Thank you so much for all of the positive feed back on my first chapter! I really appreciate it! :D Here is the next chapter, i hope you like it! please leave a comment to tell me what you think :)
Hattie's POV
'Tea is ready!' My mother called from the kitchen. It was just mother, father and I living in the reasonably big house in the residential area of South Africa. I moved here from England when I was 15 since my father got a promotion for his job and my mother decided that we should go and support him. I guess you could say that I really didn't belong in South Africa. My skin was so pale that I had to be smothered in sun cream before venturing out to the shops otherwise I would come back looking like a tomato. Also, I hated going to the beach because the sand always got stuck in between the pages of my book.
'Coming mother!' I replied although we both knew that it would take me another five minutes for me to actually go into the house. I was sitting in the garden shed which I had created to make my home. My father helped put up shelves where I could display my pictures and store my story books. My mother helped me sew some cushion covers and upholstery to make the shed more comfortable and cosy. I liked my shed more than anywhere else in the world.
'Hattie! When I say now, I mean now!' Mother called again.
'Just a minute mother!' I replied and continued with my story. It was about a young girl, very similar to me in appearance and personality, who lived on her own in the forest. Then, one day the new prince of the village accuses her of being an intruder and takes her to his grand castle and locks her in the tallest tower for a life time.
Of course, I haven't quite finished yet. If I had, that would be a terrible ending. I can't stand stories that don't have a happy ending. I think I might finish it with the prince and the girl falling in love...hopefully a more romantic version of Stockholm syndrome than it sounds. Then, as clichéd as it may be, I could finish it with 'and they lived happily ever after.'
Writing stories was the one thing I could do. The doctors think it's because I'm crazy. I guess they're right to a certain extent. I mean, I'm definitely not ordinary…but who wants to be ordinary anyway. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain or something but I could see things better than everyone else. It was like I could paint the picture in my head and then the story unfolds right before my very eyes. The doctors call it hallucinations but I believe it's just a vivid imagination.
'Hattie Lane! Your lunch is getting cold as we speak. Put that blooming pen down and come and eat!' Mother exclaimed. Realising that I couldn't possibly delay this any further, I sighed and put down my pen to go into the house.
'Really, Hattie, when are you going to grow up? You're an adult for crying out loud; you need to stop with your silly little stories.' My mother sighed as she, hypocritically, buttered my bread roll for me. Talk about wanting me to grow up.
'Actually, mother, it's not a silly little story. It's a story of adventure, love and hate.' I replied, tucking the hair of my short, dark brown hair behind my ear.
'What is it going to be called?' Father asked.
'Captured heart.' I smiled up at him.
'Don't encourage her. You know full well Hattie is doing this instead of going out and getting a real job.' Mother said with disapproval.
'But mother, a writer can be a real job.' I objected.
'Don't speak back to me. John, tell her.'
'Don't speak back to your mother.' Father replied, giving me a slight smile. My father was always on my side when it came to disagreements. My mother and father loved me equally, although my mother could be quite a nag. I know she wants the best for me, but sometimes I get the feeling that I embarrass her; like when her friends at her book club ask why I go to the hospital so often.
'Mother, I was wondering whether we could do some baking today.' I said, after swallowing a mouthful of homemade chicken soup, a South African recipe our neighbour gave to us when we first moved in. This cheered my mother up entirely. She loved it when we did things together, especially when it was things she enjoyed. She also liked it because it distracts me from daydreaming. When I write, my imagination gets a little carried away; sometimes I find myself stuck in the image with the characters from my imagination. It's like that scene in Mary Poppins when the children enter scenery from the chalk paintings on the pavement. I know the images are not real but they feel ever so existent. That's normally when mother makes me take my medication.
'What a wonderful idea!' Mother exclaimed. 'What about carrot cake?'
'Oh yes! Atticus Hopkins would love carrot cake.' I giggled. I brought Atticus Hopkins, my pet rabbit, on my first day in South Africa at the local market. My father told me that they was selling him so people could eat him so I brought him myself and kept him as a pet in the garden. I knew I couldn't save all of the animals in the world but I might as well start with one.
'Hattie, you are not feeding your rabbit carrot cake.' My mother sighed. I couldn't help it, I try not to fall into the imaginary trap…but it's so tempting. I pictured my pet rabbit, Atticus, hopping around the kitchen and, after a moment, it became real. Well, not real for mother and father, they couldn't see him at all; but for me, it was like he was really there.
Atticus proceeded to jump from the kitchen surface and onto the dinner table, spilling mother's soup all down her new frock, causing me to go into fits of giggles.
'What is so funny, Hattie?!' Mother demanded, looking very confused.
'Atticus Hopkins is, mother.' I smiled as I watched Atticus dance around the table.
'She's hallucinating again.' Mother muttered to my father. 'I'll get her medicine.' Mother said and left the table.
'What was Atticus doing, Hattie?' Father asked as soon as he was out of ear shot of my mother.
'He spilt mother's soup, all over the table.' I giggled and turned to look at the mess, but it had…disappeared. Gone, just as Atticus was. The hallucination was gone.
'Well, he was here a moment a go. He's gone now.' I replied.
'Take the pill with a glass of water, Hattie.' Mother said, coming back into the kitchen. The soup stain on her dress wasn't there anymore. The incident never even happened. It was all in my head. That's what the doctors tell me.
'Oh I don't need it anymore mother.' I replied.
'Yes you do, Hattie. Take it now.' Mother replied more forcefully.
'But it's gone now.'
'You know what the doctors say, Hattie.' Mother said, putting the pill into my hand.
I gave in and took it, yet I didn't swallow it. I pushed it behind my teeth with my tongue and pretended that I swallowed it. Then I pretended to cough, slyly, taking the pill out and putting it inside my pocket, all without my parents noticing. I like my hallucinations, I don't like the pills. They make me sleepy.
'Good girl.' Mother smiled approvingly.
'Why don't you give me a hand with the washing up, then you can make the cake with your mother?' Father suggested. My father was a man of very few words, but when he did speak, he always tried to please everybody.
'Okay daddy. Let my just take my books upstairs.' I said and scampered up to my room. Unlike my shed, my bedroom wasn't very well decorated. It was more of a storage room for my clothes and books. When I was younger, I used to spread my books out around the floor, pretending they were stepping stones and the floor was lava. However, with my hallucinations, there was an added sense of danger as the floor really did look like lava. Of course, even when I did touch the lava, it would never hurt me; it is only carpet after all.
My parents though I was just being the typical imaginative child. It was only when I started secondary school when my parents knew there was something different about me. I would see things that no one else could; things from my imagination. I could be trekking up the rocks of Mount Everest, but from my parent's point of view, I was only climbing the stairs.
After washing up, which with my father's help, only took fifteen minutes, I was ready to bake the cake with my mother. When I say bake a cake, I really mean trying to hide the fact that I'm eating cake mixture and nodding to whatever my mother says. It was only really about the weather and these 'beautiful carnations' she saw in Josephine's garden today. However, one thing she said caught my attention.
'I thought we could give the cake to our new neighbours.' Mother suggested.
'We have new neighbours?' I asked in surprise.
'Hattie, I've told you twice already. The new neighbours are American. They moved in today. I think a welcome cake would be nice.'
'American neighbours.' I repeated in curiosity. I had never met an American. I see them all of the time on TV and in movies but never in real life.
'That's very interesting. I hope they're nice.' I smiled.
'Well I guess we'll find out soon.' Mother replied.
