Chapter 8: 9 Balls Straight?

The front door opened. I saw her standing there and called her over to the table. I had tried to write the essay when I got home from school.

I only had 2 periods today so I got straight to work when I got home. That way she'd feel that I cared in some way. Only to keep her from going, I really needed to work on the essay.

But here I was sitting on the table crumbled pieces of paper all around me. Not to mention that stupid half filled paper in front of me.

I hadn't really tried at the essay, but nothing what ever did come out, wouldn't come out the way I wanted it to and the words were jumbled together. None of it made sense in the end.

You can imagine how oh so very happy I was to see that face looking across the table at me.

"How's the essay going?" She picked up a few of the crumpled up papers from the table and shot them into the trash can.

"Well. As you can see," I motioned around me making a big show of the litter and garbage, "It's all going rather dandy." I slouched back into my chair.

"Aww, it can't be all that bad Derek. I mean look at least you still have paper." She held up a stack of my notebook paper in the air.

"Ah ha, Case that was so funny. Now are you going to help me or not?" I took the papers from her and set them on the table.

She looked at me still smiling as I handed her what I had written so far.

I tipped back and forth in my chair and waited for her to finish reading. Her bright blue eyes were scanning the paper flowing from left to right methodically. A small smile crept upon her face from time to time. Her face, however, remained focused and I could see she was thinking of how to fix my dreadful writing.

Her face was concentrated, but still her soft features kept it from looking anything but genuinely peaceful. I rarely saw her serene and calm. My lips curled up into a smile.

She looked up from the paper at me and then back again. Finally she put the paper down.

"It's a good essay Derek. You just… umm need to work out some things. I'll help you organize it then you can type it tomorrow and have it ready to turn it in on Friday." She was being sincere; she wasn't trying to make fun of me. I smiled and took the paper from her.

"Okay you'll need to set up your thesis and then write accordingly to the genre. We'll start with an outline and then work a web out to organize the thoughts… Derek? What's so funny?"

I was trying to stifle the laugh but I couldn't hold it. "I have no idea what you're talking about. You act like I've done work before."

She got the point and it seemed that she found it funny too. "Okay, here just write the main idea and we'll work from there." She handed me a piece of blank notebook paper.

We worked on the essay all afternoon. Lizzie, Edwin, and Marti came home at around four and gave us odd looks. They were soon followed by Dad and Nora. They were just very happy to finally see us working together.

As dinner time drew closer Casey and I were told to clear the table of our work and to step up the table for dinner. We did so. The whole family came down to have dinner. I got a few odd glances from Edwin. 'He's still surprised about me and Casey working together.' I did not bother Casey all during dinner. Edwin seemed to be taken aback by this so I just nudged him and kept on eating my dinner ignoring his stares.

Casey sat opposite from me as usual but she didn't speak as much as she usually did. She looked like she was going to be sick. There was something the matter and she was thinking hard about it.

I let my leg kick hers just hard enough to call her attention. She looked up instantly. "What's wrong?" I mouthed. She shook her head slightly and mouthed, "Nothing." I raised my eyebrows questioningly. She kicked my leg with foot playfully, "Really, there's nothing the matter." She mouthed it and then entered conversation with my father and her mother. She didn't stop talking until dinner was over.

Everything was okay. Dinner was good and we ate in peace. There was no air of tension around Casey and me to see if one of us was going to attack the other.

When everyone had cleaned the food off their plates, Casey offered to do the dishes. I stayed back to help. We were after all going to working together on the essay anyways. We joked around about our parents' odd quirks and the oddness that was Marti. We finished drying the dishes and headed back into the dinning room.

There she guided me through the last body paragraphs while we laughed. 'It was weird to be sitting here next to her joking around, laughing. After all, this was Casey, my arch enemy.'

I was finishing my last body paragraph as she wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. Her voice interrupted my train of thought.

"Wow what would Em and Sam say if they saw this."

I looked at my stepsister. Her features were soft but her voice held sarcasm and wit.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Well it's just so different right now. I mean there aren't any trenches or rifles waiting to be taken out the moment the enemy moves."

"Huh?"

"Isn't this so much more peaceful?"

"So what are we going to write for my conclusion?" I averted the subject.

Casey sighed and rolled her eyes, "I don't know Derek. What do you think I tall means in the end?"

"Well I guess the point of the essay is that you need to be strong and respected and you have to have the right people there to make you look good. You can't afford to look weak. Right?"

"It's all in the way you see it personally. Any interpretations you make of anything Derek, is because of our own experiences."

"I …" She looked down at her work. Although we had never been under good terms while she's been living here I could read her like a book. The way her lip curled when she found something childish funny. The way her face looks when she's trying to stop from laughing. How her eyes screamed and pleaded for me to stop before she cried. She didn't know that I could understand the small things about her. Right now I saw she was tired.

Tired of fighting, tired of always been on the alert, she was tired. We both were.

I kicked her under the table, she sot up and looked at me. The liveliness came back into her eyes and a glint of understanding passed through us.

All I needed was to finish my essay then everything could go back to normal and I wouldn't know I felt tired or hungry or her friendship.

I finished writing out my conclusion and stood up from the table stretching out my arms over my head trying to keep myself from yawing. My face contorted into oddness and I let out my yawn. Casey snickered from her seat by the dinner table.

I looked down at her with a look of anger on my face.

"Well Casey, we helped me and I'm done now so… goodnight."

I started for the stairs. 'That's enough Casey for today. As a matter of fact that's enough Casey for a whole week.'

"Hey?!"

I turned around. "What do you want now Space Case?" I ran my hand through my hair and yawned.

"I only helped you because you said you would teach me to play." She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Oh, tough luck."

"Hey. You promised!"

I grunted. 'I was tired and I needed rest before the game in the early hours of the morning.' I started up the stairs.

I heard Casey following me up.

"Derek! Derek, you evil little liar! I help you with your essay and this is the thanks I get?"

I turned around. There she was pouting and upset. Feeling betrayed and used. Then Nora popped into view. Her head was a mess of tangled hair and her face was tired and a light shade of pink.

"What's going on here? Can't you see we're trying to sleep?"

Edwin and Lizzie peeked out of their rooms and Marti's door started to open.

"All three of you go back to bed."

Nora's voice was firm but kind and the three youngest Venturi/MacDonalds closed their doors groggily.

Nora looked back at Casey and me and asked again, "What are you two fighting about this late at night? It's past 10."

"Well, it's his fault. I only helped Derek write his paper because He promised to teach me how to play pool." She looked at me smugly, but my eyes caught Nora's instead.

Nora looked at the back of Casey's head her eyes screaming ARE YOU SERIOUS? I grinned at Casey obliviousness and Nora spoke again.

"Well Mr. Derek Venturi? Did you promise my daughter you would teach her to play pool if she helped you write your essay?"

"Yeah, but she didn't really help me."

"Oh come on Derek you were with me all afternoon." Casey replied smugly.

"Fine she did."

"Then you have to keep your promise. So go teach her to play pool."

"I… She… Ugh…!"

I walked into my room leaving the door open. I pulled on a pair of wind breakers over my shorts and a large jacket.

"Okay let's go."

Casey smiled and followed behind me as I reached the back door. Nora walked down the stairs leading to the basement. I held the back door open and let her walk through the door before me.

It was dark as I closed the door behind me. The street lights were out. In the distance a lone wolf was standing on a hill. Its silhouette stood out against the white moon, shinning brightly close to the horizon.

Bright stars blinked down at me. I felt a calm happiness run through me.

I was cold.

White breath puffs came from her mouth as she stood shivering slightly a few feet from me. Her eyes were silver blue in the moon light.

"You cold?"

She shook her head but her arms were wrapped around her rubbing the opposite arm.

I rolled my eyes at her stubbornness, but did not offer her my coat.

"Let's head to the garage."

I walked past her with my hands in my pockets. She shuffled behind. I opened the door. The wolf howled. Casey walked in.

The room was stuffy and it smelled like old suitcases and liquor. My uncle had lived in here for a while and so I attributed the smells to him. Casey was walking over to the sticks and pulled down two from the wall. I turned off the lights to the room and turned on the bar lights hanging over the green velvet of the pool table.

"Basics, you hit the white ball at the triangle of other balls. If you shoot in solids you're solids if you shoot in stripes you're stripes, and if, by chance, you shoot in both you choose which you want to play."

Casey looked over at me as I spoke and set up the triangle on the table.

"Then you shoot at your balls until you make them all in or miss. Got it?" I stood up straight with my pool stick in hand.

She had her chin resting on the butt of the stick, "I know the basics Derek."

"Good. So now try it."

She bent over the table. Her index finger was hooked and her other hand was loosely holding the stick. She made to soot but the shot missed the ball by a long shot.

"No, Casey stop. Stop doing that. You're holding it all wrong."

Casey shrugged me off her back. "I can do this by myself Derek."

I stood up with my hands in my pockets, "Well obviously not." She shot and missed again.

"Look Casey, You hook it then you grip the stick, okay?" I showed her.

"I was doing that!"

I rolled my eyes and bent my elbow parallel to the table. "Okay now you move your arm below the elbow. Don't push with your shoulder."

"Fine." She bent over the table and shot the white ball straight at the triangle of balls. Three solids went in.

"Okay practice," I stood back and dropped myself into a dirty old chair in the corner of the room.

Casey kept shooting on the table. I offered my advice when she looked so stupid I feared that she would give our family a bad name.

'Casey MacDonald. Lizzie MacDonald. Nora MacDonald. They are strange, stubborn women.'

I dosed in and out of sleep when Casey had finally gotten the basics down.

Casey stubbed my toe with her pool stick and I shot up in my chair.

"What?" I said when I saw it was Casey I dropped back into my chair.

"I'm done practicing. Let's play."

I yawned and stood up. "Okay, but I break."

"Fine by me, Derek." She stood back and let me break the game.

I shot and in went 2 stripes and a single solid. "Stripes."

"Okay," she said calmly. I looked at the table studying my options.

I missed the next shot.

Casey stepped up and looked at the table with a determined stare. She pointed at the yellow one and then at the corner slot. "I'm putting that one in there."

"It's a bit early to be calling shots, klutz."

She shot the white ball at the solid orange ball and it ricochet off of the wall and hit the red ball which in turn sent the yellow ball flying to the corner slot.

She smirked and hit the next ball in. "I can't believe you tried to get out of teaching me pool."

Clink!

She hit in the next ball.

"Hmm… I can see why you didn't want to teach me pool Derek. Scared? I'm sure you are. You knew I could beat you. That's why you didn't want to teach me, cuz you knew I'd win."

I kept my eyes on the table.

She hit the next ball.

Clink.

Two went in.

My eyes closed slightly. The boredom was getting to me. I had no strength in me to openly express my true opinions of her smug overconfident words. But, if she kept going on like this I would have to say something, only to save her from her ignorance.

She would have to push me pretty far. I would not enjoy having Nora come at me again defending her daughter. She might just make me stay here all night trying to make Casey a professional. This was not something I wasn't to do at this point.

I yawned.

"Oh don't pretend to be tired Derek. You can't make me feel bad for you or make me go easy on you because you feel "worn out"."

I gave her a look of complete disinterest and looked on at the table.

"You gonna keep going? Or can I go to bed now?"

"Oh come on Derek. Is the wee little baby too tired to make a shot?"

She missed the next ball.

I didn't say anything. I walked up and stared at my options. I positioned myself and shot in two.

The air was thin. She took in shallow breaths. I walked around the pool twice and then set up the next shot.

I shot in the next ball.

Casey leaned a bit more on the table. Her eyes were hidden behind her hair. She was watching with determined stance about her. It seemed as though she were trying to hold the ball in place with her eyes. I decided to play a game with her. I leaned across the table and I missed the next ball.

She saw through me. "Don't go easy on me Derek."

"I'm not." I ignored her glare. 'I was lying, but I was too tired to say anything that would not bring on more snide remarks.'

I waved out at the table. She refused to move as it seemed she had set herself and I could see it in her eyes that she was not done talking.

"Don't think that just because you're taking it easy on me in here it's going to make up for everything that goes on outside."

She bent over and took her shot putting in two more.

'I knew the silence was too good to be true.'

She looked over the table.

"I worked so hard to get to where I am. I had to learn to play pool all by myself with you sleeping there. You don't get it do you Derek. I have to work so hard out there. I have to push MYself to the limit to try to keep MY dignity. I have to keep up MY grades all the while, I have to work MY butt off to fix the damage your mistakes have on MY life; only to come to a house where I am picked on by you, stepped on by you, used by you. Then we fight and I have to leave those fights the loser. I have to move on after those fights and I have to keep up MY integrity. I have to deal with YOU!"

She bent over and shot in two balls.

"But that's all gonna change now. This is it. You loose Derek. I don't have to put up with you anymore. I win."

She looked at the eight ball with a gleam of victory in her eyes. She was so predictable. I felt like a weather man with tomorrow's newspaper in my hands for a moment.

She missed.

She stood up in sheer disbelief. She had missed and I had four more balls yet. She smirked as she counted them thinking she had won. She didn't notice where they stood. I could make them in one shot.

I was tired. Still it was still too good of a chance to pass up. I smiled with a fake smile of congratulations. I set up my shot and smiled one more time at her. She looked at me with a smug smile.

I hit.

The first ball fell in. Her smile faded slightly. It faded even more at she saw the second and then the third and when the final ball fell in and only the eight ball stayed on the green velvet her smile had completely faded and she looked on in sheer disbelief.

I didn't say anything to her at all. I simply set up my shot and landed the eight ball which had sat there perfectly placed next to the corner pocket where she had left it.

I stood up and walked to the door. "I guess not this time."

A/N: How was it? REVIEW! If you want updates… EMAIL me Azumangaadaioh at yahoo dot com