Spinning at the Seams

Monday the day when children are forced into the torture chamber known as school. I sighed letting the warm water of my shower wash over me. Marc and I haven’t talked since Saturday night. Sunday was church and then dinner with my grandparents, which is just a joy, them judging me from behind their glasses wondering why I don’t plan to become a teacher like all their other grandchildren. My grandparents are my dad’s parents; because he’s not in our lives my mother thought his parents would be a good substitute. Good idea Mom. She had long ago stopped attending these torturous dinners; she instead signed up to work, or claimed work. Marc had remained silent the whole dinner, not even reacting when Olivia made a sarcastic comment about him, it was so odd, and I had no idea what to do. But now it was Monday, and that meant school, and school meant my wonderful paper. I quickly stepped out of the shower and went to my room, time for closet bingo. Hmm, I closed my eyes, and stuck my hand into my closet, clasping my hand around the first cloth material that came to it. I opened my eyes, in my hand was my Latin t-shirt the words ‘Dum Spiro, Spero’ were written on the light green fabric in bold black letters. I smiled perfect; I grabbed a pair of jeans and changed before looking at myself in the mirror. When I was happy with my look I threw on my glasses and grabbed my stuff before heading to the kitchen.

“Morning,” I called cheerfully to my mom who was standing in the kitchen, preparing lunches and eating an apple at the same time.

“Morning, sweetie, what would you like for lunch?” She asked opening the fridge and frowning.

“Don’t worry about it Mom, I’m just going to buy lunch at school, but if you could hand me a granola bar that would be great.” I smiled sweetly, and my mom laughed before handing me the granola bar.

“Oh, your going to need to take Marc to school, I wasn’t kidding about the car, but I’ll understand if you want him to take the bus.” I smiled, I loved my mom, she never demanded anything from me, but I knew it was the right thing to do, so I just smiled.

“Of course I’ll take him to school, let me just go get my CD of classical music, my car my music,” I said seriously, but my mom started laughing as she went back to lunches and I went to my room to grab my CD. Marc hated classical music, and whenever I rode in his car, he demanded we listen to rap, saying his car his music. Well now it would be my car my music, I thought how the tables have turned. As I walked out of my room to go back downstairs, I pounded on his door.

“Marc I’m leaving for school in fifteen minutes, that’s fifteen, not fifty not thirty not twenty not sixteen, fifteen! And if you’re not in the car I will, I repeat will leave without you!” Suddenly Marc’s door opened revealing him with his phone to his ear, looking oh so amused. I glared, I wasn’t messing around.

“Oh dear sister what’s the hurry? Afraid you’ll miss your classroom gateway?” I threw him a confused look. One moment he’s nice to me and the next he’s completely back to his normal self. Suddenly Marc reached his hand up and snapped his fingers in my face, grinning like an idiot. My eyes went wide and fell on the cell phone he still held to his ear.

“Oh you two,” I said loudly so Adam could hear, “are so dead, and I’m not messing around about being in the car on time, I have no qualms about leaving you behind.” At that I turned on my heel and headed back down the stairs my brother’s laughter echoing behind me.

“What’s he so happy about?” said a voice; I turned my head quickly and felt a spasm of pain in my neck, great minor whiplash. Behind me stood Olivia, who was frowning at me.

“I don’t really know,” I lied, “he’s probably just finished watching the Teletubbies, and now finds something they said amusing.” Olivia looked at me completely bewildered.

“The Teletubbies don’t talk,” She said shaking her head and walking away. I rolled my eyes; my siblings really didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. I headed to the kitchen still rubbing my neck, my mom had left, and a note in her handwriting sat on the kitchen table.

Dear Antonia,

I have to work a double shift today so you’re going to have to make dinner tonight, and make sure the twins and Julia end up in bed on time. I’ve left the emergency numbers in the usual place. Your brothers car is currently with me, so don’t be worried about stopping him from going out, if he does go out, please let him know that his sixteen year old butt really won’t like the consequences. If you need me just page me!
Love you lots,
Mom

I sighed, there go my plans for tonight. What plans a voice in my head asked, you didn’t have plans. I let out a breath, no I didn’t have plans Marc did, oh well now neither of us have plans.

The car ride there was a lot of yelling, mostly by Marc.

“Do we have to listen to this?” Marc whined, I smiled, Mozart was filing the car, and Marc had long ago given up trying to get a hold of the radio controls.

“Yes, and would you like some cheese with that whine?” Marc rolled his eyes.

“Your so lame, do you realize that?” I pretended to ponder that.

“Yep, I do realize that, but I like being lame, its so much fun, and you have much better company.” Marc rolled his eyes again and stared out the window at the massive structure that is our school. As we go out of the car, Marc jogged off to be with his jock buddies, while I smiled at my approaching friends. Mel led the pack, her short blond hair was held back with a headband and her t-shirt read ‘band geek’ on it in red letters that stood out against the black fabric. Her blue eyes were shining with their usual happiness and as she came closer I noticed that her skin seemed a little tanner then normal, sick yeah right.

“ANTONIA!” she screamed coming to a stop in front of me.

“Hey Mels, how are you, and how was your vacation?” She scowled, I had caught her.

“Fun, but I did end up with strep at the end, I was in Florida for 3 of the 5 days I was gone. I was sick for the last two days in Florida.” I nodded, I believed that. Behind her stood Shannon. In the sun her tan skin seemed a little darker, and her dark brown hair was down today. She was wearing a plain black baby tee, and a pair of jeans. She smiled at me, her brown eyes gleaming.

“So, Adam’s looking for you,” she stated simply, but the implications behind that were not to be missed. I rolled my eyes, of course he was, talking with my brother and helping him annoy me wasn’t enough for him apparently. Tristan carefully pushed his way in front of Shannon.

“Uh hi, I don’t think she cares about him, I’m the guy she wants to see,” All the girls rolled their eyes. I just laughed. His blond hair was short, but not too short, and hung slightly in front of his brown eyes. He was tall, and a little muscular; playing a year of baseball had put some muscle on him. He grinned at my laughter; he loved it when he could get someone to laugh. Behind him Ben just snorted.

“Yeah, okay, she wants to talk to you. I don’t think a single intelligent thing has ever come out of your mouth, why would she want to talk to you?” Tristan raised an eyebrow at Ben. Ben stood there, his blond hair was long just barely covering his eyes, and his glasses accentuated his green eyes. I had considered dating him at one point, but then realized he was way to interested in politics for my tastes. Mallory on the other hand, didn’t think so, and they had started dating last year, she now stood beside him. Sophie was standing behind Tristan her brown eyes glaring at his head, she was short like me, and had dark brown hair cut short, she had an olive complexion that looked good on her gymnast body.

“I have to agree with Ben, I really don’t think she would willingly talk to you.”

“Why do you keep talking like she’s not standing right there, why don’t you just ask her whether she wants to talk to Tristan.” Madison, ever the peacekeeper stepped in, she rarely spoke but when she did it was always to keep the peace and worth listening to. It was one of the reasons she was a great layout editor, she knew how to keep people happy, and make a great layout. If anyone ever fought her about the size or location of his or her article, she always knew just the solution.

I smiled as I answered, “I agree with both of you, Tristan it is nice to talk to you but you can rarely engage me in any sort of actual deep conversation.” Tristan looked shocked, and Ben looked pleased. Both boys dropped their looks as a very hyper voice started coming closer.

“ANTONIA! ANTONIA! THERE YOU ARE! I’VE BEEN LOOKING EVERYWHERE FOR YOU! COME ON ADAM AND ALLISON WANT TO SEE YOU! COME ON LET’S GO!”

“Whoa, okay calm down Molly, its okay.” Tristan said trying to grab Molly, but she was quick and dodged him, latching her hand onto my arm. I looked at her, at only 5’0 she was smaller then me, but for being so small she could be rather, loud. She always seemed to talk with exclamation points, and at the loudest volume possible. She had black hair cut short, and brown eyes. She used to wear glasses but had traded them for contacts last year. Hunter joked she was given to many Pixie Sticks as a kid and that they not only stunted her growth but had yet to wear off. I was about to pry Molly’s arm off, when she suddenly pulled me forward causing me to nearly stumble. I had to run to keep up with her, I had no idea when she became so strong, and I couldn’t shake her off. I turned to look over my shoulder, and mouthed the words HELP ME. Everyone laughed, but Shannon being the great friend she is, pushed she through them till she was trailing after me, Mallory soon followed grabbing Hunter’s arm as we passed him in the hall. He laughed when he saw my predicament.

“So you let yourself be captured by the tiny thing that is Molly? I’m surprised. I thought you of all people would be able to escape her.” Hunter continued to follow me, and Molly scowled at him, she hated being called tiny, but most people were considered tiny to 6’1 Hunter.

“She sneak attacked me, she got me by dodging Tristan,” I watched Hunter nod, and then laugh as the scene probably played out in his head. “This is all Tristan’s fault, remind me to strangle him later,” Hunter nodded still laughing,

“Will do.” He said in between laughs. Molly suddenly stopped in front of me, and I crashed into her. She turned to look at me, and I looked around me. We were in the same hallway as Saturday now, and Molly was looking at me expectantly. I groaned and started walking towards the door where Allison was now headed out looking very annoyed. Her black hair was straight and flipped behind her shoulder. Her green eyes looked mad, and her normally dark skin looked pale. This was not a good sign.

“Hey Allison,” At the sound of her name she stopped, and blinked looking at me.

“Oh hi,”

“I guess I’m supposed to be meeting you guys?” I asked hesitantly, Allison was sweet but I had never seen her this mad, best to tread lightly.

“Oh yeah, you can go in, I just need to get something from my locker ok?” she gave me a weak smile before heading in the opposite direction of her locker. This was going to be interesting.