Here is the next
instalment you guys. Reviews and feedback are greatly appreciated. I
also would love some constructive criticism, like points where I
could improve and such. I'm always up for improving my writing.
Anyway, on with the chapter
x
Chapter Three
Grounded. I never get grounded. Well, I never used to. I had the feeling my mother wanted to keep me in the house for some reason or another, not just because I was being punished for being the 'layabout son' as she had kindly called me. You can't really blame her for wanting to keep tabs on where her teenage son wonders off to every once in a while, especially when he doesn't talk to her, remaining confined in his room for the majority of the time after he's come home from that prison he refers to as school. I've got to say, she's really pushed the boat out with this grounding.
My fingers curl around the smooth varnished door knob as I twist it. I think I've done this about three times now, ignoring the fact that there's a key in the other side of the door. I'm locked in. This is a new extreme for my mum, the locking in. Imprisoned in my own bedroom. Fortunately, this space, this pit that's musty from the smell of week old discarded clothes and food packets I've never bothered to bin, it actually holds all the necessities that a boy like me needs in his everyday life. I stare around my room, hoping something helpful will leap out and give me a shove in the right direction. The sign doesn't appear, and I'm left to route among the various items strewn across my carpet.
I'm close to screaming when I realise I can't find what I'm looking for. I'm acutely aware after ten minutes of furiously ferreting through the useless junk, that I don't even know what I might be looking for. A key to my bedroom door would have been helpful, although I hadn't seen it since that one time, when I was a lot younger and I had bitten my younger sister's arm in an attempt to escape her wrath after stealing and reading aloud from her diary. I throw a pencil case at my cupboard door; it doesn't achieve much, just opens said door and makes a loud satisfying thud against the wall that is joined to my sister's room. I hear two angry thuds in reply and some muffled profanity yelled from her lungs. It can't be helped, I'm having a crisis. A breakdown. My rational thinking has flown out of the window, shortly followed by my common sense.
I look at the window cautiously. I'd never noticed how wide it was before. It could easily fit something big through it, such as a person, like me. I scurry over to it, my foot catching in the strap of my bag in the process, causing me to stumble, my face hitting the floor hard. I don't remember much of the pain. I had my mission now. I looked at the clock. Five.
My stomach suddenly felt extremely heavy and it wasn't from the bizarre dinner I'd been fed only half an hour previous. I'm not going to be at the church in time. If I'm going to go, I have to go now. I look to the door again. The chances of it opening by the power of the imagination are slim, I reckon. There is one option and one option only.
I realise now, as I wobble precariously on my window ledge, why I've always used the front door before. Heights are not my forte, in fact, I can't stand the buggers.
I hear the door unlock. I turn; my mother is standing on the other side of my bedroom, her eyes wide, and her mouth torn between what to say to me. Whether to scorn my disobedience and throw one of her hair curlers at me, or to persuade me not to jump and risk breaking a limb. I choose not to stick around long enough to see her choice.
My best pair of jeans are ruined by the fall, the hard squelching splat of mud cushions the blow, yet I appear now as if I've soiled myself. I get up nevertheless, walking, or rather, waddling out of the gate, breaking in to an awkward run down the street.
Sylvie better appreciate this.