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Chapter One

                                                                                      Chapter One

“Frankie! Wake up!” My mom shouted from the door of my room. The living alarm clock. She didn’t need to yell to be heard in China.

                “Up! I’m up!” I growled into my pillow before jerking out of bed and glaring at my disgruntled reflection. My red hair was everywhere, my brown eyes bitter, my make up from the day before smeared and half my face red in random places.

                I walked into my closet ignoring the pink everywhere and picked out a pair of black skinnies, a dark top and my favorite boots and laid them on my bed. I walked into my pink bathroom and washed my face free of yesterday’s make up and relined my eyes before putting on my clothes for the day. I yanked a brush through my straight red bangs and layers.

After I finished getting ready for school, I sat on my bed and glared at the surrounding pink walls. My mom really wasn’t focused on having me back until recently. I’d been living with my grandma since I was three because my mom got in some financial trouble and couldn’t afford to keep me. I was lucky my grandma was wishing she was younger because she took me in for eleven years while my mom worked day and night to pay off the debt. My father died when I was two, so I couldn’t stay with him. I still considered my grandma’s house in Florida home. I’d only been living at my mom’s house in Michigan for three years and we hadn’t gotten around to painting my walls a new color.

Mom liked pink; everything was pink, except the cabinets and doors, at my request. My room was still the powdered pink it was when I was born and I wanted to paint it a different color. Much to Mom’s dismay. The only things I liked about my room where the view and the ceiling. The ceiling was a deep blue with white spots to look like the stars. Mom claims it helped me sleep when I was a baby and personally I think she just likes it.

I sighed and looked up at the ceiling before my thoughts got interrupted by the doorbell ringing. I groaned.

“No time for breakfast…again,” I mumbled to myself.

I grabbed my bag and a handful of Jolly Ranchers from my bowl on my pink, cough cough, desk.

“Cam’s here!” My mom shouted up to me.

“I figured,” I said to myself as I raced down to the main floor. I grabbed an apple and headed for the front door. The last person you wanted to keep waiting was Cam. She’d freak out and get offended. As I was on route to the front door, Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Behave,” She whispered practically begging.

I pulled away flashed her a wickedly innocent grin and laughed, “Always!”

Except, I didn’t always behave. I got in trouble a lot. I never did anything too bad. It was mostly just the teachers’ stereotypical view on me and my friends. Oh, she wears black; she’s a felon! That kind of thing. The teachers were the ones who gave my friends and me a bad name. My mom got calls from teachers all the time complaining about my conduct. I didn’t really act up unless I got blamed for something; which happened more often than it should.

When I reached the door, Cam was glaring menacingly at me.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“Never mind, let’s go,” Cam rolled her eyes.

“Okay then?”

My car was still down in Florida at my grandma’s house and we hadn’t been able to afford shipping to get it sent to Michigan. I figured hitch hiking was out of the question, and that it was better to ride with a friend then walk to school every day. Though that would give me exercise; I was more the type to avoid a bus and gravitate towards a person with a car to leech off. Cam didn’t mind though. She thought she was the leech because she hated riding alone so the first few times she dragged me to school in her shiny convertible.