Silence
My name is Kato and I'm seventeen years old. Might I just welcome to the ever boring Hatfield PA in which I've had both the pleasure and displeasure of living in since I was two; we moved here from Texas after my dad got transferred at work (yeah don't ask me what he does 'cause I don't know). I'm a junior at Hatfield High School, home of the Mad Hatters (or haters if you want, whatever) where the kids are higher than the grades; though not me, I stray away from that stuff. Actually I'm a pretty good student and I'd be even better if I wasn't worked to death, but what are you gonna do?
Well I lead seemingly boring and occasionally embarrassing life, so I hope you enjoy those moments as much as my friends and welcome to my scattered, jumbled thing I call my brain or mind, whichever you prefer.
Friday
I groan. "Why can't they turn all the lights on? I can barely see this!" I whine.
Connor looks over my shoulder and down at the unfinished homework on my lap. "Algebra II?"
"Yeah," I mumble as I try to finish before homeroom starts.
"We had homework?!" asks Annabella as she stops beside me in the aisle. As you can probably tell I belong to a small cult of procrastinators. I nod my head and keep working on the packet. "Oh crap!" She unzips her backpack and shuffles inside for her homework packet. She rips the papers out and swipes through the pages. "Page 3, right?" I hum an agreement. "Oh hey sweetie," she says and pushes her blonde hair away and leans down to peck Connor on the lips absently. Those two have a rollercoaster relationship, and it's been going on for years.
"Hey," is all he says back.
"Skip numbers fourteen, nineteen, twenty one, and twenty two," I inform her.
She plops into the ugly red cushioned auditorium seat beside me and goes to work. We work in silence for a bit until I quickly scribble in my answer for the last problem and slam my pencil down. "Done," I huff.
"Lemme see!" Annabella drags my binder closer to her and starts copying my homework. I just shrug it off, it's not like I never copied homework from her before. I take my pencil off the binder before it falls onto the floor and I never see it again; I'm going to need it. You know I started this school year with a dozen really nice mechanical pencils and now I'm down to only one and we've just begun the second semester. How does that happen?
"Mornin' morons," says Chris as she dumps her backpack onto the seat in front of me.
"Hey," I say in response and Annabella just hums a "hi".
"Ok so get this," says Chris. "Last night at practice-," Christine is a soccer player, and a really good one at that, "coach told us to do laps around the field, you know like every practice." I nod even though I "don't know". "And Shauna Walker trips Barb and now she has a swollen ankle and can't play this week against Upper Mumford! We're gonna lose without her! And I think Shauna did it all because Barb accidentally kicked her in the shins last game against St. Claire's. Can you believe her?!" She pushes her thick super dark hair over her shoulder. Chris is half Chinese on her mom's side and half Korean on her dad's side. I must admit Christine is a pretty girl with her perfect dark hair and her chocolate eyes. Plus she has an amazing fashion sense and she's a pro at makeup. Sometimes I have Chris pick out clothes for me when we go to the mall and this year she picked out my homecoming dress and it was perfect. She even curled my hair and did my makeup for homecoming. The only thing odd about Christine is that she can't do Gangnam Style to save her life.
"No! Oh my god, what are you guys gonna do at the game?" I only say that to humor her.
"I don't know Kat; I guess I'll just have to pull out the stops on this game. I mean we can't lose to Upper Mumford again."
"No I know what you mean." Upper Mumford is HHS' rival if you can even call it that. It's not like either of our schools are top notch at sports, but we apparently hate each other. Maybe it's because our Thanksgiving football game is always played against them. Though they totally creamed us this year which was a sight for sore eyes, especially now in gym with Mr. Schmidt; he really left himself go. "Well I'm sure you'll kick their sorry butts."
Chris smiles. "Thanks Katy." I shrug.
"Look what I got!" pipes Emily as she skips down to us. Emily couldn't care less what people think of her, and we have that in common; people will allows have their opinions good or bad, but why should I care if I'm ok with who I am? I'm sure people think I'm strange, but that's ok 'cause I think I'm strange too; it's just their loss if they don't like me. And same goes for Em, that's how we became friends. She waves a donut in the air. "My pop-pop made this for me this morning!"
"Lucky!" whines Annabella. "Why didn't you bring some for us too?!"
Em shrugs and takes a bite of her donut. "If you want one so bad than you should go to his shop and buy one."
"Or if my best friend brought me one I wouldn't have to waste gas driving all the way down to Maplegrove and buying one."
"Yeah, but your best friend likes donuts way too much to share; sorry not sorry." She sweeps her red hair over her shoulder.
Annabella squints her eyes at Em. "I hope you get fat from all those donuts."
Em gasps dramatically. "Now now, girls!" I say through a giggle. "No need to go that far."
Connor chuckles. "But really Em, don't eat too many donuts, that's not healthy."
"Oh ok, says the hockey player that ate three pieces of my birthday cake."
"Hey! That was one time!"
"Yeah ok," she says sarcastically. "Oh! Did any of you see the new New Girl?!"
"No! Don't say anything!" I cry.
Annabella opens her mouth to speak, but I tap her packet and she shoots me a look and goes back to work.
"Oh my god! My Nick and Jess feels were all over!"
"Shut up!" I hit Em in the arm.
"Oh," says Connor, "I'm caught up on The Walking Dead now."
"Oh good!" sighs Chris. "Now we can talk about it!"
The bell rings indicating that we ought to get going to homeroom or we're toast. I take my binder back from Annabella and tell her she can finish the last problems in homeroom. I zip up my backpack and throw it over my shoulders. I walk beside my friends as they drone on about The Walking Dead and keep quiet. I usually keep my mouth shut on these walks to homeroom. Why? I don't know, I just do. I say goodbye to my friends and walk the rest of the way to homeroom by myself since they go a different way.
In homeroom I sit in my seat and wait a minute or two for Natalie to pass by and wave at her like every morning. Afterwards I just sit in silence and read off my kindle app on my iPhone. I'm currently reading The Mark of Athena again... don't judge me, I love these books. My friend Haley taps me on the shoulder. We became friends when we figured out in Bio last year that we both have a fierce passion for reading and that we love all the same books. She smiles nicely at me when I turn around. "Hey, I'm done Beautiful Creatures, do you want me to bring it in for you tomorrow?"
"Oh my god, yes! Was it good?!"
Her eyes widen as she smiles wider and nods her head. "Oh yeah."
"So excited to read it. Oh, do you want The Name of the Star?"
"Is that the one you told me about with Jack the Ripper?"
"Yeah."
"Please!"
I laugh. "Alright, I'll bring Name of the Star and you bring Beautiful Creatures."
"Deal." The morning announcements start and smile once more at Haley before I turn back around in my seat. I continue to read through the rest of homeroom and then make my way by myself to French III. First period went by like a breeze and so did second period; maybe because it's a half day. Third period we just reviewed oxidation number stuff and the Lewis structure for Wednesday's test, but really the whole time my chemistry partner and I just ranted about The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, (oh how books can bring two people together) and The Big Bang Theory. Fourth period was skipped because it's just lunch and directed study and it's only a half day so I went right to fifth and then after right to my car. I zip my leather jacket up all the way and nestle into the collar. The weather has gotten significantly colder since this morning. And Eve doesn't have coat, I think to myself in dismay.
I throw my backpack onto the passenger seat and hop into my lovely blue Chrysler sedan. I rub my hands together and turn on the heat. I even turn on the seat warmer to high. I pull out of the parking lot and drive my ways to Eve's elementary school. I find a spot at the curb of the school's campus if you can even call it that and wait for Eve to come out. I blast some Florence + the Machine as the car warms up. When I see Eve's teacher lead her class out I jump out of the car and lean against the car and wait for Eve to make her way down the school's front lawn. Her dark brown hair bobs as she runs towards me and her backpack threatens to knock the little girl over. "Kitty! Kitty, look at what we made in art class!"
"Let me see!" I kneel down on the frosty grass to her height as she unrolls a large piece of paper. She painted a face (or I think it's a face) of a person with black hair and pointed ears. "Oh my goodness! Look at that masterpiece!" I praise as I take the painting in my hands. "Now, Miss Artist please describe to me what this is." Sugar-coating; that's the key to not offending little Eve.
"It's you!"
I look at it again. "By golly gosh it is! Uh, why do I have pointed ears?"
"My art teacher thought I was painting an actual cat so she made me make kitty ears." She pouts.
"Oh, wow! You know what I think it looks way cooler with the cat ears! And you know what?" She perks up. "I think this painting is frozen yogurt worthy."
She gasps and hops happily. "Can we go now?"
"Ah! Let me see your lunchbox."
She dutifully holds her Tangled lunchbox out for me. I take it open it up and peer inside. She ate her sandwich and of course her cheese-its and some of her grapes. I hum. "Ok, frozen yogurt here we come!" She squeals and crushes my neck in a hug. "Ok ok," I laugh. "Get in the car; I heated it up for you."
She hops into the back of the car and I help her buckle up in her car seat. I get in the driver's seat and drive towards the frozen yogurt shop. "So how was your day?"
"Good. We read more of Junie B. Jones."
"Ah, Junie B. Jones, those were the days. How's spelling class?"
"It's still hard," she sulks.
"Well of course it's going to be hard Evie, but it'll get better. I promise."
"Ok."
"Do you have homework?"
"Yeah, math and spelling."
"How about I help you with your spelling homework? Will that make it easier?"
"Uh, yeah!"
I laugh. My little Evie is getting too old. "Do you want me to put on some Justin Beiber?"
"YES!" she shrieks. I laugh and put on his Christmas album, since it's already early December. She sings along, or well tries, but Busta Rhymes is just too fast for the first grader. We sing the rest of the way to Yo Babycakes (aka the frozen yogurt place) and back to the house. Eve finished her frozen yogurt in the car and spilled a little on her seat which I had to clean up. I helped her with her homework and then sent her off to gymnastics at the YMCA. I do my own homework at this time while Eve is at whatever activity it is she has that day. I'm never able to finish all my homework in the hour she's gone, but I do my best.
Yeah I do my best up until the stupid phone rings. I groan and get up from the coffee table which has my papers sprawled all over and get the phone. "Hello?"
"You have seventy two hours to give me one million dollars or the cat gets it."
I try not to laugh. "Hey Em."
She giggles. "Sup. So are you doing the French homework?"
"Uh yeah, why?"
"Ok so I have a question about..." Yeah this conversation gets really boring and at some point we switch to speaking French, which I doubt many of you are fluent in. "Thanks girl!"
"No problem babe."
"Oh hey are you doing anything Friday?"
"Yeah, I'm with Eve all day."
"Right the 'rents are working hard."
"Real hard; we barely see them."
"Yeah, that reminds me; my mom offered to make you and Eve some dinners since you can't cook for your life."
"Hey! I can cook just fine! And tell your mom she doesn't have to go to the trouble of feeding two more mouths; I'm managing just fine, but thanks for asking doll face."
"If you insist, but when she makes steak, you best be far away from our grill."
I laugh. "Promise. But hey, let's get some dinner tomorrow at Philly's; you can bring your cousin so Eve'll have a friend her age."
"That sounds good!"
"We'll talk about the details tomorrow before homeroom. I've got to go pick Eve up from gymnastics."
"Ok, talk to you later."
"Bye."
hg
"So, what do we want for dinner?"
"Food," says Eve as she buries her chin into her arm.
"Well no duh food! I mean what type of food."
"Umm, chicken nuggets?"
I think about it. Yesterday we had spaghetti-o's, Saturday I made Mac and cheese and heated up left over pork chops, and Sunday we had pork chops and mashed potatoes. Yeah, we're good. "Ok, what do you want with them?"
"Frozen yogurt."
"Yeah, nice try munchkin."
"Fries?"
"Ok." I skip over to the freezer and take out chicken patties (if I cut them up she'll never know the difference) and French fries, dump them on a tray and pop them into oven. "Alrighty, while that's in the oven why don't you run up stairs and take a quick shower, get in your jammies and it'll be done for you when you come back down."
"Ok." She hops off her stool and skips on upstairs.
"Your towel is on the counter!" I call up to her.
"I see that!"
"Sassy much?!"
I hear her faint little giggle. My little Eve, she really grew up fast. She's seven now and her eighth birthday is coming up. I've been taking care of her since she was four, that's when my mother got her super demanding job and my dad got a huge promotion. I've became something like her second mother; getting her ready in the morning, packing her lunch, taking her to school, picking her up, driving her to her after school activities, cheering her on at her soccer games, signing permission forms, helping her with homework making her dinner, and tucking her into bed. It's my regular schedule. I barely have time for myself, but that's ok because I'd do anything for my little sister.
The oven beeps. I take the fries and chicken patties out and cut them into strips for Eve. I get out our nice Christmas dishes and fill them up with our dinner. I even get Eve her ranch dressing which she loves with her chicken nuggets. She scurries down with her brown hair in wet tangles. I sigh and tell her to sit down at the table. I sit across from her. We pray and then eat. Afterward we clean the dishes and I sit her down on the couch in front of me so I can comb her hair out as we watch A Charlie Brown Christmas.
We cuddle until the end of the special and then I take her up to bed and tuck her in. "Goodnight Kitty."
"Goodnight Eve." I kiss her forehead, turn out the lights and close the door behind me. I go back down stairs to try to do as much more homework as I can, take a shower and then I go to bed myself absolutely exhausted.
The weekend passes quickly. Those are the only two we see our parents. We spend the whole weekend together putting up Christmas decorations. We're a little late, but it's better than not putting up anything.
This is every week for me. It drains the life out of me, but if it makes Eve's better then I'm all for it. I don't want Eve's childhood striped away because her parents are never home. No, I'll take on that burden and leave her carefree. That's what I'm here for.