That Country Girl

Marie's POV
Some people would completely freak if they knew I was doing my homework on a horses back. The plastics (they’re at every school) especially. Not like they ever talk to me anyways, but sure they would make time in their busy schedule of buying clothes and makeup at come make fun of me. But, really, Sully wasn’t that bad. He was a calm Appaloosa horse. He was spotted light and dark grey and remained very still while I was bent over his back doing my Algebra homework. He even smelled okay. Well, better than the average horse.

“Marie," my mother called. Her high-pitched voice I had slowly grown to love echoed through the barn I was in and I looked up from my homework. “Dinner’s almost ready!” I sighed.

“Alright, just one more second, okay?”

“I swear, if you spend one more living moment with that dumb horse of yours, you two are never going to leave each others sides!” my mother responded. I couldn’t see her, but I was almost positive she was throwing her hands up in the air. “Hurry it up, we can’t wait all night! Granny is here, remember?” I sighed when I remembered my grandmother was visiting. She was seriously one of the oldest living people I thought I would ever meet. Ninety four is pretty damn old if you ask me.

"Fine, coming.” I heard her footsteps retreat out of the barn and I sighed and stuffed my homework in my bag. “Sorry I have to leave you, Sully, but I have to go eat dinner,” I told the horse. Sully whinnied loudly and stomped his foot, indicating to me that he wanted a treat. I laughed and handed it to him. “Silly,” I said, and walked out of the barn.

That week had been surprisingly good for me. It was almost summer, which was always good, and I hadn’t really run into anyone stupid lately. I had gotten an A+ on my Geography test, which always pleased me, and I was really just being extraordinarily nice. I had no idea why, but it felt great. And, I had caught Milo Hastings, this really smart boy I had had a secret crush on since like… 7th grade staring at me during Algebra. Things were just going my way.

I pushed my wavy brown hair out of my face, sticking it into a high ponytail with a spare hair tie I had on my wrist. My bangs fell partly into my face, but I just blew them away with a quick breath. I walked up to our smoky blue house and stepped up on the porch. I walked into my house, slamming the screen door, a sound I knew irritated my mother. But I did it anyway.

When I stepped inside, I found that my mom was already loading up my granny and I’s plates for dinner. We were having my granny’s favorite dinner; red potatoes with this amazing sauce I could never really perfect, asparagus, and this weird melt-in-your-mouth meat. I still, even after like… 17 years, still have not found out what it was called.

“Honey, come here,” my mom called to me as I stepped into the kitchen. “I totally forgot the apple pie, so right after dinner and a shower could you run to the market and get some?” I rolled my eyes.

“Fine.” I personally thought it was almost a mistake for me to have gotten my driver’s license. Now, my mom thought I could drive everywhere instead of her; now, I got to go pick up anything at the store, or get the mail, or anything else that she wouldn’t do. She told me it was the least I could do for her because she let my get my driver’s license. I begged to differ. “Can I just go take a shower now?”

“Sure,” my mom said begrudgingly. “I’ll hold out dinner for ten minutes, so you’d better hurry up, okay?”

“Sounds good,” I told her, and rushed upstairs. I, honestly, was one of the shortest shower-takers in my family. Maybe even my school. I really had no idea how almost all the girls always took like… a gazillion years to get ready and to take a shower. I didn’t wear makeup except for a little bit of mascara, so it didn’t take me more than ten minutes every day. The plastics were crazy.

I quickly hopped in the shower and began to scrub the animal smell off me. I did actually live on a small farm, in the small town of Oxford, Michigan. We had 40 chickens, 4 cows, 2 pigs, Betsy and Mildred, a donkey named Nickel, and Sully and his girlfriend, Annie, our two horses. So, naturally, I always smelled like animals. I tried to make sure I took a shower before I went to school, but nothing could cover it up. I really didn’t care, though. Horses smelled good.

I spread the foamy Dove soap all over my body. I didn’t use any scented stuff, really, just normal soap because everything else was kind of expensive. The only scented thing I had was blackberry smelling shampoo and conditioner. I finally stepped out of the shower and grabbed a beige towel, tip toeing to my room. I quickly threw on something nice to eat dinner in; an embroidered beige top with a loose white shirt over it and some dark brown Capri pants. They were originally normal pants, but my legs grew too long for them, so I rolled them up. They now make rather cute Capri’s.

I flew down the creaky wooden stairs of our farmhouse and plopped down at the table at the place I usually sat at, surprising my grandmother. My plate was already set out on the wicker table mats that my mom always used.

“God, Marie, you scared the living daylights out of me!” cried my grandmother dramatically, putting her hands over her heart. “You wouldn’t want to give an old woman a heart attack, would you?” I laughed.

“Granny, really, I’m sure you’re fine,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back. Just then, my mother brought out the pots and pans containing all of our dinner food. I took some of everything, and tried to wolf it down as fast as I could so I could run to the store without my granny complaining about our lack of intelligence. I could just picture her saying something like, ‘Jesus, there really is no intelligence on earth,’ or something like that.

“Already done?” my mother asked me as I stood up to put my plate in the sink. I nodded and rushed out of the room.

“I uh… I have to go finish some homework!” I called as I grabbed the keys to my moms car.

“Homework?” my grandmother called. “But Marie, this is the last week of school! You can’t have any homework!”

“Sorry Granny, but the teachers are mean!” I replied, and closed the door behind me so I wouldn’t have to hear her sarcastic remark. It was already like… ten o’clock, and it would take me half an hour to get there, and I really couldn’t waste any more time. My grandmother thought it was some sort of tradition to eat late at night, but it really didn’t help when I had to go get apple pie from the market. I hopped into my mom’s old (and when I say old, I mean REALLY old)Cadillac and made my way to the market, not knowing that this trip to Meijer was going to change my life forever.

Harry’s POV

It had been a seriously shitty day for me so far. First, I had had to wake up at four o’clock in the morning to board a stupid plane, and the plane wasn’t even first class. Then, we had had to take a train from Chicago to Detroit, which was one of the worst moments of my life. Naturally, everyone knew who we were on the train, so the boys and I were totally swarmed. I still have no idea who’s bright idea it was to let us use public transportation. When I was getting off, some girl would not let go of my shirt, and it ripped, so I had a huge gaping slash in my shirt for the next hour. We had had to go off to some alley to get into a car so we could drive to this small town called Oxford in Michigan. I’d never heard of it in my life. Once we got there, I found out we had to stay in these two tiny motel rooms, because those two rooms were the only ones open in the 10 room motel. There were two twin beds in each room, so guess who got the floor; me. And to make everything worse, I had a cold.

And, the only reason we were here, was because Simon had sent us to this hell-hole they called a city. He had told us that we were going to be on some sort of a tour for the next three months ( our entire summer!), randomly performing at five cities total. They were barely even cities, just tiny little towns that I had no interest in whatsoever. And we had to get to know the city for a few weeks. Ugh. Oxford was the first one we were going to. I honestly hated animals and dirt and all that gross un-clean stuff that came from the non-cities. I just wasn’t my style. I needed luxury, like what I was used to. I was pretty sure no one in this stupid town even had an iPod.

I was sitting in some old creaky rocking chair when Louis stumbled into the small room that my blanket was spread out on.

“Dude, why not just sleep on the pull out couch?” he asked, holding something which was most likely a shot. Seriously? We had just arrived and he was already drinking?

“We don’t have a pull out couch in our little… room,” I said bluntly, wiping the stupid smile off Louis’s face. “And why the hell are you drinking? It’s like…” I looked up at the clock and saw that it was ten o’clock already. The days were really, really long here, apparently.

“Yeah, smart ass,” said Louis, cracking a smile at me. “I’d say it’s late enough to drink. Want some?”

“No,” I responded quickly. The last thing I needed was some alcohol. I didn’t need any more torture than there already was in the morning. “I’m just gonna go to bed, I guess.” Louis scoffed at me.

“Party pooper!” he yelled as loud as he could, and Zayn showed up right next to Louis. “Come on, do something!”

“Party pooper!” Zayn yelled at me too, and I stood up, about to let loose all the anger I had inside of me, when Liam walked in.

“Hey guys, what’s…” He looked at me and saw me fuming, then over and Zayn and Louis. “Oh.” I glared at the three of them. “Well, I just wanted to let you guys know, we have nothing for breakfast tomorrow, so we might need someone to go to the store and get something for tomorrow.”

“Why can’t we just go out?” asked Niall, following the commotion into my room.

"Because we’re going out for lunch.”

“So?”

“We can’t go out twice in a row, it’s not healthy!”

“So?”

“NIALL!” Liam yelled. “WE ARE NOT GOING OUT FOR BREAKFAST TOMORROW! UNDERSTAND?!” Everybody looked at Liam, who turned pink. “Sorry. But we need to go to the store. Are you guys gonna handle yourselves while I’m at the store?”

“Just send Harry,” Louis chimed in. “He’s being lame and annoying, and none of us want to be around him. So make him go!” I glared at Louis. For some reason, he was seriously pissing me off right now.

“Okay, whatever,” Liam said, not really caring about who went. Could he not see I was not in the mood for driving right now?! “Harry, just go by yourself, and take that stupid disguised Slug Bug thing that Paul got us so no one recognizes you, okay?” I just nodded tightly, my lips in a straight line. We need a bunch of breakfast foods and some milk, okay?”

“And some alcohol!” Zayn said, holding up a shot in his hand. I sighed and pushed my way out of the room. Sometimes, I hated them all. Ugh. I walked down the stairs (since this place was too cheap to have elevators) and out the main lobby. I didn’t even pause when one of the woman at the front desk asked me for my autograph. I didn’t care about fans right now, I just wanted to go home. And just to make my day even better, as soon as I stepped into the parking lot, it began to rain. Slowly at first, then as soon as I spotted the car, it began to rain buckets. I sighed. This is going to do wonders for my cold, I thought, as I unlocked the small car. I hadn’t even been to Oxford for more than three hours and I already hated it. I drove out of the parking lot, barely even able to see because the windshield wipers were broken. I had no idea that the following trip would change my life forever.