Cinder: Chapter 1 My Perfect Life

Prologue: viewtopic.php?t=50700

My Perfect Life (I’m crossing my finger’s behind my back in case you didn’t notice.)

“He what?!” I squalled, spitting diet coke across the room. It splattered the filthy yellowed wall and I felt like bursting out laughing, the anxiety and worry just let loose in my brain was running around my head like the Tasmanian devil and I felt slightly drunk. (At least what I supposed being drunk would feel like, I’d never actually drank anything alcoholic which was a great surprise since everyone in my family save for number seventeen drank).

Ok, maybe I should start using their names, you think? Calling them Seventeen and Eighteen is a little lame, I admit. The brother only a year older than me was Michel, we all called him Mike. Next up was Daniel we all called him Dan. And everyone called me either Butthead or Cindy. In this latte da family Butthead was the norm. And then there was good old Adam Holmes, yep dear little dad.

“Ya, that’s right Cindy. He just called.” I flopped down in the filthy couch and turned ‘Charmed’ off with a quick jab at the controller. The TV blinked off with a loud static sizzle and I sighed. Mike was standing over me, worry plastered across his face. He had on a filthy tank top and baggy blue jeans. His feet were bare and it was apparent he hadn’t shaved in a few days.

I sighed and rolled onto my belly. “Go get a haircut man, you ruin your figure. You look like a mop that just survived a tornado. Take a bath too, you smell like some old homeless beggar.” I heard his deep chuckle and glanced at him under my arm.

“What?” I demanded, (major annoyed here).

“What do you care Cinderelly? You look ten times worse. Weird huh? Even though Cinderella in the movie lived in rags, she was always clean and had fair skin and no acne to speak of.”

“Shut up you!” I hit him in the head with a pillow. I sighed as I looked around our living room. This house needed a Mom badly. It was a wreck. I highly doubted it had been cleaned once in the nine years we’d been here.

“Go do your home work Butthead, or we’ll be getting another call from some flippin’ teacher.” I scowled.

“I’m thinking here Mike, just go bark up somebody else’s tree if that’s not too much to ask for. Chill for a bit. You know as well as me Dad will be home soon. Dread the horror before you have to live it.” Mike sighed but luckily he scrammed and left me in peace.

I clambered from the sofa and raced up the stairs and barged into my room. I scowled at Mitsy who lay sleeping on my bed.

At last! You could tell some sane person lived in this house. My room, (unlike my pack rat siblings dung heaps), was as neat as a pin and clean. I sighed and threw open a window. The salty air I still loved flowed over me, its cool touch refreshing.

“Move over big butt.” I gave Mitsy a shove and she looked at me glumly. I knew if she could talk she’d probably ask ‘What was that for Stupid? I’m sleeping here, find somewhere else to place your oversized human fanny!’ I smiled, cats’ didn’t think much beyond that, (well at least not Mitsy), maybe somewhere else there lived a more intelligent cat.

I ran my fingers through my hair and groaned. Tomorrow was another boring school day and I was falling behind again, no surprise there. School sucked, it was dull, boring, stupid, pointless, need I go on? I mean the learning part is ok, get this, I actually like to learn, oh wow. It’s the way the school went about forcing all this knowledge on you at once. I mean I read this book once, ( I don’t remember the author’s name) but way to go author, this book would have shamed any teacher. It’s all about how children naturally are curious to learn and if allowed will grow and learn themselves if taught the right things at a right time and a certain allowance is allowed.

This school, no way, it was like if you didn’t finish a paper you’d committed a crime so evil and horrible, you were a bad kid. Now if school wasn’t bad enough they have to drown you at home with Home Work. It should be called Home Torture more like it. I personally think the old prunes running the joint should dry up and ditch the H.W. Who knows? Maybe kids at school would be less likely to act out in such violent ways, (I’m not saying I’m actually one of those kids).

Ok, back to the beginning, I guess I forgot to tell you what Mike had so graciously let me in on. Dad was drunk, had lost his job, and was headed home. Not too unusual, he’d lost three jobs this year and everything kept going downhill. I wanted to ditch this joint and be like gone. I envied Dan so badley, the day he’d turned eighteen he was so outta here, like I dreamed of doing every day of my freakin’ life.

Unlike myself, (who would have scrammed halfway around the world), Dan had moved his dung heap up to Fort Bragg so he could be closer to his beloved gang. If you asked me, nine miles between me and a raving lunatic of a dad would never be satisfactory. Oh yeah, I also forgot to tell you in these past years I discovered that Mom had indeed married an Evil Step Father and my old man was now a raving lunatic and a nutcase. How picturesque.