Fly Me Away

I got grounded because I wouldn’t say anything at all. I walked inside and charged straight past a stress ridden Mom and up to my room. She chased after me and pestered me for a good half hour, she even went as far as to call me Margaret. Nobody in the whole world called me Margaret. I swear most of my legal documents said Maggie on them. Eventually, she gave up, after my useless one word answers started to annoy her.

It was starting to get serously late now, and my TV was switched on, creating a quiet buzz in the background. I was on my bed staring at the ceiling, trying desperately to clear my mind for a moment. It was working like a dream until I heard a knock at the door.

“Telephone,” Mom sang, hoping whoever was on the phone could coax some full sentences out of me.

When I didn’t respond, Mom walked in and plopped it beside my head, before slowly dawdling back towards the door. She let out a frustrated sigh when she noticed my lack of interest in the phone and left.

It sounded like whoever wanted to talk to me was already speaking, but it was too far away to be intelligible. I contemplated who it could be: Grandma calling to tell me about her day from Australia, My brother Peter....for God knows what reason, or, with any luck, Pip or Kelly ringing to apologise. My mind lingered around the possibility that it was Jackson, but shut that out. He was the only one who wouldn't sit there on the phone talking to no one.

I picked it up.

“...umm hello? Maggie?”

It was Pip’s voice.

“What do you want?” I muttered.

“Oh Maggie! Are you okay? I’ve been trying to call you for ages now but your Mom said you weren’t home and then she started asking me where you were so I was scared you had eloped with that guy or joined a circus or something so...”

She trailed off, potentially losing her train of thought. The mention of ‘that guy’ made my blood boil and my voice came out fiercer than anticipated, “did you want something?”

“Whoa, hey! What makes you say that? I don’t have to want something to wanna ring my friend do I?”

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, and it could just be me, but you’ve been ignoring me all week,” I said bluntly, “why the sudden change of heart?”

“Oh...right....about that, see, I think we need to be friends again. Soooo,” the next part came out almost too quickly, “I’m going to say that I’m real real real sorry and that I kind of panicked when I saw Kelly with those girls and thought you might have left too so I went and joined all those stupid, time consuming clubs! I’m real real real real real sorry Maggie. You have no idea. I quit them all! Every single one!”

I stifled a laugh at her use of the word real instead of really and her quick departure from the clubs. I felt a thudding in my head that told me I had no reason to laugh and that she’d ditched me, which kept me in a bad mood.

But there was this warmth in my chest. It said that she sounded genuinely sorry and that her story made sense. Pip was always a bit fidgety and on edge, it was definitely in character for her to rush into something like that.

“....I’m listening?”

She made a shocked, but excited noise, “I was just really mad at Kelly. And I still kinda am, so maybe me and you should just start hanging out again? There sure are a lot of geeks in the school band.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, “How could you say that?”

“What? About the geeks?”

“No, about Kelly.”

“Oh,”she cleared her throat, “Kelly’s got all those other girls. Have you seen them all? I tried to talk to her once but she just, like, snubbed me.”

I thought back to when I last saw her in Chemistry class, and remembered the notes she’d sent me.

“I don’t know...”

“She’s got her own little gang, I’m sure she’d say no to hanging out anyway,” she paused, “Hey Magsie, you sound a bit blue, are you doing anything tomorrow? We def need to catch up. I say old movies and crap food!”

The warmth over took the anger at the sound of my favourite pass time activity: Movies, chocolate, Pip and....Kelly?

“Should we at least ask her?”

“To be honest Mag,”she hesitated, “I already did ask her. She said she was busy, I didn’t wanna have to tell you.”

“Oh. Well, alright then...” I wasn’t so sure about doing it without Kelly.

“Yay great! Well we should get to the—”

“—OH!” I slapped a hand across my forehead.

“What?!”

“I forgot. I’m grounded.”

There was a long silence as Pip took in the new piece of information. I waited patiently, listening to the crickets clicking through the receiver. Pip must have been outside.

“What?! you are grounded?! ”She squealed in disbelief.

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah but I don’t really wanna talk about it...”

“Does it have something to do with that Jackson fella? Yeah, I saw him sweep you up into his Bentley before.”

“Not now okay,” I dismissed.

“Well... tomorrow then.”

“I’m grounded remember?”

“Then I’ll go to you!”I opened my mouth to protest, but she finished before I got the chance,“Okay go to go bye!”

She hung up.

I sighed – A bitter sweet ending to my day.