The drive to the mall felt agonisingly long. Pansy and Chris sat in the front of the car chatting away about various demon attacks and vanquishing potions, while Henry and I sat in the back rolling our eyes at almost everything they were saying. The way they talked about this stuff made them seem like they knew it all, but in reality, our parents were the ones who really understood it.
Chris had time travelled back to right after Wyatt was born to save him from some psycho elders, but that was the Chris from the reality where Wyatt was evil ruler of the world, so all the credit people give him for that trip really isn't legit.
When we pulled up to the mall, Henry and I jumped out of the car and began to head towards the entrance, only to be called back by Chris.
"Guys I want us to stick together. I know you don't want to but it's for your own safety." said Chris looking between us. I rolled my eyes, but agreed. Disagreeing would cause a whole other argument that I really didn't need.
"Can we at least go to the shop I want to go to first?" I said, trying my best to give Chris an innocent sweet smile.
"Course. But Melinda, never smile like that again. It's really creepy."
My smile dropped to a frown as he and the others began to laugh. I may be easy going, but the one thing I hated was people laughing at me. Even if it's all in good nature.
"Come on Prue," said Henry linking his arm through mine "we're just having a joke."
"Whatever." I replied with another eye roll "Let's just go."
Topshop was packed. I'm not even joking; I literally couldn't get to any of the clothes. There were loads of raging women grabbing at whatever they could see and either rushing to the till or to the changing rooms. I soon found out why my favourite clothes shop was packed however. There was this massive sale going on that took up to 50% off, and every piece of clothing or jewellery and every pair of shoes were in this sale. No wonder people were grabbing whatever they could see.
My favourite part of this huge sale, however, was not the fact that something of the cutest pieces of clothing I had ever seen were half price, but the look of great discomfort on Chris and Henry's faces. They just looked so uncomfortable being squished up against racks of bright pink and yellow flowery skirts. Hope and I were in our element, however, grabbing any good looking piece of clothing we could see, just like every other nutter in the store.
When we finally made it to the also packed changing rooms, Pansy and I were laden with a large variety of clothes, from purple pleated skirts to orange crop tops.
"How does this look?" asked Pansy as she walked out of her changing room. I peeked around my curtain to see my cousin standing there in a beautiful one-shoulder knee length white dress. It made her look thinner then she already was, and made her hazel eyes and light brown hair a lot more prominent.
"It looks really good!" I told her with a smile. She looked happy with her choice and then checked out her reflection in the full length mirror at the end of the corridor.
"I was a good choice wasn't it?" She turned to me and placed her hands on her hips, something that she did far too often. "Let's see your dress."
I pursed my lips and stepped out of my changing room. Pansy's mouth literally fell open. "Is it that bad?" I asked looking at myself in the mirror. I had thought that the short sleeved knee length maroon coloured dress had been great find. It had black embroidered butterflies across the chest that I thought were extremely beautiful. The colour matched my hair and eyes really well, making them stand out.
"Mel, it's not bad! It looks great!" said Pansy with a little squeal of delight.
"First of all, don't call me 'Mel' and second, do you really think so?" I asked. I wasn't self-conscious at all, but I did hate it when people lied about how good others looked in clothes. I would rather be told I looked fat in something to my face than walk around in it and have others say it behind my back.
"Yes I do! Come on, let's go show the guys!"
Before I could protest Pansy had already pulled my out of the changing rooms and over to Chris and Henry who were sitting on a couple of chairs looking bored out of their minds.
"Okay guys, what do you think?"
They looked up at us and smiled. "It looks really good Hope. You to Prue. Can we go now?"
I rolled my eyes and turned around to head back to the changing rooms. They probably didn't even notice that we had changed clothes.
After changing back into our original clothes, Hope and I paid for our dresses and left the store, with a very thankful Chris and Henry in tow.
"Now it's your turn. Where do you guys want to go?"
"Well, after all the time we spent in there I'm quite hungry." said Henry. Chris nodded in agreement. Even I had to admit that I was hungry. We had, after all, spent a good few hours trying on clothes.
"Okay," I said "let's go get food."
As we made our way to the food court Chris and Henry chatted about guy stuff and Hope and I chatted about my up and coming return to school. Pansy had just left and for years before she graduated constantly would go on about how much she couldn't wait to leave. Now that she's left, all she talks about is how much she misses it.
I was about to start my junior year at the local high school that all of my family had attended. My mom and Aunt Phoebe had gone there as kids along with all of my cousins. Our family was well known throughout the school, as being either 'major players' (Chris, Wyatt and Henry) or as 'Queen Bees' (Pearl, Pansy, Penny and Patty.)
Pearl, Penny and Patty were all in their final year at the school and Henry and I were two years below them. My three cousins were the popular girls of the school, and so am I, but whereas they grow confident with the attention I grow weak. I'm not really the biggest fan of everyone knowing what I'm doing at every minute of the day.
"I hear that Pearl's running for prom queen." said Pansy as she checked her nails for any damage.
"Yeah she wants to when it comes around. So do Penny and Patty I think, but obviously there can only be one."
"I really want it to be a Halliwell again."
That would probably happen. The three most popular girls running would be Halliwell. Well technically. Even though Phoebe married Coop, she kept her last name and used it for her children as well. Paige on the other hand had taken Henry's last name, Mitchell, and therefore had given it to her children to.
"I think Pearl's boyfriend wants to run for prom king as well." I said as we walked into a McDonalds. We sat down at the first free table we could find and then Henry went up to order the food.
"I didn't know that Pearl had a boyfriend." said Chris, suddenly joining the conversation.
"Yeah, they've been dating for a bit now."
Chris nodded his head as if he wasn't bothered but the moment his jaw tensed I could tell he was. It wasn't just me that he was protective over. It was all of us. He and Wyatt felt like it was their duty to protect everyone in the family, even though we were all perfectly capable of protecting ourselves.
"So do you have a boyfriend Melinda?" said Pansy suddenly. At her words heat rushed to my face and I knew a prominent blush would show on my cheeks.
"You do, don't you?" she squealed, clapping her hands a bit like a seal.
"What?" snapped Chris. He had an angry look on his face and was clenching his fists on the table top. "Melinda do you have a boyfriend?"
"No!" I snapped at him "I'm not stupid Chris! I know that if I did get one you and Wyatt would probably murder him!"
"You shouldn't be getting one anyway! You're way too young!"
I let out a frustrated groan as he talked. I hated how overprotective he was. I understood that he didn't want me to get hurt, but what was a teenage boy going to do? Break my heart maybe, but not anything else. I'm sure demons would do a lot more damage to me.
"It's not like I haven't had one before." I mumbled, crossing my arms and slumping back on my seat.
I have to admit, I wish I hadn't said that.
"What was that Melinda?"
"Nothing." I said with a sigh. God, Chris could seriously be the most annoying person on Earth.
"Oh, well, my baby sister has had a load of boyfriends, yeah that's nothing."
I rolled my eyes at his babblings. In response he glared at me from across the table. I glared back.
"Oh brother." mumbled Hope resting her head in her hands tiredly. "This is going to be a long trip."
Chris and I didn't stop glaring at each other until Henry arrived back at the table with food. He could sense the tension between me and my youngest older brother but didn't not bother asking me what had happened. I was glad. I didn't really feel up for talking. After our food was all gone we decided to walk around a few more shops, but the atmosphere between Chris and I was so deadly we decided to just pack up and go home. When we did arrive home, Pansy bolted out of the car so fast you would have thought she had been on fire. I, on the other hand, got out of the car and slammed the door shut with so much force the car shook dangerously from side to side. I stomped ahead of Henry and Chris and marched through the open door as angrily as I could.
"Hey, you guys finished quickly." said Wyatt from his spot on the sofa. He got up and hopped over the back and came up to me, his signature goofy grin plastered on his lips. The grin fell into a frown, however, when he noticed my expression. "Did something happen?"
I turned around to look at Chris who was approaching us from behind. "Ask him!" I spat before storming upstairs to my bedroom, leaving one annoyed brother, and one confused one behind.