We begin our tale is in a small environmentally green town, very few cars are used in town and only two buses are used in the town, most children walk to school and adults walk to their places of work. Within Rubiton Town is one family who works harder than anyone else to maintain a clean environment, the Jones family.
This little family consisting of father, mother and daughter. Their home was small and simple, a cream colored single floor house with read shingles running on solar panels and a water wheel just outside the Ruby Forest and it's river.
By this time of day, the father of the household had already departed for another day at work by bus, leaving the loving mother to awaken the daughter for the last day of school. It was a daily task for the woman, but she did not mind it at all. Oh how she loved to show her little Mina the new day.
Willow Jones was a young woman in her early thirties; green eyes were carefree but still full of love and her wavy dirty blond hair reached her waist. The woman chose to wear baggy clothes as she worked around the house, today specifically a white shirt and brown pants. The mother effortlessly pushed open the door and entered the room, immediately she ripped open the curtains letting in the sunlight and with a grin she declared:
"Minaaaa! Time to get up!"
The lump in the bed groaned a protest and proceeded to wrap their body into a tighter cocoon. Such an attempt would not stop the mother, taking two fistful of sheets Willow tugged on them unraveling her child and letting her fall to the floor. The girl hit the floor face down. She remained unmoving as her mother poked at her.
"Time for last day of school!"
"Can't I stay home?" the girl questioned, tired and annoyed.
"Of course not Mina!" her mother giggled "You have exams today!"
"I have good grades in those classes missing the exams won't kill me."
"But it would kill your attendance record!" Mina sighed and sat up in her pile of bed sheets. Seeing that her dear child as awake Willow walked to the closet to pull a school uniform off one of the hangers, the mother took great care in placing each piece down, a short sleeved white dress shirt, a blue ribbon with a matching skirt. Willow placed a pair of long white socks with her daughter's favorite black converse sneakers.
"Now get dressed honey or you'll miss your bus." The girl briefly considered the thought of missing her buss but her mother was three steps ahead of her. "And if you miss the bus I'll walk you to school."
Oh god. No. That would be a terrible idea, not to mention embarrassing.
"Alright I'm up mom." Mina grunted dragging herself from her bed sheets; Willow clapped her hands and skipped out of the room to prepare her daughter her lunch for the day. Mina dressed up and walked to her dresser, she picked up her comb she brushed her blond hair bored. She tied it up in a ponytail and clipped it back with a clamp clip.
She picked up her bag that leaned against the desk; Mina did a quick sweep of the desk top. Only thing on the surface was her pencils, the girl took them in her hands and walked into the kitchen, on the table was a fresh plate of eggs and a side of buttered toast. She clomped down in here seat and began to eat away at her food, sometime later her mother placed her lunch down on the table next to her. Mina came to a stop; she placed her lunch into her backpack along with the extensive amount of pencils she owned and stood up. She placed her plate into the sink next to her mom.
"I'm going to school." Willow kissed her daughter on her forehead and gave her a hug.
"See you after school, you packed your box right?" Mina sighed. Of course, with every summer (and weekend during the school year) she and her family went down to their family farm in Emerald Fields and stayed for the whole summer. The whole summer wasted on that crummy farm, no contact with friends.
Such great fun.
"Yes mom, I packed my box and helped dad load it in the car last night."
Willow clapped her hands. "Great job Mina! And did you unplug everything in your room? We don't wanna waste any solar or water power while we're gone!"
"I unplugged everything last night." She glanced to her watch and pulled away from her mother.
"I gotta go now; the bus will be at the stop soon." Mina rushed out the door, down the sidewalk to the green painted bus stop benches. She didn't have a second to sit as the bushes arrived as soon as she did; she propelled herself into the bus and into the nearest empty seat at the front.
Bus rides were long and boring for her since she was the first to ever get on and all the girls at the age of twelve would be talking to their friends about boy bands, boyfriends and all the juicy gossip. That kind of talk was absolutely uninteresting for her. Mina stared out the windows, taking in the familiar sights of Rubiton Town.
Half hour to forty-five minutes later bus arrived at the middle school, Mina boarded off with her bag in hand and walked to her class. Half of the class was nervous of soon to be exam while the other half was either confident or just didn't care. She took her seat by the window and stared out of it waiting for the teacher to come in but it was only minutes before she was pulled away from the window and to a cooking station in the back.
"Mina, you can't be day dreaming!" the girl snapped. This young lady had short red hair in a bob cut, a thin face was decorated with a light patch of freckles and vibrant green eyes. "We have to get to work on our exam!"
"It's cooking Olivia." She shrugged back. "How hard can it be?"
"Easy for you to say! You have a good grade! I'm the one failing here! The only thing I'm god at is band and chorus! Just music!" the girl whaled, shaking a box of farfalle pasta at the blond.
"Once again, it's cooking, how hard can it be?" the red head pouted and crossed her arms when Mina took the box and clomped it down on the counter. "All you have to do is follow the instructions."
"But… it's no good, everything I cook tastes so bad."
"Follow the instructions harder and don't substitute anything, I'll watch you and make sure you don't mess it up."
"I hope so! It's your grade too!" the girl resorted ripping the pasta box open letting pieces of uncooked pasta fly around.
"Even so, I don't need the grade it's you." Mina sighed, leaving to get the broom and quickly cleaning the fallen pasta. She glanced up to Olivia, who was now putting the remaining pasta into a post of cold water and was turning on the burner. Mina flipped it off and threw the pasta in to the strainer.
"You bring the water to a boil first then put the pasta in, I'm sure we went over this in class."
"But this how I always make my pasta."
"If that's true no wonder it sucks so much!" Mina snapped, (recalling all the pasta dishes she ate while at Olivia's house) filling the pot up once more. Olivia gasped.
"Oh Mina! How could you say that!?"
"Would you rather I lie?" the blond didn't look away as she placed the pot back on the burner and with a cover.
"…No."
"Then suck it up and take the truth as is. Now what was the other thing for our three course meal?"
"A Caesar salad as an appetizer and hot fudge Sunday for desert…" Mina nodded, instructing the other girl to gather the ingredients. As they worked their teacher had already arrived to asses her students teamwork, effort and culinary skills. She listened into conversations, taking notes and glances and randomly trying the food.
With thirty minutes left in class the two girls completed their three course meal, Mina left Olivia with the teacher so she could clean dishes, she could hear a squeal of delight, signalizing that Olivia received a good enough grade to pass the class.
That brought a small smile to her lips.
Mina could not believe what she was hearing. She rubbed her temple and listened to her friend Chaz ramble on Giraffes when his final report was supposed to be about some alien creature named after a planet or something, honestly she couldn't tell which was the stupider choice.
Most likely the alien one, Chaz was probably so over confident that he could find an alien that he waited to the last second and never found one, forcing him to make a crappy one minute essay. Now he was going to fail it so hard he would go to her house to complain about how unfair his 'well-researched paper' got an awful grade to remember she was away for the whole summer.
Like he did every year.
Chaz proudly walked back to his seat with a confident smirk. Sitting down he gave her a thumbs up and Mina rolled her eyes.
"What? My report is genius!"
"Giraffes can't dig holes so they can't hide their heads in them. Where did you even hear that
from?"
"From my older brother, duh."
"And you believed him?"
"He's in college!"
"And he loves to pull your leg."
"…I'm going to kill him." The bell suddenly rang, ruining Chaz's premature plans to mess with his older brother. Students jumped to their feet and out the door cheering, screaming and throwing paper around. That would be one thing she wouldn't miss.
William Jones was a hardworking and an honest man for the city but he was still environmentally conscious just like his wife. They wanted a nice clean world for their daughter and her future family, which was exactly why they went to their farm for the summer, to show her the benefits of a clean, electric and gas free world.
Well that's what they told her.
The girl was slouching in the backseat bored and arms crossed, she glanced to her parents who were smiling and holding hands. She scoffed at them. How annoying.
.
..
….
..
.
Tell me, what is it like to die but still live.
Let it end.
Stop it.
I don't want to live.
Don't touch me! Leave me alone!
