Kasumi's Tale
By: Sorano
Chapter Four: Changes
Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me. It belongs to Nintendo and 4Kids Entertainment and that Satoshi guy and a bunch of other companies. Nobody sue.
It had changed. Just like I knew it would. I don't know how I knew. I just did. Guess what? I'm ten now. Ten. The time I've been waiting for my whole life. But now I just wish I could go back.
I woke up early on Tuesday morning. It was my birthday. No one else was up. As I crept into the kitchen, no one jumped out and cried, "Happy birthday!" And there were no presents on the table. No cake in the fridge.
I poured myself a bowl of cereal and the Cheerios poured over the sides. But I wasn't hungry. I knew something was wrong. Different.
It had been sunny all week. But it was raining today. One by one my sisters came downstairs. "Hi, Misty," they said and poured themselves some coffee. "Hi…," I said, choking back tears.
"Hey, Misty," Daisy said. I brightened. "Yeah?" "Lily, Violet, and I are going to Lavender today. We probley won't be back until late." "Oh," I sighed. "Okay."
I watched my sisters leave. What had happened to us? We used to be so happy. I flipped on the TV. A rerun of Mew's mew was on. Mew flew over his now destroyed home-weeping for the little girl.
The movie ended and I was alone once again. I thought of how alone I really was. I had no parents, no school, no friends, nobody. All I had was my sisters who had forgotten about me.
With a start I realized in order to except change, you must change too. I was tired of this little kid look anyway. I went to the kitchen and found a sharp pair of scissors. I grimaced at the site of the sharp metal blades.
I went into the bathroom and sat on the counter in front of the mirror. I took out my two pigtails and let my long red hair fall around my shoulders.
I raised the scissors to shoulder length and snapped the blade. I watched in gleeful horror as my hair fell in long clumps to the floor.
When I was done I looked in the mirror and gasped. My hair stuck out in some placed and one side was longer than the other. Even though it looked ridiculous, I cut and parted my bangs the same way.
I smiled at my new reflection, but something was missing. I looked at the counter and spotted my purple elastics. I took one and put my hair up into an odd, short ponytail on the side of my head.
Now I really was a new Misty. I jumped off the counter and ran into Lily's room. She had the world's largest supply of makeup. I went over to her dresser and picked up a dark red lipstick. I had never put on makeup before, so I was very careful applying it.
I smacked my lips together and grinned. But I knew I needed more, so I smeared purple eyeshadow over my eyelids and added mascara.
Now that my face was done, I needed to work on my wardrobe. The frilly yellow dress just wasn't me anymore. I took my new yellow T-shirt out of my closet. It was too big for me, being a hand me down from my sisters. So I took the scissors and cut a few inches off. Then some more…and some more.
I held it up to my body and realized maybe I'd cut it a little too short. The shirt ended right above my belly button. I could pass it off as a tank top, but only if I cut off the sleeves. Once that was done, I took out my Jean shorts and red suspenders to hold them up.
I put on my new outfit and stood in front of the full-length mirror to admire my new look. I heard the front door slam and footsteps. There was laughter and talking from downstairs. "Misty! We're home!" called Violet. "Like I couldn't tell!" I yelled back.
I peered down the stairs to see my sisters, Tommy, and a bunch of their friends from the resistance.
Someone turned on some music on really loud and I saw someone holding a bottle of a dark liquid, which I figured, wasn't coke.
Slowly, I made my way downstairs and into the living room. "Hey! It's the mermaid!" giggled Lily as I came into the room. Violet pushed me to the front of the room and pointed at me. "Attention everybody," her voice was slurred. "This is our bratty little sister, Misty."
I gasped. Why are my sisters being so mean? Just then did they notice my new look. Horrified, everyone in the room stared at me for a few seconds, then burst into peals of laughter.
"Did you let Pysduck do your hair?" "The circus isn't until next month, Misthy." "You got a lotta spilt ends, Misthy." "You have threads hanging off your shirt." "Your suspenders and shirt clash." "Hey, that's my makeup!"
Daisy glared at me. "How dare you!" She cried out shrilly. Then she walked over to me and slapped me hard across the face.
I stood there, gasping at her, eyes wide and mouth open. Tears flooded my eyes and poured over my red, stinging cheeks. "What happened to you, Daithy!?" I cried, bringing back a little of my old lisp. A couple of my sister's friends snickered.
I fled from the room and ran upstairs. "What, Misthy- Misty!" Daisy strained to say. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"
I found myself walking past my room. And past my sister's rooms. I walked to the end of the hall. I opened the door that led to the attic. I walked up the dark, musty steps and flicked on the lightswitch, but nothing happened. No one had been up here in a while and it looked it. The dust was an inch thick and everything was covered in cobwebs.
We didn't have much in our attic. Most of our memories were lost in the fire. But were able to save some things we had in the garage and stuff like that.
Anyway, I happened to find a box marked 'photos'. I opened the box carefully and peered inside. The were a few recent photos and a big old photo album.
My sister hadn't put much else up here, in case of another fire. I was about to go back downstairs when curiosity won me over.
I opened the photo album. The first pages held pictures of me and my sisters as babies. One picture showed us when we were little and our family was having a yard sale. My sisters were pointing out to some people a sign that was on me. The sign said. 'brahte froume marz: $1.00'
I never knew about that. But with the way my sisters were treating me now, I could certainly believe it. I looked through some more pictures, seeing my birthday photos, remembering again how my birthday had gone unnoticed. I saw photos from our trip to the Pokémon League and some of our watershows.
I lingered on one particular photo of our family posing by the flame at the Pokémon League. This was the only picture of all of us together that we had left.
I looked down at my mommy's sweet, laughing face and my dad, kind and humorous. A tear gently rolled down my cheek and fell onto the photo.
Eventually I couldn't look at the picture anymore, or I might flood the house. So I set it back in the photo album. I decided this was enough for today, not really knowing why I even came up here in the first place. When I set the album back into the box, a loose picture floated to the ground.
I picked it up and choked back another sob. It was the photo taken that day at the restaurant and the guys from the newspaper had come by. That was about the last time we had been a real family- just the four of us.
I wiped a tear of my cheek and stuffed the picture into my pocket. Then I ran downstairs to my room. There was something I had to do now. I couldn't stay.
Please review and keep reading! -Sorano