Helen

Chapter 1

The bird swooped down from out of nowhere and perched itself upon the wooden gate of the house opposite. From its grey coloured feathers and it’s blown up balloon appearance I was quite positive that it was a pigeon. There were loads of them in this area. I suppose that’s what you get when you live two blocks away from a forest. The pigeon hopped around a few times, looked left then right before it was fully settled on the gate. It suddenly bent its head and started pecking at an uncomfortable spot on the inside of its wing. It seemed to me as if the pigeon had failed to notice the movement in the background.

An enormous candle white cat leaped over the wall from the neighbouring garden, the pigeon obviously having caught its attention. It gradually but at the same time very silently sneaked its way up to the pigeon, never taking its eyes of its prey even for a second.  Soon it sat directly underneath the bird. Its tail swishing left and right with pleasure. I was urged to open the window and scare the bird away but stayed put, as I was more intrigued as to what would happen next.

The pigeon having found the area of annoyance and reliving itself looked up. The cat seeing this as its chance leaped up, claws released, teeth bared but fortunately missing the bird by inches as it zoomed off into the air not giving its hunter a second glance. The cat stared longingly at the meal it had just missed out on but was forgotten at the sound of locks unlocking and its owner a 75 year old retired yoga teacher coaxed it to come inside for a snack which the cat accepted almost immediately, which wasn’t surprising taking a glance at its stomach. It looked like it ate guinea pigs for breakfast. Speaking of breakfast I still hadn’t had mine.

Gran had called me twice already she would be fuming by now. I swiveled off the window sill and slid myself off the cupboard Walked past my girly pink bed decorated with hundreds of white, purple and dark pink flowers, my pig pink wardrobe with green butterflies in the opposite corners, my favorites massive beanbag chair for those lazy days and my pink and blue lava lamp on top of my white bedside cabinet. I swear if a complete stranger walked into my room the first thought that would pop into their mind was that they’d just walked in to a four year olds room and would probably get a big shock when they found out it belonged to a thirteen year old.

 I’m not kidding my room has stayed the exact same since I was four and they wonder why I don’t bring my friends over. I mean its not like I haven’t tried to reason with Gran to change the furniture to make it a bit more cooler and grown up. When I asked her the first time I did sort of bring up the subject indirectly at the beginning just to be polite by saying “Gran do you remember when you were thirteen years old?” and she’d replied by saying “Oh yes of course I do. I performed  my first solo performance with the violin when I was that age and I’ll never forget the time when my friend invited me and a group of my friend to the cinema for the weekend. According to her parents and ours we were suppose to be watching “Auntie Mame” this comedy when in actuality were watching this horror movie “House on haunted hill” which was the most terrifying movie out then……”.

 Whilst she was talking I was nodding, smiling pretending I was interested. Then when she’d finished I put my head on the chopping block. “Gran would it be ok if you know because I’m a teenage now being thirteen and all, I’m suppose to be grown up and mature. So would it be ok if I could redecorate my room? I mean we wouldn’t have to paint the walls and all that it’s just that the furniture is a bit babyish……..”

Have you ever seen a volcano erupt? The first time you see it it’s sort of sort of calm (well if you can call a volcano calm) and stable and if you like safe. Then out of the blue without warning it abruptly starts to shake, shaking all the surrounding land with it like an earthquake. Then boom and scorching, sizzling lava begins to pour out of the mouth of the volcano as if it’s throwing up. And it doesn’t stop oh no it just keeps on coming and coming. Now try to imagine Grans reaction. I think you get the idea.

“Helen Parker! How dare you even suggest such an idea! No you bloody well can’t “redecorate” your bedroom. Where do you think money comes from these days? Trees?! Furniture cost a fortune these days! The cheek of it!”         

Step by step I slumped down the stairs reluctantly and stepped in to a 1930s television screen. If the same stranger walked into the living room I was almost certain that he/she would think we were colour blind. The furniture was either black or white.

 When you entered the room in front of you there would be two black armchairs opposite to the window overlooking the back yard. When I was young they reminded me of a king and queens throne. When you turn to your left there is black three seater sofa with three fluffy sheep skin pillows. The carpet looked like a huge chess board with hundreds of columns of black and white squares one after the other. Just below the window was a white dining table with three black chairs on one side and another three on the reverse side. Gran and Granddad have great taste hmm.

I just opened the door to the kitchen as Gran walked in with two wide plates which consisted of scrambled eggs, two sausages, bacon, a small portion of beans and two pieces of warm, hot toast. The traditional weekend breakfast in the Parker household.

“It’s about time too. You of all people should know I shouldn’t have to call you more than once. I was beginning to think that something had happened to you.” Whatever I thought pinpointing the sarcasm in her voice. I went into the kitchen to fetch the third plate then went back in, got three cups out of the cupboard, placed two tea bags in mine and Grans cup and a tea spoon of coffee in Granddads, whacked the kettle on and waited for the water to boil.

“Do you still insist on wearing those ghastly trousers? Its spring for heavens sake not the middle of winter! Why don’t you wear one of your expensive may I stress on expensive skirt that I got you for your birthday or that lovely flowery dress that I spent ages looking for in monsoon”. So it was going to be one of those days. One of those lets-just-moan-at-Helen-because-I-have-nothing-else-better-to-do days. I mean what’s wrong with jeans? There the most comfiest things in the world! I just can’t stand wearing either dress or skirts. They limit how far you can stretch your legs when walking or running so if you were trying to escape from a psycho blood thirty murderer you wouldn’t get far would you? There also scratchy, itchy and its so annoying when your thighs are always rubbing against each other. Not to mention my truly humiliating experience wearing a skirt.

 See, in school we were doing this project about the Victorians so the teacher thought it would be a good idea if we visited this really old Victorian house called Bramall hall but we all had to be dressed like Victorian children to have the proper experience. Unfortunately in those times girls wore skirts so I had to borrow a long, itchy, black skirt from Gran. Anyway on that day everything was going smoothly all of us in the class admiring each others costumes on the bus. When we finally arrived to Bramall hall half an hour later we all lined up ready to leave the bus, when my skirt unexpectedly fell, revealing my white, pale legs and my Hello Kitty underwear  (very Victorian). I yanked my skirt up in what felt like half a second. Thank goodness I was last in line. Well at least I thought I was last in line when I heard this little gasp from behind me and noticed that nerdy, dweeby Jake Lerman was staring right at me with his mouth wide open.

 I realised then that my face must have turned as red as his but I was totally not going to let this little incident ruin my school reputation. Therefore I grabbed him by his collar, put my face close to his and said in a harsh voice that if he told anyone about this his life wouldn’t be worth living. And just like that I straightened out my shirt and walked proudly out of the bus as if nothing had happened.