When the pairs of feet ran they left contrails. They chased a hellish screams with great panic. Soon these people felt sorry for being so portentous, when they came to a stop at the opening door and their daughter's room was in full view.
Their son, the younger, was ousted. He sprinted out with his hand not leaving his snickering mouth. They call him to come back and Tommy sheepishly made a turn back around with his snickering swallowed. His mouth shifted to a flat slit of uncertainty. Michele ducked back in the room to grab her costume and put it in their faces. It was for an unimportant school play but it meant a lot to her. Now it was ruined with a black stain on the chest that made out words. Mr. Webster pulls the clothes closer with his eyes squinted.
"...'Michele has a big butt'," he dictates. When he repeats it louder, it comes from memory, "It says 'Michele has a big butt'."
"Tommy needs to buzz off forever, da!"
"Now honey, there are a lot of girls born with bigger backsides than others. In some places it's a cultural symbol of beauty," says her mother. Tommy giggles like a toddler in light of toilet humor.
"I don't have a big butt," Michele whines.
Mrs. Webster takes the costume to the bathroom, since she no longer has her office to work in. It now belongs to Tommy, an early red flag of his annoying dominance over the family. Her father stays with her to talk more. To be expected, he takes the side of his younger son over his older daughter.
"Remember he's seven." He tweaks her nose. "And you're eleven."
"Twelve," Michele boasts. Tomorrow would be her 12th birthday. They planned a house party with everyone, including her baby brother. She frowns at that thought. She haggled with her dad about not inviting him, to keep him locked in his room for the day as a way to quarantine him. The answer was a heretical no, he was a bit of a strict man as it is. With his health conscious attitude that he pressed on his family among other things. Her mother was a workaholic, and weird. She came back with the costume "fixed", in her words. The penmanship wasn't washed out but instead crossed out in the same black ink. As if that would make the costume look anymore presentable.
The upcoming play meant a lot to her because her crush, who will be playing the prince, is participating. She didn't care about her lines; her first line is Mohammad Deaton, her last line is Mohammad Deaton, the name of her character is Mohammad Deaton, her personality traits are Mohammad Deaton, two plus two equals Mohammad Deaton. He looked like a handsome Disney prince during rehearsal, long black bristly eyelashes and a dip of shiny brown hair. He was tall, and played basketball; the lord of boyish charisma.
More noise happened later that day, downstairs became an echo chamber of metallic sliding and grunts. Their cat, Babs, howled from the unpleasant sounds invading her sensory. Mrs. Webster was leading in two men into the house. The rest of the family gathered at the den all dressed in their pajamas after the two delivery men left, with new cash in their hands. Something was added to the den, it stood out like a nasty sore. A gaudy grandfather clock that made Michele sweat was standing with his back to the wall.
"Oh mom I don't know what to say, " she says through grip together teeth.
Her mother looked at it from every angle. From close up to examine it individually, and from further away to see how it looks with its surroundings. Either way it was still ugly, to everyone else.
She puts her hands on her hips and twists her grinning head back at her. "It's for me!"
Michele smiles too but out of cold humor. "Isn't it my birthday?"
"No Hermana, not that thing," her husband moans. He rubs his head and closes his eyes.
Tommy tried to scale it like a building. His rump arched up when his little legs and arms tied around the hulk. The clock did not get taken off balance and fall to its side. It was as strong as a tree trunk and supported the extra weight generously.
"Hey look I'm King Kong!" Tommy exclaimed. Mrs. Webster rushed to his side to pry him off quickly but gently. She demands that her children agree to never touch this clock, or even enter the den for some time. Tommy begrudgingly says "yes", but Michele remains silent. Her eyes still transfixed onto the antique in some sort of morbid fascination. It looked like something that would posses a magical genie. Little strokes of red, blue and gold designs were carefully painted onto the black wood. It had many doors, most small but one visually bigger than the rest. Presumingly the cuckoo bird is meant to eject from that one. The strangest thing about it was the way it records time unlike every other clock. Without flaw it marks not only the current time but date and year through extra digits. It was eerie, like a calendar tracking the rest of their lives.
Michele was barked at to answer her mother's question. Without further wait she agrees to the promise she didn't remember what it was for.
#
A pink banner festooned over the living room with Michele's name on it, and the number twelve adjacent to the right. A pile of banana foster pancakes was ready at the kitchen table. This was her dad's work, along with the banner. It was a sweet, desert-like breakfast but beneficial to your health from all the fruit. If not for Tommy sitting at the table with her, this day could have at least started off perfect. He mocks her from the other end and reminded her why her birthday won't end perfectly.
"Guess whose invited to your party, me!"
Michele wanted to play tee ball with his head, and smash a bat in his face. It was tempting with his meaty red lips on his white face, he reminded her of a baseball. A white baseball with lines of red seams around it. His skinny body would make a great tee to hold his head up. Whenever someone claims she looked like him she felt a tingle of disgust. Other than dense brown hair and light skin, there was no comparison.
Before the party starts her parents give in, and take her to the garage for an early gift. Michele did not know why they needed to hide a guitar in such a big space but her gratitude didn't make her care. She picked up the present; it was light for a big instrument and painted purple with red stars. A little childish for a preteen but perfect for a beginner like her. She was happy until spotting a familiar sight upon it. Tommy has marked his territory with black penmanship a second time. The same exact insulting phrase was printed next to the middle hole. The egregious handwriting of a seven year old have burned into her memory.
Her friends approached the house with gifts. They consisted of mostly girls but a few boys were included. What all the boys had in common was that Michele befriended them through basketball. One of them, was Mohammad Deaton. He came dressed nicely in a clean black tee and moss green short while the other guys wore their dirty jerseys. The gift he brought was the smallest, but the one Michele was most excited about. It was a small tight square bound in pretty wrapping paper. She concluded it was a music cd or a video game for the computer or PlayStation.
She opened it first and it was in fact, a musical cd. The collection of friends all loudly mused as they sat on the floor in the living room.
"Thanks so much Mo, how did you know I liked..." She flipped it over to the back and front several times before deciphering the name, "...'Mercury Smash'?"
He tousled his own hair shyly. "I thought I heard you say you liked them before so I picked it up."
Tommy, who also was conjoined to the circle, spoke up, "she never heard of them in her life but she pretends to like them, 'cuz she's in love!"
Everyone laughed as Michele sunk her blushing face into the collar of her clothes. Mohammad just laughs along unknowingly. Tommy continued to make her fester in humiliation. He quotes the back of her diary, verbatim and in order of where the words are scribbled.
"'Mrs. Michele Deaton'! 'Mrs. Michele Deaton'! 'Mrs. Michele Jaclyn Deaton'!" He dances around the crowd while everyone laughs. Michele would have killed him if not for the fact that her father calls her into the kitchen to fetch the cake and bring it out. It was a heavy chocolate cake with at least three pounds of frosting. How he was willing to put aside his issues with weight gain even for his child's birthday was beyond him. Michele wobbled into the living room slowly, this begged for disaster. Even her friends watched with invested grinning faces to see if she can successfully deliver it. No one will know, as Tommy pulls out his hand to trip her.
She picks her head up which also picked up an entire layer of brown frosting. She regretted not keeping her head in the cake, there she couldn't hear the roars of laughter through the chocolate build up in her ears. Tommy jumps up and down, he releases a scream of enjoyment that can be heard among the rest.
#
Michele couldn't go to sleep with the remains of the day haunting the night. She couldn't close her eyes without feeling the oozing of cake filling slamming into her eyes. The closest she ever got to dreaming was having a late night hallucination of the new grandfather clock breaking its doors open to release an army of Tommys. The difference is that they were smaller and had the bodies of some type of avian, like a hawk. The harpies swooped off the laager of the clock to peck at her arms. They had no beaks but somehow left behind marks on her, black runny scars cried over her. Michele did not have to wake up, just stand up to end this vision. An awful plan was made in short time.
She stalks her way downstairs to leer at the clock. Now 11:59 and soon to be midnight. Even though she was short, the main door was perfectly reachable. When 12:00 has been reached it noisily opens, the cuckoo bird slings out. It off puts Michele at first, he had scary blue eyes that were bigger than her wrists, and he shrieked in a way little birds aren't supposed to. He looked very realistic but still had cartoony features. Before he can slink back, She crushes the bird with one hand. The little head made another but quieter shriek, as it now is broken to face his tail feathers. Michele went to sleep a little happier with the knowledge that Tommy will be blamed for it the next day.
