Chapter 1 - Pounds or Pennies
"10…20…30…" I muttered as I lay in front of the TV.
I was sprawled out on the couch on my stomach and counting my banknotes I had earned from the amount of work I had been doing over the past few weeks. This may be a lot to take in, but recently, I had volunteered to help out my neighbours with errands such as shopping trips, watering plants outside, writing notes down, and mostly cleaning, and this was done to help me earn extra money.
Typically, I got paid about five pounds an hour, which I didn't know whether to complain about or not because I had taken an hour out of my free time every day of the weekend to drag myself to different people's houses and work for them, but I supposed that it was better to at least add to my collection. This principle actually made me think about the structure of a fluorine atom. It was better to gain one electron than to lose seven, which made me think that I should be grateful for what I receive. Whether it be pounds or pennies, it was at least something.
However, even though I had earned thirty thousand pounds from winning I'm A Koopa…Get Me Out Of Here!, I wanted to save it up for something very special, and even though all the money I'd earned from working was somewhat decent, I couldn't find it in my brain to concentrate on putting all that cash to good use, like the bills. Yes, paying money onto a website was almost second nature at this point, but recently, I just couldn't find the time to concentrate on paying bills, even when I noticed that all of my resources were starting to run out.
For starters, my bedroom light would just turn off when I would be halfway through getting dressed, leaving me to do the rest in the dark, I had to limit how much water I used, so while taking a bath, I had to wash in such little amounts of water that I couldn't even get both my feet fully under it, and I had to focus on buying the things I needed rather than wanted. I was caught up in a cost of living crisis, but the good thing was that gradually, I was being given money to pay bills by my neighbours. Even if they begrudgingly paid me, it still helped.
I finished counting my notes and it turned out that I had gained a fair amount of sixty pounds in just this school spring term, which I thought was quite impressive for a thirteen year old schoolboy and perhaps that would make ends meet during the next few weeks, both for at home and for school lunches. I took the banknotes in my hands, folded them up and made my way upstairs to my room where I kept my moneybox. It basically had the design of a heavy looking English dictionary where the front cover opened up like a book, and then I had to unlock it and put my money inside it.
There was a ten pound note in there already, which I had completely forgotten about, and that put a smile on my face because that meant that I now had seventy pounds in cash all to myself, unless some dodgy geezer from Crowscar Court just down the road were to sneak in late one night and steal the whole box, which was something I thought wasn't going to happen because I lived in a quiet part of town where you didn't hear young children wailing, husbands and wives arguing and cats screeching and fighting out on the road. Somehow, I had gotten lucky in a place like this.
Anyway, as well as all of these bills, trying to save my money, and work, there was something else that had been on my mind for a couple of days now. Well, actually there were two things. One made me feel quite deflated and sad, and the other made me feel ecstatic. The first thing was tied to the fact that it was my mum's birthday soon, well, it would be if she were alive. Yes, I didn't have to go through the stress of trying to figure out what to get her, but of course that didn't stop me from feeling upset. In fact, I sort of missed those times because I loved seeing Mum's face when she opened her presents.
This may sound a little exaggerative, but if I'd have had to give her one present while she was alive, it would've been me teleporting to that dual carriageway on that Christmas Eve and pulling her out of her car before getting critically injured, losing tragic amounts of blood, and then falling asleep on a hospital bed, never to wake up. If I had the power to go back in time, that would be my only purpose.
Of course, I was sad roundabout this time of year, but now, it was also a time to feel excited because my girlfriend Gracie's birthday was coming up too, and I felt that this was a moment to switch my brain on, remember every conversation we had ever had, and try to relate said conversations to certain things she really really liked. After all, I wasn't going to just rock up to Claire's Accessories and buy her a pack of fifty hairbands; this was the time of year to be a gentleman.
Just then, there was a knock at my door, so I got up from my bed, put my money box on its shelf, rushed downstairs and opened the door. It was Gracie, and my heart immediately filled with warmth and joy, it almost knocked the wind out of me.
"Hey, sweetie! You okay?" I asked, opening up my arms and Gracie wrapped herself around me.
"Yeah, I'm okay…" she replied, but not with much emphasis or cheer.
I shrunk back from our little hug and studied her face whilst fiddling with the ends of her hair. "Are you sure? You know you can tell me if you're sad about something, right?"
"I…I'm fine. I'm just a little bored at home and I thought I'd come and see you. After all, you seem to be the only person I can make happy at the moment." She took a moment to let out a scowl, which made me raise an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
Gracie sighed frustratedly. "Oh, it's just my parents. They just keep getting snappy at me for no reason, always saying I don't do enough…I was just tired of it so I came here."
I gestured for Gracie to step inside and I closed the door. "That's okay, sweetie. I'm free for the rest of the day and I have plenty of food as well. But…what makes you think that you can't make your parents happy?"
Gracie opened her mouth to say something, but instead she sighed heavily. "Oh, it doesn't matter…" She walked into the living room and sunk down onto the sofa.
I followed her there, my heart aching at the sight of seeing her so dismal and…washed out. "Darling, of course it matters. You're my girlfriend, and I want to know if you're okay, and I've said before that you can tell me anything."
Gracie looked up from her lap and thought for a moment before she let a long, low sigh escape her lips. "Okay…I will tell you what's on my mind, but not now. Meet me in town tomorrow and I'll tell you."
I took a moment to study my girlfriend's face before nodding. "Yeah, okay, I will, but in the meantime, how about sticking a show on and having some snacks?"
At last, Gracie smiled and agreed and within a few minutes, we were curled up together on the couch in front of the TV with some coke and M&Ms. As I sat there with my arm around her though, I couldn't help but focus my mind on why Gracie wanted to meet up in town specifically for what she had to say to me. I guess I just had to wait…