was a table, covered in paper and crayons and half finished pictures.  Under the table was a nearly empty cardboard box filled with an assortment of toys and games.

        The only other thing in the room was a small closet, with no door, that had maybe four outfits total hung up, and a single pair of shoes on the floor.

        I sat down on the edge of my bed, and Kayla was still bouncing up and down in front of me.  That girl had so much energy it was unbelievable.

        "Do you like my room?" she asks with a cheery grin, just like Two-Bit's.

        I grabbed a picture off of her table and a green crayon, flipping the picture over and writing on the back, 'Yes, thanks." and then smiled at her. 

        "I knew you would!" Kayla replies, beaming at me, her cheeks turning into two big dimples.  Then she began introducing me to all her stuffed animals, and I couldn't help but smile at their cute names, like Fluffles, Roberto, and Candy Corn.

        One thing you might want to know about me, if you can't tell by the fact that I write notes instead of opening my mouth, is that I can't talk.  I'm mute, and I have been for a couple of years now.  No one knows what happened, even the three different psychologists my grandma made me see before she died and I came to live with my aunt and cousins.

        It all started with Him, but I'd rather not think about that.  Ever.