The hint could be found in the first chapter! :-D
And I added a flashback, weee! I like flashbacks a lot, hopefully you do, too!
I enjoyed writing this chapter so much, so please let me know what you think ... uhm, after you read it *g*
Have fun!
"Mom, please!" Maddie whined with her arms outstretched over the kitchen counter and hands folded, begging.
It was Tuesday afternoon and she had already forgotten about the awkward talk with her parents that she had to endure a week ago. Everything was back to normal again and therefore Maddie felt comfortable enough to annoy her mother until she would cave in; she had done that for days now with no end in sight.
"No Madeline. I told you several times already that you are not getting one," Esme replied strictly. She was cleaning the stove top, whatever for, and stopped in between to answer her daughter.
Maddie huffed. "You are being so unfair!" she shouted, turned her back on her mother and leaned against the edge of the counter again, crossing her arms over her chest.
"This has nothing to do with me being fair or unfair, Madeline," Esme corrected.
Maddie just shot her mother a glare over her shoulder and continued to pout.
Esme put the cleaning supplies into the cupboard under the stainless steal kitchen sink, washed her hands an dried them. Then she walked over to her daughter and put an arm around her shoulders. "You know animals feel uncomfortable in our presence. It would be cruel of us to let you have one," she explained, her voice held its usual softness.
Maddie uncrossed her arms and took a step away from the counter, only to turn sideways to face Esme properly. "Oh come on, not all of them are scared of us! What about ... dogs? Can I have one?" Maddie asked with bright, hopeful eyes.
"No." Esme was back to being strict again.
"Ew, dogs smell," Alice threw in. She sat curled up on one of the armchairs in the living room, ten different fashion magazines - fresh from the press - spread out on the coffee table in front of her. She was obviously preparing for her next shopping trip - Heaven forbid if she missed anything.
Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "So? We can wash 'em."
"That makes it worse, Maddie. Wet dog smell is gross." Alice scrunched up her nose and writhed with disgust.
Maddie gave her sister a scowl. "Can you just shut it? You're not helping," she said, annoyance clearly showing. Alice let out a little giggle and continued to flip through the pages in search of the perfect handbag ... or the prettiest ... whatever.
"Madeline, I won't buy you a pet. And this discussion is over. Your constant nagging will not change anything." Normally Esme wasn't very severe with her youngest daughter, but Maddie had to learn that 'No' meant 'No' and that she wouldn't change her mind.
Emmett came in from the garage, obviously having overheard part of the discussion. "You wanna have a pet? I can give you my old tamagotchi, if you'd like. I forgot to feed it and it died," he said with a sheepish look on his face.
Angry that nobody agreed to let her have a pet, Maddie threw her hands in the air and groaned. "Argh, forget it."
Then she stomped noisily up the stairs and into her room.
She was frustrated beyond belief.
No pet.
Seriously?
Why couldn't she have one? Most of the girls in her class had pets, some of them had even more than just one or two.
She plonked herself down on her bed and pondered over her further course of action. She rolled over onto her stomach and reached her hand out to pick up her cell phone, which was resting on the bedside table.
A moment later, she speed-dialed her Dad's number and waited for him to pick up.
"Hello sweetie, are you all right?" Carlisle asked. His daughter never called him at work, so he was immediately worried when her number appeared on the display of his mobile.
"Daddy...," she whined the moment she heard his voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh, what is it? Tell me."
"I'm sad, Daddy," she told him, trying to sound as miserable as she could muster.
"And why is that, princess?"
"Mom yelled at me," she whispered, sounding utterly distraught.
Maddie could practically see him frowning on the other end. "I'm sure that was a misunderstanding. That would be so unlike your mother. What happened?"
"I just asked her a random question and she flipped." That was more or less the truth, wasn't it?
Maddie smirked and hoped her father wouldn't detect it in her voice.
Carlisle sighed. "Maddie, I'll be home in little more than an hour. How about we talk then and clear up matters?"
"No, now," she demanded petulantly.
"I have to work right now, you know that," he reminded her, but then queried, "Is Rosalie home?"
"Yes, she is."
"All right. Why don't you go hunting with Rosie, and when you get back, I'll be home. Then we can talk. Sounds good?"
She sighed in defeat. "Okay."
"I love you, sweetie. See you soon."
"Love you too, Daddy. Bye," she told him weakly and hung up.
Two hours later, Rose and Maddie came home from an uneventful hunt. Carlisle's shiny black Mercedes was parked in front of the house, so he was home already. Maddie ran inside and greeted her dad with a hug around the waist in the foyer.
"You're home!" she said happily.
"There you are! How was your hunt?"
"It was good, nothing special," Maddie replied casually.
Rosalie walked in and greeted Carlisle while passing him and Maddie on her way to the garage. She had explained to Maddie how important it was to change the tires after a certain time, because ... Maddie had zoned out then, so did not know why. But she knew what Rose would busy herself with for some time now.
"Good. How about you go wash your face and change into some clean clothes? Then we'll talk about what happened earlier," Carlisle said to Maddie. She was a messy eater, and she did not care enough to change that. Thanks to Alice she had more than enough clothes to ruin. And boy, did she ruin them ...
"Okay," she replied and took off.
After a minute, Maddie made her way down the stairs again and met her parents in the living room. She was a bit nervous, she had exaggerated on the phone a bit, after all. Her plan was actually to make him angry with Esme, and thus make him take her side and allow her to have whatever she wanted. But come to think of it now, she had never seen him angry with her Mom ...
Shitty plan.
After she had seated herself on the couch, Carlisle began. "Now. Esme told me you were asking for a pet and she told you you couldn't have one. Correct?"
"Uh-huh." Maddie nodded her head, back to being a very, very sad girl.
"We repeatedly talked about this and it is just not possible for us to let you keep an animal. Why do you continue asking for one?" he queried.
"Because I want one," she replied with a shrug.
He let his fingers run through his blonde hair and sighed. "It is not going to happen," he said with finality in his voice.
"But Daddy, if you let me have just one single pet I promise to be good ... forever! I'll never misbehave again, okay? Deal?"
"That is a very tempting offer, honey, but we all know that it might be too hard for you to maintain," he commented, then added, "We will not allow you to have a pet."
Maddie bowed her head and sulked. The protruding bottom lip helped a lot to show her parents just how sad she was.
"Sweetie?" Esme asked and waited until Maddie looked up at her. "Could you tell me at what point you got the feeling that I was yelling at you?" She couldn't remember having yelled at her daughter, but if she had, she was truly sorry.
Maddie squirmed under her parent's scrutinizing eyes. "Well ... fine, you weren't yelling, but you were mean."
"Because I told you I wouldn't let you have a pet?"
"Yes," Maddie confirmed, quick like a shot.
"Madeline, for the last two days you were constantly asking for one. It is just not possible, please accept that."
"Not even a cat?" she asked in the sweetest, angelic voice she could muster.
"No. Besides, cats and dogs bring dirt into the house," Esme explained. They all knew that she had the cleaning bug. Why? Maddie did not know, and it certainly didn't make any sense to her ... it wasn't like they could get sick due to unhygienic conditions at home.
Or has anyone ever heard of a vampire suffering from house-dust allergy? Well, Maddie hadn't.
"A bunny? They are kept in a cage, no dirt." She underlined the 'no dirt'-comment with a wag of her index finger.
Esme decided it was time to give her daughter an additional reason. "You already had one, and it didn't exactly turn out well, now did it?"
Maddie gasped.
"Yes, I know all about it. Carmen let you have a bunny, but when she asked you to clean its cage, you ate it."
Dammit. "That was an accident," she responded, averting her eyes.
"Really?" Esme perked her eyebrows up, before continuing. "Tanya told me that normally Carmen cleaned the cage for you. And when she wanted you to do it because it was your pet, you got angry and killed it."
"I wasn't angry," Maddie defended herself in a feeble attempt. "Like I just told you, it was an accident."
"You put the carcass under the covers of Carmen and Eleazar's bed."
Busted.
Shit, Tanya was such a blabbermouth sometimes! Hopefully she let out the part where Eleazar made sure Maddie couldn't sit down for a while. A long while. Gosh, he had been beyond furious.
(Flashback)
"Maddie? Come here, please."
"Yeah, what is it?" Maddie walked down the hall and peeked into her room.
"Look, when you see that your bunny's cage is dirty, please clean it up. I've done it for you several times already because you said you did not know how. By now you know how it works and it is time for you to take responsibility for your pet."
"Carmen please. I'll do it wrong ... and you are so quick with it ... please?"
"No chance." Carmen was determined to not cave in. The rest of the family had advised her against letting Maddie have a pet. She was too young and quick-tempered to take responsibility for something so fragile. She wanted to prove them wrong, but it was hard.
"Please?" Puppy dog eyes.
"Stop that," Carmen rebuked, even though a small smile played on her lips. Maddie was so cute when she wasn't angry.
"Fine ...I'll do it later," Maddie said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand and made to walk out of her room.
Carmen stopped her by speaking up. "You do it now. Not later, not in a while, not tomorrow. Is that clear?"
So Maddie turned around again and asked in a whiny voice, "Why?"
"It is starting to smell, so I advise you to do it immediately."
"But I've got stuff to do." Ha! No, she hadn't.
"This is not up for discussion. You do it now," Carmen said with finality before leaving the room and closing the door behind herself, signaling to Maddie that she wasn't to leave her room until she did what she was told to do.
Maddie was furious at Carmen. Unfortunately she was very bad at controlling her temper due to the fact that she was still a newborn; so she forcefully opened the cage, grabbed the little animal around the neck and squeezed.
After hearing the satisfying crush of bones, she bit into the neck, if you could still call it that, and swallowed a mouthful of the warm liquid.
The fresh blood calmed her slightly, but nonetheless, she was still angry. So she did the only thing that seemed right at the moment ... she went into Carmen and Eleazar's room, lifted the sheets and threw the little, bleeding ball of fur into the bed. She covered it again and smoothened the wrinkles out with her hand.
Done.
Maddie then went to the bathroom to check her face in the mirror. Wouldn't want any telltale traces of blood there. So she cleaned up, and then left the room to join the others downstairs.
"Did you clean the cage?" Carmen did not look up from the book she was currently reading, but knew it was Maddie who had just descended the stairs.
Maddie plopped down on the couch. "Yeah, I cleaned it all right." Of anything living. She smirked slightly.
"Why are you smirking?" Carmen let her hands holding the book sink down to her lap and eyed Maddie suspiciously.
"No reason." Maddie shrugged her shoulders and smirked even more.
Now Tanya joint in. "What's that on your shirt? Is that ... blood?" She squinted her eyes at Maddie's dark grey longsleeve, trying to make out what the stains were.
Uh-Oh.
Maddie immediately realised her mistake ... the upper bathroom had a mirror that was very high up - she could barely see her face in it. That's why Tanya got her a huge mirror for her bedroom. But ... Maddie had forgotten to make a quick detour to her room to scan over the clothes she was wearing for speckles of blood.
Carmen narrowed her eyes at Maddie, stood up and hastily went upstairs.
"Where is it? What did you do? Madeline!" Carmen shouted just seconds later while coming down the stairs again.
She had been to Maddie's room and only found an open cage - which had not been cleaned out, by the way.
"I am not joking around, tell me where it is," she prompted while pointing her index finger at Maddie.
But she refused to answer, just looked in the opposite direction and bit her lip.
Tanya made wide eyes and said, that she would stay out it.
And then Eleazar came in from the garage. He had been busy repairing his motorcycle, but after hearing the shouting from inside the house he decided to have a look.
Immediately Carmen informed him of what happened, and he sent Maddie to her room.
It took them a couple of minutes to find the lifeless animal, but they found it in the end.
It wasn't hard to miss.
White sheets and a dead, bloody bunny underneath ... and the smell, of course. Can't hide blood from a vampire.
Eleazar's reaction came instantly.
He stormed into Maddie's room and before she knew, she was lying over his knees getting the spanking of a lifetime.
"But it will be different this time," Maddie tried to reason with them.
Carlisle frowned. "How so?"
"Well, that was like two years ago ... or something!"
"It was mere months before you came back to us," Esme stated matter-of-factly.
Maddie ignored her mother's comment and went on. "And when I am busy with school and studying and so on, maybe Mom or Rose could help me?" She tried and bit her lip.
Maddie was never busy with studying, by the way. And she just did not want to clean up pet poop, eew.
Still, she wanted to have a pet.
"No! Absolutely not! I don't want any animals in my house and you are not ready for the responsibility that comes with it! And to expect that we will do the work for you is just unbelievable." Esme clearly had it with this topic.
"Daddy ...," Maddie addressed her father. She looked pitiful - Carlisle normally would have caved in by now, the look she gave him was heartbreaking. But this wasn't just about some video game or a visit to the movies; it was about a living creature - one that she wouldn't get to have.
"Listen to your mother, Madeline. No pets. And this is the last time we talked about it, understood? No more of that," Carlisle ordered in a strict tone.
Maddie caught the finality in his words, which maddened her visibly. "What did I ever do to you? !" She suddenly roared, jumped up and stormed off towards the stairs.
Carlisle and Esme shook their heads at Maddie's dramatics. After that display, she could easily compete with Edward.
And Maddie was mad as hell.
That was so not fair! How could they hold something that happened so long ago against her? She was a freakin' newborn back then! She did not know what she was doing! And she was sorry ... of course.
(Flashback)
On the next day, when Maddie was able to walk and sit again without feeling uncomfortable, she joint Carmen in the living room. Bending over the backrest of the couch, she hugged her for a moment and said, "I'm sorry about yesterday, Carmen."
"It is forgiven, honey." She reached up and patted Maddie's cheek.
Maddie let her elbows rest on the backrest of the couch, then carefully asked, "So ... can I have a new one?"
The worst timing ever to ask for a new pet. Eleazar had just entered the house when he heard Maddie's question. In a few strides he was in the living room, held Maddie down over the backrest, and gave her a couple of very hard smacks to her behind.
"OW! Stop!" she complained.
"Does that answer your question?" he queried while pulling her back up.
Maddie just glared at him while reaching back to rub at her once again smarting butt.
"Or do you have some more I can help you with?" Eleazar asked, still having Maddie's upper arm in a vice-like grip and his right hand lifted in the air, ready for use.
"No," she said sulky-looking.
He let go over her arm and spun her around towards the staircase. "Good. Go to your room then, I put some homework for you to complete on your desk."
She took a couple of steps before stopping and looking back over her shoulder at Eleazar.
He was busy looking at something Carmen was showing him, but still noticed that Maddie had not complied - yet.
Pointing in the direction of the stairs without looking up, he just said, "Go!" He shook his head a little when he heard the sound of Maddie's feet walking up the stairs and to her room.
"What a nerve...," he murmured.
While Maddie sat in her room seething with anger and trying not to break anything, her parents were still occupying the living room, talking.
"I don't know, Esme, maybe the responsibility of having a pet might be beneficial for her?"
"We already talked about it, didn't we? She is not ready for it. And I don't want her to bring critters or other dirty animals in here."
"It seems to be her dearest wish," Carlisle countered.
"Yes, but it is not possible, you said so yourself. Sometimes we have to say 'No', and she has to learn to accept it."
Then she stopped and looked up at her husband. "Her sad eyes and whining have gotten to you, am I right?" she asked knowingly and patted his arm.
He smirked; it was true, after all. "She never asks for much, she doesn't have expensive hobbies like Alice or Rose, so maybe we should go against our principles this one time and let her have what she wishes for."
"You don't want pets in this house either," she remarked.
"You are right, I don't. But there would be one other possibility...," he smiled when Esme looked confused, but definitely curious.
"What is it?"
"Fish."
"Fish?"
"Yes, we could let her have a fish tank," Carlisle told his wife.
Esme pondered that over in her head. Indeed, they could get a small one, with several gold fish or whatever Maddie liked.
When Esme slowly started to nod her head, a voice from behind distracted both of them.
"After she has been a brat for the last several days, you now plan on rewarding her for it?" Jasper asked, disbelief prominent in his voice.
So? What do you think? Tell me in your REVIEW!
And YES: Jasper is making an appearance because I like to drive twilight1987 crazy (I'm holding my pinky finger to my mouth right now, impersonating Dr. Evil, just so you know, ha!) Nah, I enjoy writing him - he is sooo annoying in this story :-D And the characters frustrate me, too! Imagine what it feels like to me when I start writing and these little fuckers just do whatever they want! I am surprised myself, hahaha!
Btw: I don't know when I'll update again. The next chapter is actually finished, but I think I'll change it a bit. Maddie is reeeaaally bad in that one! Maybe I should make her a little bit nicer ...
