Anne

Prologue

    "Are we there yet?" My little sister whines as she gazes out the window as if she was in a sad music video, watching the buildings and trees speed by as our mom drives us to our favorite place: the outlet mall. Her friend's birthday party is later this afternoon, and this morning she had torn her closet to shreds, declared she had nothing suitable to wear, and begged Mom to take her to get a new dress.

     "Not yet," I say. "We will be there in about fifteen minutes."

     She groans dramatically. "Anne, we got in the car, like, an hour ago."

     Mom starts to give her a frustrated response before I can even take a breath. "Nellie, we've been in the car for about seven minutes. You need to be patient! If you want, we can turn around right now and go back home. That is, if you're not willing to wait in the car for another fifteen minutes." I smile and laugh softly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nellie wrinkle her nose at me. It just makes me laugh harder.

     "Anne, stop laughing!" Nellie exclaims, crossing her arms. "Mommy, has it been fifteen minutes yet?" We hear an exasperated sigh from the front seat, and Nellie can't help but grin. I watch as her smile grows wider and wider until we're both laughing about basically nothing.

     "Will you girls quiet down?"  Mom demands.

     My mom has a short temper. Nellie gets yelled at a lot, but mainly because she's eight and isn't very mature. Therefore, it's mostly her own fault for getting yelled at all the time because she's always bugging my parents, but I think Mom needs to learn to be a little less...screamy. Is that even a word?

     My dad's much better though. I always go to him when I have a problem. He's understanding, sweet, caring...basically the best dad anyone could ask for. I don't know how he handles my mom sometimes.

     The car screeches to a halt. Nellie screams. Mom curses. My glasses fall off.

     "Shit, Nellie. Don't scream. It gives me an even bigger heart attack," Mom scolds, still cursing under her breath.

     "What happened?" I ask as I grab my big black glasses off the floor and position them on my face. "Were we gonna get in a wreck or something?"

     "Anne, don't joke about wrecks. They're serious. For all we know, we could get in one on the way back from the mall," Mom admonishes me.

     "So are you saying we almost got in one?"

     "No Anne, geez. Some idiot in front of us just slammed on the brakes randomly,"

     "Sorry for asking," I whisper to Nellie while she rolls her eyes. We both start grinning toothily, again. For some reason it reminds me how weird siblings are; it's hard to believe that just that morning we were fighting over who could have the last Pop Tart. I mean, I love her and all, but I love Pop Tarts more. Just a little.

      My little sister decides it's the right time to pull out her iPod and play some music. The AUX cord doesn't fit her iPod, so she just turns it up all the way. We end up jamming to a few songs from Taylor Swift's Red album before the mall is finally viewable out the windows.

     "And I never saw you coming

     And I'll never be the same..."

      Taylor sings "State of Grace" as Nellie shouts, "Yay!" And before I know it, we're in the parking lot. Nellie's tugging my arm as she scrambles to get out of the car.

     "Hold on Nellie, I'm still buckled!" I say as I press the red button on the seatbelt-clip thing and sling the scratchy strap away from me. I climb out of the car after Nellie, my arm still locked firmly in her grip, and shove the door closed. I hear the car's lock click behind me as Mom walks in front of us and leads the way into Katy, Texas's most popular outlet mall.

     We go to Justice first. Nellie proclaims everything "Too sparkly," after looking around for a minute and walks out.

     Our next spot is The Children's Place. "Too babyish," Nellie decides while shaking her head. "Mommy, can I choose where we look?"

     Mom shakes her head yes and sighed, grabbing my shoulder and leading me out of the store after Nellie.

     She chooses to go to Gap (Kids, of course). She looks around for about ten minutes, then tries on practically one hundred dresses, and decides none of them are worthy of Cathy's party. Mom tells her we can try one more store, so Nellie chooses to go back to Justice.

     "Nellie, seriously? We were just there!" Mom exclaims, obviously very frustrated. Nevertheless, she helps Nellie find the store again and pick out a dress that's a tad less sparkly than the others.

     Their selection is neon green and comes with a sparkly, silver, thin belt. There are blue and purple gems along the neckline and a little bit of purple glitter at the very bottom of the dress. It's very Nellie indeed. After paying, we leave the mall, get in the car, and head home. Nellie turns "State of Grace" back on and begins to sing, clutching her Justice bag in her hand happily. I decide to take a nap, assuming the drive will be from twenty to thirty minutes. I slide my glasses off my face, fold them up, and put them in a handy cup holder in the door.

     Little did I know, Mom would later tell me she didn't think I would wake up.