The Darkness

"Mum!" she shouted, as loud as she could. "Mum! Where the fuck are you?!" Just then, her mother walked up the stairs, looking at her 17 year old daughter standing outside her room. "You know where I am, and don't you dare use that language in my house."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Oh, wah wah. Mum, I need you to pick up my dress."
"No. Sorry, but I can't do it now. I've got important work to do."
The girl, whose name was Eliza, sighed, and looked at her like a mother looks at a stubborn child. "I get that, mum, but seriously though, I need my dress."
Her mother paused, thinking, before answering. "Well, I'm sorry, but then you're going to have to pick it up yourself. I'm not your maid." She turned around, and walked down the stairs again. Eliza waved her arms in exasperation and shouted "But mum!" at her, but she knew it was too late. While she could normally wrap her mother around her little finger, when she first put her foot down, it was down all right. Looked like she was actually going to have to pick up that dress her self.

Sitting down in her room, Eliza gave out a long sigh. She had everything ready – shoes, jewellery, purse, make-up, even her fake lashes was sitting ready on the bathroom sink, but her dress was absent. Her dress. The most beautiful dress in the universe. A long, red proper prom-dress. It was all she had ever dreamt about, and she wouldn't have it in time. She was fairly certain now. With growing distress, she thought of all the things she had to have done by this time tomorrow, and by golly, her prospects looked bleak. "Did I honestly just think that?" she wondered out loud. "My prospects? Jesus, looks like I've been watching too much Jane Austen. And now I'm yapping to myself. I'm going mad as well. Hah."
She got up on her feet and paced around her room a few times, before deciding to call her best friend, Carlie.
"Hey, 'sit Carlie?"
"Yeah, of course it is," the voice on the other end of the phone answered with her usual impatience.
"Great, I need a favour."
"No. Absolutely not," Carlie replied, determinedly.
"What?" said Eliza. "You don't even know what I'm gonna say!"
"Of course I don't, but no, I'm not doing anything. I'm quite comfortable where I am, thanks."
"For Christ's sake, Carlie, stop being such a tosser!" She could practically hear Carlie's eye-roll.
"Fine," she sighed. "What's the matter?"
"You need to join me. To the dress-shop. To pick it up."
"What?" asked Carlie. "You haven't gotten it yet?"
"No, I haven't gotten it yet. Hard of hearing, are you? Mum refused to pick it up, the old hag."
Carlie snorted. "Well, der, she's not your maid, is she?"
"Shut up, and stop with that twin-telepathy shit you two have going on."
"Stop whining, I'll join you. Even if it really is perfectly possible to just go on your own, you know."
"Yeah, sure. Right then, you're here in five?"
"In five," Carlie answered, and hung up. Eliza wasn't offended, though, as some people might have been, because that was how she always ended her conversations. "In five," was basically the same as saying good bye. Eliza had never understood how she managed to be there as quickly as she was – granted, it only really took 3 minutes to walk from one house to another, and the two other minutes being used on putting on shoes, but whenever Eliza left the house, she needed to comb her hair, rearrange her make-up and maybe reconsider the outfit. For a split second, she realized just how much of a Barbie she sounded, but shoved the thought away before it could make her any more uncomfortable.

The two girls, who were walking down the road, arms linked, were chattering happily to each other. They had been best friends for years now, and there was nothing they couldn't say to each other. Carlie had at times found herself wondering why on earth she was friends with Eliza, as the two girls really couldn't be more different from each other. These thoughts were usually interrupted by a good hug and the latest gossip, though. "Oh my God," Eliza squealed. "I can't believe it's tomorrow! We've been waiting for this for God knows how long, and oh my God it's tomorrow!" Carlie laughed and patted her arm. "Yeah, sweetie, I know it's tomorrow. We all do. You haven't been talking about anything else for months now."
"You heard who Leah is going with?"
"No, who?" Carlie might seem cold and indifferent to some, but she was really quite a gossiper.
"That Mike kid, you know the one who got expelled last year."
"No!" Carlie exclaimed. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," Eliza answered, "Seriously. He's mental! Wasn't he caught, like, high on all sorts of shit by the benches?"
"I believe he was," Carlie said, looking reminiscently into the air. "He was singing. And dancing, if I remember correctly." She remembered entirely correctly, as a scene such as that was pretty hard to forget. Especially since someone caught it on video, uploaded it to youtube, and made him an instant star.
"Hah," Eliza snorted. "Way to make an ass of yourself. And seriously, who's going to take Leah seriously now? She's so ruining her reputation."
Carlie smiled, and shook her head a little. "You should be on Desperate Housewives, you know."
Eliza looked sideways at her. "Oh? You think? You know what I think, I reckon I'd be a pretty rad upper-class lady from the 17th century. Like in Jane Austen. I'd be such a bitch."
Carlie burst into laughter. "Hahah! And all you servants would be petrified of you!"
"Damn straight they would!" Eliza shouted. "Miss Pludge!" she said, laying her voice an octave higher. "These linens have a speck of dust on them! Why do you do this to my nerves!"
The two girls roared with laughter, and kept on shouting non-sense through the streets, all the way to the dress-shop.
Those were the days.