Chapter 6

Giggling and squealing, we sat there in the middle of the night in Natalie's bed room, sharing secrets and distributing embarrassing dares. I had already informed Natalie that I hadn't had my first kiss yet and fetched us some drinks in merely my undies. On my turn I had made Natalie tell me everything about her past and present love interests – turned out that the current object of her affections liked purple – and had her prank call a certain doctor Trent from Mineral Town, to tell him her brother was about to give birth. (He didn't think it was very amusing, although Natalie was having a fit of laughter.)

By the time it was two o'clock, we were lying on the bed rather than sitting and sleep began to get to us.

"Fruuf-for-der?" Natalie inquired, her voice muffled by the pillow she was lying face down on. I snickered.

"Truth. Because I'm too tired to undress again and go downstairs," I answered, glancing at Natalie, who chose to ignore it and was lying on her back now to be more audible.

"Uh… if you," she started, making something up as she went, "Um, if you… had like, one more day to live, what would you do?" Although such questions weren't uncommon in games like the one we were playing, I was completely speechless. Upset even. My mouth felt dry and my throat felt throttled. In fact, I was barely aware of Natalie waving her hand up and down in front of my face, a worried expression on her face.

"You okay?" she asked, frowning. I shook my head for a moment and rubbed my sleepy eyes.

"Yeah… I'm fine. I just… dozed off for a second. Perhaps we should go to sleep," I suggested. She slowly nodded before flashing me a quick smile.

"Perhaps we should, yes," she snickered, "Now, shoo! Get off my bed!" I was snickering too now and ducked off her bed onto the matres that laid next to it. We both crawled underneath our blankets and attempted to go to sleep.

"Chels?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you mind turning off the light?" I slowly got to my feet, walked over to the light switch, switched it off, tried to return safely to my bed, tripped and crawled once more underneath the comfy blankets.

"Thanks, dear," Natalie mumbled and turned around. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. 'If I had one more day to live, what would I do?' I questioned myself and found it even more difficult to decide what to do with one day than with two years. Would I be content with filling that one day with farm chores like watering the crops and foraging strange grasses and pretty flowers? Would I go home to see my family? Or would I spend my last day doing something noble like volunteer work? Or would I perhaps spend it with Vaughn and Natalie? (Although I wasn't too sure the two got along at all.) Would Vaughn even want to spend it with me? All those questions flashed through my head at the same time and I rubbed my temples. If I was already short on time with two years, how would I manage one day? I rolled on my side so I would be facing Natalie's bed. A soft snoring was heard from underneath her blankets and I smiled.

"Nat," I told myself rather than Natalie quietly, "If I had one more day to live, I would drag you to the airport, take the first flight to France and we would visit Paris together. We would shop 'till we dropped, climb the Eiffel tower, take hundreds – no thousands – of crazy pictures and… and drink tea on a terrace so ridiculously expensive that you have to pay extra if you want sugar in your tea." I smiled again when I heard Natalie turn around again, mumbling something barely audible in her sleep. Teasingly, I softly asked her to repeat what she said. At first it seemed as if she didn't hear me, but then she mumbled a soft 'I'd do the same for you,' before she drifted off to sleep again. I fell asleep soon after that, a small smile plastered on my face.

The next morning we were woken up by the brute force of nature, around ten o'clock. Or rather, I was woken up. Somehow Natalie managed to sleep through it. For a brief moment, I considered waking her up with a splash of cold water, but decided against it. There wasn't anything she had to do today anyway and might as well enjoy the extra hours of sleep. I peeked through the yellow curtains to witness the storm outside and decided I should worry about my house, rather than my potatoes. I shivered and got dressed in the cloths Felicia had given me the day before to go downstairs.

"'Ey, Missy! You finally 'wake?" old Taro inquired. He sat in a comfortable chair in the living room, his feet resting on a stool and his cane by his side.

"Eh, yes. I usually get up whenever I hear my alarmclock, but I left it at the ranch," I explained, scratching the back of my head.

"Ah… And how's that granddaughter of mine? She still fast asleep?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I figured a few extra hours of sleep wouldn't hurt." Taro nodded, satisfied with my report.

My stomach announced it was time for breakfast and growling softly, so I walked over to the kitchen. I was rather surprised to see that their kitchen was very much like mine; not too big, not too small and very simple. The house's chef-cook, Felicia, was intent upon slicing the freshly baked bread when I entered the kitchen and turned around.

"Good morning," she smiled, "Did you sleep well?" I nodded and smiled back.

"It's been a while since I got to get up so late." Felicia chuckled softly.

"Farm life isn't exactly easy, is it?" I shook my head.

"But it's worth it," I told her. She smiled again and changed the subject.

"Would you please wake up Natalie and Elliot? I made the three of you breakfast."

"Three?" She nodded.

"My father and I already had breakfast at six thirty in the morning. The old man is incapable of getting up any later than six o'clock." She sighed, perhaps slightly disappointed she didn't get to get up late. I went back upstairs to wake the siblings. First I went to Natalie's room to steal her pillow, then I went to Elliot's to throw the pillow at him. I missed and went back to Natalie's room to get my own pillow, only to find out that Natalie had already taken possession of it. I stole her pillow once more and visited Elliot again. This time I hit. Sadly, both of them seemed immune to my actions – Natalie simply continued to sleep without a pillow and Elliot threw the pillow back – so I decided to play it a little dirty. (Although 'dirty' might not seem the right word, literally seen.)

The cold water turned out to be very effective, although I might have wanted to ensure my own safety better, seeing the chaos that ensued. A grumpy Natalie chased me in her pajamas through the entire first floor yelling at me, while a sleepy Elliot shouted at us to keep it down and threw a pillow out of his room, which happened to hit Natalie, who happened to have zero tolerance for such acts of violence in the 'early' morning. But at least both of them were awake now.

Much to my relief, breakfast had been much more peaceful than waking the siblings up. The stressful progress of awakening might have exhausted them too much to quarrel. We sat at the kitchen table quietly, eating our breakfast, while the storm raged outside.

It had been in the late afternoon when I was playing Monopoly with Natalie, old Taro, who happened to be particularly good at the game, and Elliot. Without an apparent reason, I had gotten a nosebleed. Felicia had been kind enough to help me and instructed me to blow my nose softly, pinch the bridge of my nose and bend my head a little. It wasn't until she mentioned that the dry air inside the house might have caused it that I realised I had forgotten my medicines.

I suddenly felt very nauseous.

Will Chelsea's potatoes survive the typhoon? Will the siblings ever forgive Chelsea for waking them up the way she did? Did old Taro win the game of Monopoly? And above all, what will happen next?

I know that I should have been studying the fast three days, but what I can say? I couldn't resist! Writing has somehow become a part of my daily routines.
As for my exams, I think I did fairly well. Except for chemistry, I think I totally blew that. But I suspect I'm not the only one, so that makes me feel less stupid.

Written under influence of 'If today was your last day' by Nickelback. The lyrics fit so well, it's almost scary. Check it out. :)