It was a dark and stormy night. Wow, that's cliché. Let's try again.
It was a night that would live in the memory of two teenage girls for decades to come. The wind screamed across the siding of the small, suburban house, threatening to rip the entire structure off the ground and hurl it into oblivion. Thunder echoed in the ears of every living creature for miles around, making them run for cover. And the lightning that pierced the sky was seared into the retinas of the girls long after it had disappeared.
I had a dreadfully boring life that I did my best to make more interesting. I turned even the most dull, commonplace things - like a thunderstorm, for example - into spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime events. Trust me, it wasn't easy to turn going into the grocery store into an unforgettable journey when you'd gone once a week for fifteen years.
Luckily, I had Oceana to help me. She'd been my best friend for almost six years. We both shared a love of adventure and a hate for our tedious daily routine.
On this particular "dark and stormy night," she was coming over for a sleepover. As I peered out the window, waiting for the familiar sight of her mom's red minivan, I drew doodles in the misty glass, thankful to be indoors.
"Izabella!" my dad called from the kitchen. I unwillingly pulled myself away from the glass and walked into the next room. He stood there, furious, next to the counter over-flowing with dirty dishes.
"Sup?" I said, purposely looking anywhere but the counter.
"Didn't I tell you to do these dishes before Oceana came over?" he asked.
"Maybe."
"Well, maybe I'll have to call Oceana's mother and tell her not to bother dropping her daughter off tonight." I could tell by the way his eyebrows knit together that he wasn't giving in.
"Fine." I hunched my shoulders and pushed past him to the dishwasher. Plate, spoon, bowl, plate, cup. I had loaded the dishwasher so many times, that I was almost finished with the chore by the time I came up with a story to make it more exciting.
A nuclear bomb was coming, and the dishwasher was the only safe place. Each dish was a person, desperate to get out of harm's way.
"Please," screamed a cup, "take care of my babies first." She passed me a horde of silverware, which I dutifully slid into a rack.
"Is there room for me?" a huge pot asked, bumping a stack of plates out of his way.
"No, take us first!" clamored the mugs.
"Women and children first!" I shouted over all the voices. "Now, we need to do this in an orderly fashion. Forks, spoons, knives, you're first. Then plates, bowls, and cups."
"Hold on!" protested the saucepan. "What about me?"
"Do you know you're talking to yourself?" My dad's voice brought me back to reality.
"Huh?"
"You're talking to yourself. You're giving the dishes little voices." Color rushed to my cheeks. I hurriedly shoved the last few remaining dishes in and closed the dishwasher with a snap. I hadn't realized I had been speaking. "Hey," my dad said, grabbing my arm to prevent me from leaving, "I'm not scolding you. It's cute." I groaned and tried to pull away.
"I don't want to be cute, Dad. I'm fifteen." He pulled me into a hug.
"Be nice to your old dad. It seems like yesterday that you were five and making your Barbie dolls into spies and your stuffed animals into crime lords."
"And the My Little Ponies where pirates," I said with a laugh.
"And you'd make them ships out of paper and stick them in the bathtub until they sank." There was sadness in my father's eyes that didn't match the crows' feet around them. He'd done his best raising me, but it had been hard since he had to work most of the time, and my mom had died when I was two.
"You're a great dad, you know that?" I kissed his cheek, and then ran off before he realized that I hadn't wiped off the counter.
Oceana arrived soon after, soaking wet and over twenty minutes late.
"Well, at least I didn't forget entirely," were her first words as she walked in. I tried to be angry with her, but it was impossible. No matter how late Cee-Cee showed up, she was still the sister I never had. We left our parents chatting at the foot of the stairs and ran into the kitchen like we did every time she came over.
"So, I see you go away without wiping off the counter - again," Oceana remarked. She pulled flour and sugar out of one cupboard, while I rummaged around for eggs and butter in the fridge. It had become a tradition to make chocolate-chip cookies whenever we hung out.
"I think he's given up," I said, measuring out the ingredients by heart. We had used the recipe so many times, that we didn't even need to look in the cookbook anymore. "So, how's Randy?" I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
"Oh, shut up," she said, throwing an oven mitt at me. "My mom's still here!" She lowered her voice and leaned in. "But if you must know, I think he's going to ask me to that homeschool dance next Saturday."
"No way!"
"Yes way!"
We didn't run out of things to talk about during the whole time we baked the cookies, ate dinner out with my dad, painted our nails, and role-played in my room. Finally, my dad shouted up the stairs for us to start getting ready to go to bed. It was only nine o'clock, but he knew us well. We took at least half an hour just to get into our pajamas and brush our teeth.
I went over to the door of the bathroom and pounded on it with my fist impatiently. "Will you hurry up in there?" I shouted. "How long does it take to change into your pajamas?" The door whooshed open, revealing Oceana in bright green polka-dot pajamas. Her bright red hair was tangled all around her face.
"Um, help?" she said, pulling hopelessly at the mass of snarls.
"How do you even get you hair this knotted?" I asked. I went to work with detangler and a comb, and soon she could see again. "Well," I said, stepping back to admire my handy-work, "you aren't exactly ready for a photo-shoot, but you should be fine for a Sherlock marathon!"
She squealed in excitement. "Is it okay with your dad?"
"He doesn't mind as long as we're quiet. So don't scream during Reichen-" CRACK! A spike of lightning flashed just outside the window. With a little whoosh all the lights went out, leaving us in pitch black.
"Umm… Izabella? I think the power just went out," Oceana said. It was too bad it was so dark, because she missed me rolling my eyes.
"I hadn't noticed. Keep me posted," I said sarcastically.
"Are you two okay?" my dad called up the stairs.
"Well, I'm kinda hungry…" Oceana began.
"We're fine!" I shouted. "You're such a dork, Cee-Cee." She probably made a rude gesture at me, but I couldn't see anything.
"You'll just have to use flashlights tonight, girls," my dad shouted. "Oh, and no raiding the fridge; if you open it, all the cold will get out." We both groaned loudly. "And lights out by midnight!" We groaned again.
A thought struck Oceana, and she pulled out her phone. "Oh, brilliant," she said after checking the screen. "No wi-fi." I handed her a dusty flashlight from the closet and took one myself. "Now we can't watch Sherlock."
"Nope. But you know what we can do…?" I flicked on the flashlight under my chin. "Tell ghost stories!"
"No way. Not in a million years," Cee-Cee said quickly. "You know I hate scary stories."
"Exactly," I said, grinning evilly. I checked the list of dessert we'd been planning to have during the marathon. A problem arose right away. "We can't have ice cream sundaes, ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, or raw cookie dough, because they're all in the fridge or freezer." Cee-Cee looked over my shoulder at the list, and a smile stretched slowly across her face.
"I guess we'll have to skip right to the Oreos, then."