Chapter 7
Hope pov
"Hope get up now if you want to go to Bebe's." Mom continually pounded on my door, it was Sunday and yet again I was hungover. I'd been back at school a week and it was still torture. Nothing got better, but it was high school, what could you expect? I did have friends, sometimes I make out that I don't, it's just that they are generally in the grades above me or ex pupils. All the girls in freshman year were retards, all they did was bitch about everyone else, twirl their hair and over exaggerate everything. Plus all their relationships lasted about as long as a bottle of Jack Daniels... When it was in my hands.
The guys were alright... Sometimes. I hated all the football/basket ball jocks shit but there generally weren't that many in my grade as we were just in our first year. If I was gonna hang around with anyone, it would be the normal people in my grade. Well... What I called normal. This was generally the ones who had a good taste in music; heavy metal and wore black and only black. They weren't 'emo's', that was really stereotypical but if I were to categorise them, I would edge on using that word.
"Ugh..." I pulled myself out of bed and looked in the mirror. My make-up from last night had run down my face, my hair was knotted from the back combing and my head felt like someone had split it with a chainsaw. Well... Maybe they had, last night was pretty rough. It was just another typical night out really but me and Greta had gone into the back streets and then she stole twenty packs of fags from the corner store so yeah as you can tell, I felt a bit like shit right now.
Reece often hung out with my friends as well, some were in college with him and some were Juniors and Seniors at high school. I was the youngest, but didn't act like it, trust me. Generally though, my boyfriend picked me up, dropped me back and just watched out for me if anything went wrong, for example fights. But when I was out with the others, I didn't talk to him all that much, besides, he could often treat me like a little kid if I got too close. I did go out on dates with him though, it wasn't like I completely used him for rides to places. I loved Reece, don't get me wrong, he was miles better than Jordan but I just preferred to chat with him when it was just us.
"Hope are you ready?" Mom yelled again.
"No alright!" I screamed, she irritated me so much.
"Hurry up, we have to leave soon, Hannah has to be at dance in twenty minutes." She explained.
"Erghhh!" I moaned and put my head in my hands. I pulled my hangover tablets out from under my pillow where I hid them and washed it down with some old water from like, last week. "Take the perfect child to dance." I yelled. "I can walk to Bebe's." I was going there for the day, to 'keep me out of trouble' whilst mom and dad were at some shitty birth control clinic or something. She needed it, one more kid and I was gonna kill myself, trust me I wasn't joking.
So yeah, Harry, Harvey and Belle were going to my grandma's; mom's mom. I was supposed to go there as well, whilst Hannah had dance all day but if mom thought she was sending me to grandma's, she was having a laugh. Grandma Testaburger was worse than mom and way worse than Grandma Marsh, in fact, my Grandad Randy was a laugh. I don't know whether it was him or his name I constantly laughed at... Immature, but I only established this last year. Anyway, that was why I was going to Bebe's, she was my favourite adult in all of South Park, the only person I actually spoke to about stuff. Plus, she often argued with my mom nowadays, well all their life, so we were on the same page.
"No Hope!" Mom cried. "I don't trust you to go to Bebe's, if I trusted you to do that, I'd let you be home alone."
"Fine!" I shouted and pulled out some leather leggings, a top I bought myself with 'slut' written on it (and I wonder why people call me that) and my leather jacket. That was another thing, I was never allowed home alone, it pissed me off. I dragged a hairbrush through my hair, causing it to look limp and boring. It was fading back to black now, but I had dyed it red with blue dip dye, well I hadn't, my friend Stacey had done it for me, she was in twelfth grade with Greta and mom had flipped out so hard when she saw me. I quickly re-back combed my hair so that it had more volume and applied a thick layer of eye liner and mascara to my creamy white skin.
"Hope!" Mom screeched and I jumped in shock, which made me smudge my lipstick.
"I'm fucking coming, chill out." I yelled, Jesus Christ didn't she stop at anything.
"Don't say that word." She scolded and I rolled my eyes.
"Why the fuck not?" I joked but she didn't find it funny. The door burst open and she stormed in, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of my room. "Mom stop." I snapped, furiously, what the hell, she couldn't do this. "GET OFF ME, STOP IT!"
"GET IN THE CAR!" She screamed, but I wasn't going to do anything, she could be really scary in this mood, but I had seen guys from the backstreets drunk so I wasn't scared of anything.
"NO." I continued to scream and her nostrils flared. "NOT IF YOU DO THAT, YOU DON'T TOUCH ME, YOU NEVER TOUCH ME."
"I'M YOUR MOTHER I CAN DO WHAT I WANT!" She retorted.
"HARDLY, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE MY MOTHER." I shouted and I heard dad storming up the stairs, things just got better.
"What the hell is going on?" He interrupted and both me and mom turned to look at him, anger on both our faces.
"Hope is being ignorant, she won't get in the car and she keeps swearing when I tell her not to." Mom grassed me up as if she was telling on me to the teacher, like the girls in my year do when I spit in their hair or throw gum at them.
"She dragged me and wouldn't let go." I argued. "Physical contact, that's rape, that's classed as rape!"
"I'm your mom!" Wendy sighed, desperately. "Why would I rape you?"
"Drake's dad molested him." I pointed out and she looked confused. "He managed to get two thousand dollars compensation and then bought me beer with it."
"What? No." She stuttered. "Beer? Wait... You don't get compensated for molestation!"
"Yeah... He had rape insurance." I actually didn't know what I was on about anymore. "...Or he stole it from a bank... Whatever."
"Stole? Bank? Rape? What?" Mom looked like she was about to have a fit, it was a good feeling. "Hope get in the car."
"Fine." I shrugged and skipped down the stairs. "I want to go to Bebe's anyway, she's actually mom material, she actually listens, she doesn't drag kids out of their bedrooms by their arms and physically hurt them." I yelled as I walked out of the front door, I was a handful, I know but they deserved it.
"I'll pick you up at five." Mom called to me when I got out of the car.
"No need, you'll be wasting your time." I sighed and let myself into Bebe's house without knocking. "Hi Bebe." I called and she appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"Hey Hope..." She trailed off, she didn't look very cheerful, mind you, I probably didn't either.
"What's up?" I asked, walking into the kitchen and helping my self to a coke out of her fridge.
"Oh nothing really..." She followed me, as if she was the guest. "Just, about what happened last night and stuff."
"What happened last night?" I asked and she looked at me, shocked.
Bebe pov
Hope collapsed on my couch, exactly the same way her mother had last night, I would never tell her this, otherwise she would be painting my walls with my insides, but her and Wendy were so alike.
"Bebe?" She looked at me curiously and I shook my head.
"Oh um... I just had a fight with your mother... Slightly." I sighed and she smiled.
"Then we are both on the same page." She replied.
"Why? You just had another fight with your mom?" I asked and she nodded.
"Yeah, now we can bitch about her." Hope giggled and I bit my lip.
"I can't do that!" I laughed. "I can't have a bitch to a child about her mother, that's like against the rules."
"Yeah and so is molesting them." She pointed out and my heart stopped.
"What?" I questioned.
"She grabbed me earlier and twisted my arm, she was dragging me to the car because she couldn't wait one minute." She explained and I frowned.
"You said molesting." I mused, relieved she hadn't been serious.
"Yeah, it is, I read about it, any physical contact for more than three seconds without consent." She retorted and I raised my eyebrows at her. "Drake got compensation for it, two thousand dollars..."
"Hope?" I sat down on the couch. "You need to be careful with what you say, I mean, I know Wendy can be irritating and over protective and... A bitch... At times. But you wouldn't want to blame her for something like that would you? The cops wouldn't take it seriously, she'd end up in jail before you knew it."
"I would love that." She grinned.
"Yeah but would you really?" I asked. "Trust me honey, I know where you're coming from, I had to put up with Wendy all my life but it wouldn't end up well. It's like, in elementary school, Cartman came up with this idea to get all of our parents out of town, mainly so Kyle could go to some crappy gig which his parents wouldn't let him go to. But we basically called up the cops and told them that our parents were molesting us; they arrested them before hearing their point of view and in the end it was just he kids running the town."
"Seriously? You're not shitting me? Oh my God that would be so cool, I bet you were all over the moon!" Hope exclaimed and I shook my head.
"At first we were, at first we thought it was fun, getting to run the town ourselves." I smiled, thinking about it. "But in the end we got fed up, realised we needed our parents."
"Ah, happy ending." She rolled her eyes. "Shame they don't actually exist, in my life anyway. Besides, I don't need my mom."
"You don't need your mom?" I laughed. "What about pocket money?"
"Dad." Hope replied.
"Washing up?" I continued.
"Dad." She stated.
"Tampons?" I smiled.
"...Buy them myself?" She sighed and I nodded, now challenging her.
"Where would you get the money from?" I raised my eyebrows and she crossed her arms.
"Pocket money!" She laughed and I shrugged, she had a point.
"You'd seriously spend your pocket money on tampons?" I asked.
"If I had to, yeah." Hope sighed. "Reece buys me anything I need anyway, in fact I could probably get him to buy me those too, he wouldn't care!" I had met Reece, he had come to pick Hope up once or twice and he was lovely, I was hoping he would make a good impact on her. It made me quite pleased to know that I had met Hope's boyfriend and Wendy hadn't, it had been like this is New York, Wendy thought Hope preferred me to her and got stressed out about it all the time. Back then, Hope would deny it. I wonder whether she would now...
Hope pov
"Hey babe." Kyle called as he entered the house, he walked into the living room and looked slightly startled to see me lying on the couch, with Bebe sitting at my feet. "Oh and hey Hope."
"Hi honey." Bebe replied and briefly kissed him on the lips. I wasn't really one for romance but in a way, I wished mom and dad did that more, they never seemed to even talk to each other anymore. Maybe they would get divorced, then I would live with dad for sure and all the other little retards could stay with mom.
"Hiya Kyle, sup?" I greeted cheerily, I liked him as well, he was the only person who ever told me the truth, sometimes in the worst way possible when he was drunk but still, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even have known the story behind me... Or would that be a good thing? Sometimes I wonder how I turned out like this, whether I would ever have been able to be a 'normal kid' as mom would put it, like Hannah is now. Maybe I would be if I didn't constantly feel like a piece of shit.
"Sup?" He grinned. "That's how you greet your bff?"
"Of course!" I exclaimed, he was still like a child I swear, making jokes about everything, well I assumed he was joking! "So...You probably won't want me to ask this but how's the pregnancy thing going?"
"Great-" Kyle started.
"Ugh horrible, uncomfortable, fattening." Bebe interrupted and Kyle rolled his eyes at me.
"Ah well, it will be born soon." I reassured her and then added; "And then you will have a red, screaming, highly irritating little lump to look after for the rest of your life." Just so I didn't break character.
"...You always have to wreck things don't you?" Bebe scolded, but she didn't look angry, not like my parents would of. They just seemed to find it funny, the way I acted, I didn't know whether this should piss me off but it didn't. If only Bebe and Kyle were my parents, this baby was lucky, especially if they didn't have anymore afterwards, being an only child was the best thing ever!
Red pov
"Honey, have you got the ribbons?" I called, we were going for an interview in Denver with the twins today and I was stressed out. It was the interview that would be posted in the magazine next fortnight and so it had to be perfect.
"Yes babe." Kenny sighed and kissed me on the forehead as he walked over. "We have everything we need, stop worrying."
"Ok, thank you." I nodded and then called up the stairs; "Scarlett, Ruby, time to go." Ruby instantly appeared at the top of the stairs and began to walk down in her brand new pristine red dress, the satin bow tied around the back neatly and her hair in two pigtails, tied with red ribbons.
"You look wonderful darling." Kenny smiled as she got to the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah." I agreed. "Ruby, what's the rule?"
"Always be myself." She recited confidently and I nodded.
"Very good. Scarlett, are you ready?" I called up the stairs and she then appeared at the top of the stairs. She two was wearing the same red dress, her hair perfect and posture elegant, but in her hand she was holding a toy airplane, not the doll I bought her to take like Ruby was holding.
"Scarlett, where's your dolly?" I asked.
"Oh... Can't I take my airplane?" She questioned.
"Well I bought you the doll to take to the interview..." I trailed off.
"But I don't like dolls as much as planes." Scarlett argued.
"Yes but the airplane doesn't really say 'cover girl' does it?" I looked at Kenny and he shrugged.
"No, the airplane says 'Scarlett'." She continued. "And what's the rule mommy?" She asked and I rolled my eyes.
"Always be yourself..." I smiled, she was good. "Okay get in the car then." I squeezed her hand as she walked past and she stuck her tongue out cheekily.
Once we were all in the car, Kenny began driving us through the mountains to Denver. It wasn't too far a drive, I remembered my dad dropping me, Bebe and Wendy off there when we were teenagers, so we could go to the market or look around the shops.
"Mommy, will we be there soon?" Ruby asked, once we were ten minutes into the journey.
"Soon yes." I told her and she continued to talk excitedly with Scarlett about the interview.
"Ruby, the interviewers are going to ask you lots of questions ok, so you have to answer and try not to be shy." Kenny told her and I saw her frown.
"Why was that directed at me?" She cried.
"Because Scarlett can be a lot more... Confident than you." I pointed out and I watched as Scarlett drove her airplane through the air, clearly not listening to us.
"I can be confident!" Ruby retorted and I sighed.
"Good, then be confident today." Kenny told her and she slumped back in her seat. We drove for another five minutes in silence before Scarlett began to pipe up.
"Are we there yet?" Scarlett questioned and I turned my head to look at her.
"Almost." I smiled and she continued playing with her plane.
"Are we there now?" Ruby asked, ten seconds later whilst brushing her dollies hair.
"Nearly." Kenny replied as he drove down a street, we were in Denver now, it was just a case of finding the building where we were having the interview.
"...We must be here now!" Scarlett yelled impatiently and I rolled my eyes.
"Scarlett." I began. "We'll be there soon, just-"
"We're here." Kenny pulled into a car space outside the building and I watched as a young man in a suit walked towards us.
"Yippee!" The twins both chorused as they jumped out of the car.
"Hello." The man greeted us once we had locked the car and grabbed our children's hands. "You must be the McCormick family."
"Yes we are." Kenny nodded.
"It would be hard to miss us..." I joked, pointing to my hair and the man smiled at me.
"Well hi, I am James and I'm here to take you and your kids to the interview." He greeted and shook both our hands.
"Hi, I'm Kenny, this is my wife Red and these are our children Ruby and Scarlett." Kenny replied, introducing us all.
"Nice to meet you." I added and he began leading us into the building. We followed him down a couple of corridors and through a few studios and the girls remained silent the entire time, taking it all in. When we finally arrived in a small waiting room, I saw Sergio and Clara checking their files and they looked up when they noticed us.
"Red, Kenny, girls!" Clara beamed as she walked over to us, admiring how professional the girls looked in their new dresses.
"Are you excited about today?" Sergio asked and Scarlett and Ruby both nodded.
"Yes they are." I laughed. "Great to see you again."
"You too." Clara nodded. "So, we're just going to wait until the camera crew are ready to go and then we can take Ruby and Scarlett on set. Kira's going to ask them a series of questions-"
"Wait what?" I spluttered and Kenny looked just as alarmed. "Camera crew?"
"What set?" Kenny interrupted.
"...You are aware this is going to be on television, aren't you?" Sergio asked, shiftily and I exchanged glances with Kenny.
"No, we weren't" Kenny shook his head.
"Oh, no one told you?" Clara fretted. "That's weird."
"Well... Are you ok with it being on television?" Sergio put in and I glanced at Kenny again.
"...Well yes, yes of course we are." I nodded, automatically, was I dreaming? This was so awesome. I looked over to where Ruby and Scarlett were staring open-mouthed and laughed.
"Great, it's for our television channel you see." Clara informed us. "We hold live interviews with celebrities and we always introduce our new cover models in them.
"Wait so... Our kids are going to be on live television... Right now?" Kenny stuttered.
"Well I wouldn't say right now but-" Sergio started.
"Ok Ruby and Scarlett McCormick, we are ready for you." A stage manager popped into the room and then left.
"Or yeah, right now..." Sergio trailed off and the girls jumped up.
"Oh wow ok." I stressed as we were led out to the wings of a stage. On set, there was a woman sitting in an arm chair, with two chairs opposite and a table in between.
"Welcome back to the monthly 'Unique' interviews." She introduced as I realised the advert break was over. I heard a massive round of applause from the live audience and I shook my head. I felt dizzy, this was all moving too fast. "Next on the show we have two little girls called Scarlett and Ruby, who are twins and have been selected to be the new cover girls for the winter season. Now these two girls definitely live up to the magazine name "Unique" and when they come out here you'll see why. Please welcome our youngest cover girls yet, Ruby and Scarlett!"
I wanted to grab my girls back, carry them back to the car, back home by the fire, playing board games where we all belonged. But they were walking on stage now, they were sitting down in front of the audience and gawping at the sight in front of them. There was nothing I could do anymore, nothing I could do but watch.
"Hi girls." The woman greeted them.
"Wow..." Their eyes widened and I covered my mouth, this was too much for them, I knew it, but to my surprise, the audience started laughing, as if it had been a joke.
"Oh hi!" Scarlett exclaimed and the audience laughed again.
"So you girls are going to be cover models are you?" The woman asked.
"Yes we are." Scarlett nodded confidently and the woman nodded. "What's your name?" Scarlett blurted out and the woman giggled.
"My names Kira." She smiled. "Now are you Scarlett or Ruby?"
"I'm Scarlett." Scarlett replied. "And that's Ruby, she's shy." I saw Kenny bite his lip as we watched Ruby sit there quietly whilst Scarlett took the interview in her stride.
"Right, now how old are you two?" Kira asked again.
"Five and three quarters, nearly six!" Scarlett informed her and the audience laughed again.
"Wow, and who's the older one?" Kira questioned, glancing at Ruby.
"I'm the older one, I was born five minutes before Ruby." Scarlett nodded and I saw Ruby turn to look at me, she smiled and then to my surprise she turned back to Kira and cried;
"But she acts like she was born five years before me, Scarlett is so bossy!" The audience laughed and Kira's eyes widened.
"Oh hello there missy." She laughed and Ruby stuck her tongue out at Scarlett.
"So, tell me about yourselves, how did you get to be cover girls?" Kira asked.
"Well, we were in Disney Land..." Ruby began. "And then we were just talking to Ariel and the next thing we knew we were mini mermaids."
"Wow, isn't that a story?" Kira asked the audience and there was a cheer. "So do you girls like mermaids then?"
"We love them!" They both exclaimed.
"And I also love airplanes." Scarlett nodded and Kira frowned.
"And I love dollies." Ruby added.
"And you two have such a unique colour hair, I've never seen it naturally like this on anyone." Kira pointed out. "You sure it's natural?" She winked.
"Yep, one hundred percent." Ruby mused. "It was born this colour!"
"Born that colour?" Kira laughed, clearly enjoying their enthusiasm. "And do you like the colour red, because you are wearing those pretty red dresses."
"Red is the best colour ever." Scarlett piped up. "Everything we own is red, our bedroom walls are red and our food is even red."
"We love strawberries!" Ruby chimed in and Kira giggled again.
"Wow, well strawberries are healthy and tasty." She nodded. "So girls, if you had one message to give to everyone out there who is watching, what would it be?" Kira inquired and there was a pause. Oh God, what would the answer be to this? This could be it. This answer could put our entire family in jail or make everyone think our children were freaks.
"Well our parents always told us..." Ruby began and I bit my lip as she exchanged glances with Scarlett.
"...To always be yourself." Scarlett finished and the entire audience cooed. Kenny put his arm around me, also looking relieved.
"Awh, that's a great message." Kira exclaimed. "Very inspirational, do you love your parents very much?"
"Yes!" Scarlett cried.
"Very very very much." Ruby nodded, clearly used to the atmosphere by now. I smiled at Kenny and I saw Clara wink at me. That was one of the best things your kids could say, it made you feel like you were doing a good job, especially when it was on live television.
"And I'm sure your parents love you too." Kira told them and shot a glance at me. "Well thank you for being on the show today girls, it's been a pleasure meeting you and I hope to see you both more in the future."
"Thank you!" They both chorused.
"Give it up for our mini mermaids Ruby and Scarlett everyone!" Kira cried and clapped along with the audience. The girls then stood up and ran towards us. Me and Kenny both swarmed them in hugs and kisses and we were then led away from the wings. Once we got outside, there was a sudden rush of people coming to congratulate us and tell us how lucky we were. One woman even asked us if the girls could be in a commercial for a new airplane line, which Scarlett obviously agreed to before we could.
"Great, so if we could take your name, address and phone number and we can deliver the script to you as soon as possible." The woman explained and Kenny began giving details. I was feeling dizzy again, this was all so much, firstly our kids were going to be in a magazine, then we had photo shoots and interviews, then they were on live TV and now they were going to be in a television commercial? Our children, our twins, this was actually happening... Wow...
Author note:
So sorry I haven't updated in a while, hope you liked this chapter. I wasn't getting many reviews so I figured no one was desperate for an update ;) so I guess the more you review the faster I will update! Your choice ;) xx
