The Sketch (My Nanowrimoo)

(Too lazy to go back and but spaces where they should be. V _ V Sorry.)

He had a manic smile and one twitching eye, veined all in blue instead of red, like bug blood. His chin was a short, flattened, bumpy bit of bone, like something sharp that’d had the tip cut off. I couldn’t see his hair for the worn bowler hat, save a few dirty wisps sticking out here and there. His shirt was rather tattered and his pants looked like they’d recently been turned into shorts, but nobody was scanning his persona except for me. Everybody else had their eyes trained on the knife wildly held in his dirty red fingers. He licked his lips feverishly, tongue slipping in and out of the scummy gaps in his teeth.

“Well?”

He rasped now, chest laboriously heaving to and fro. I sat as still as possible, just like everyone else, eyes wide with fear and trying not to put weight on the uneven leg of my chair. Thirty eyes followed the knife twirling in his calloused and red-powdered hands. Only the AC system responded, blasting on as was routine, only blowing the red dye off of him an into the air. I could feel the intensity of the moment steadily rising, egged on by a heavy, thick silence, thickened with every laborious breath.
Stay quiet, stay quiet, stay quiet….

The silence clamped both hands on my windpipe and squeezed with everything in its formless being.

“WELL?!”

He yelled now, constricting the knife handle with twitching, red-smudged fingers. The gaze of several frightened students flickered towards the door, pleading, hoping, wishing, and yearning for some hall monitor to have heard. My hands squeezed the edges of my seat. Nobody came.

Tap!

Somewhere in the room a squeaky chair leg hit the floor.

Tap!

There it was again. I closed my eyes and moaned inwardly.

Tap!

“Well?”

I opened my eyes and almost screamed. Mr. Clayton was staring right at me, his tongue flicking, like an angry snake, in and out of his teeth. The chair, the only thing to break the silence, had apparently been mine. I opened my mouth to answer, somehow staring at his eyes without daring to look into them. The blue veins seemed to throb. My mouth opened again, and then closed, and then opened. All that came out was the sound of my heart pounding, which I’m sure anybody could have heard.

“Knives aren’t allowed in school!” blurted out Tori, shaking next to me, as if that’d help any. Some other kid squeaked that class ended in a few minutes. Mr. Clayton squinted his eyes at me and then flicked his tongue out at Tori, waving the knife almost comically in the air before shoving it in his pocket and taking a few mechanical steps backwards.

“Of course, of course, of course…” he muttered under his breath, seemingly more to himself than anybody else. Wait…what? The rest of us stared at him like he was crazy. Considering what had just happened he probably was. Our teacher took off his bowler hat and tossed it over his shoulder. The hat knocked into a coffee cup on the teacher’s desk and sent the hot liquid splashing across the floor. Mr. Clayton didn’t seem to notice, and obviously nobody else cared. He now brushed some grime off of his tattered dress shirt, staining it red, looking up at us as if we’d just appeared there.

“Well, you look frightened”.

He was mad, I decided. Absolutely positively mad. My fingers loosened on the chair with this realization though, as if an insane person with a knife was somehow more comforting than a sane one with a knife. He coughed, raising an eyebrow at us and laughing before proceeding to drag a charcoal-stained hand across his lips.

“Kids, the lot of them…of course…”

He stumbled backwards and turned to his desk, still muttering as he shuffled through papers, leaving traces of what looked like red charcoal.

“Remember your self-portraits are due Monday-“

In a spurt of bravery somebody leapt from their chair, too fast for anybody to recognize as they flew across the room, knocking over a desk and a rack of sketches and a few bottles of paint in their fear-driven flight, throwing open the door and shooting into the hallway.

Mr. Clayton turned around angrily, and a wave of fear shot through the once comforting art classroom.

“Justin!”

With that, he turned back around, fingers smudging something dirty and red across his desk. At once chaos seemed to erupt. Students flew out of their desks from all places in the classroom, a mass of undulating panic flooding through the door and out of the hallway, a human stampede knocking over art supplies and scrambling to get out, people collapsing into the main hall, trailing colorful footprints of paint and pastels. Kids broke into tears or screamed, or, like me, stood their stunned, not really hearing and not really knowing when they’d gotten out of their seats; instead with eyes glued to the entrance of the classroom door.

Teachers and administrators came flocking. The school police loped over like dogs that’d finally caught a whiff of something good after months of nothing to chase. Other students came pouring out of their classroom to look on, teachers wailing indignantly or with concern or fright from inside of their respective rooms.

I watched, dazed, as police and administrators poured into the art studio. They came out toting a happy, singing man who looked like my teacher but couldn’t possibly be him. Soon I found myself on the ground, staring up at a spinning ferret painting of our mascot and squinting against the sunlight that filtered through the windows of a now chaotic but otherwise neat and orderly High School.
CHAPTER TWO
“Kov? Kov?”

The sound of gentle voices, cool linen tossed over my body, and the soft smell of lemongrass woke me up as sharply as a cold bucket of water to the face would have. The bed groaned in protest at my sudden movement, sending me bouncing on its mattress. I blinked and spluttered, cupping my face in my hands, rubbing my eyes, and trying to figure out where I was.


“Oh good; you’re awake”.

The vaguely familiar voice of the school nurse was a sudden relief. I immediately stopped rubbing my eyes, letting my smallish hands fall by my sides onto the bed. Lemongrass…that’s right. Mrs. Clove always kept the nurse’s room smelling like Lemongrass. I gave out a long, exasperated sigh, turning to look at her.

“How’d I get in here?...”

I couldn’t remember coming at all. Being one place and then waking up in another was something new and shocking. On top of that I’d never, being rather healthy and a tad shy, ever stepped foot into the nurse’s office. In fact, the only way I’d come to have any sort of idea about what it was like was through the conversations of other kids, about lemongrass and how nice Mrs. Clove was.
“We call this ‘passing out’” she chuckled, standing up, her hands still on her lap even as she stood. There was a smile on her face, if a sad one; I eased myself back onto the bed, dizzy from my sharp awakening. She blinked at me with warm light brown eyes.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Good.” I replied, even though my head was spinning slightly and my back hurt like crazy. Apparently I didn’t look too uncomfortable though, because Mrs. Clove just gave an approving nod and waddled off across the celadon tiled floor, occasionally looking back at me with worried eyes, her short brown hair ruffled slightly as if she’d run her hand through it a million times.
“We’ve been so busy today; you were the last to wake up. So many kids were sick. What with what happened with…with that monster, you know”.
She grimaced, as if saying Mr. Clayton’s name out loud would have him walk into the office. Now that I think about it though, I’m glad she didn’t say his name. For some reason placing a different title on him made it sound as if I hadn’t really been there. Like the memories of him walking through the door with his clothes all torn up and paint caked up under his nails belonged to somebody else. They kept coming back. I remembered some little voice in my head telling me I should leave, but instead pushing the little voice down. Somebody had asked about the sketches due to break the tension and he’d snapped, yanking a knife out of his pocket….
Shudders ran down my spine. “Mrs. Clove?”
The slightly pudgy nurse turned around, having finished bothering various pill bottles and bandages laid out cleanly on the long white desk that was against the right wall of the room.
“Please, call me Janet.”
“Janet?”
“Yes?”
“Can we please not talk about that?”
Janet Clove took her nurse’s hat off to run a hand through her hair, shuffling over the tile floor with a worried look in her eyes.
“Oh, of course dear”. She looked as if she might say something more, but didn’t. I tugged at my pale, reddish brown bangs, trying to get rid of Mr. Clayton standing over me with a long knife, angry, going “Well? Well? Well, Kov? Well?” over and over again; the only thing I remembered of a dream I must’ve had. In a vain attempt to redirect my attention I scooted over to the edge of the bed, poking the cool celadon flooring with my toes. The room wasn’t very big. There was only one bed, and long desk on each wall; a white one to my right, a brown one to my left, a blue one behind me, a grey one in front. Each seemed dedicated to some medical category or other. The bed was in the middle of the room, ruffled sheets from my occupation of it being the same colors as the desks. Different pictures hung up in the free space, a window above the white desk letting in sunlight. A colorful ticking clock next to it read 3:30. School would be ending in ten minutes…
“I called your parents but no luck there. Do you feel well enough to, to go to class or something, Kov?”
A small, customary flutter of pain shot through my chest and out of range. My dad was always home, and my mom was too; always with her phone on her. Why I was surprised that nobody’d picked up I have no idea. They were never going to pick up if there was a chance that I might be disturbing their grandeur busy lives. This was no surprise; just a day in the life of Kov Mitchells.
“I-“
“Janet! Ms. Wilson sent me here to get a cough drop”.
My response was cut off by another student who came bursting into the room suddenly, decked out in different shades of blue from her socks down to her hair color. Tori! I’d know that eccentric color obsession anywhere. Was she okay? My friend had been in the art room too…she seemed fine for the most part, but a large crème colored band-aid (scribbled over in blue with sharpie) had been plastered to her cheek. Probably from the mad scramble to get out of the art studio. I instinctively looked down at myself, as if to make sure there were no long gashes in my arms.
“Tori, was it? I’m sorry dear, I can’t give you any medicine without permission from your parents”.
Mrs. Clove frowned, but I’d say she didn’t need to be so worried. Tori winked at me, not at all set back by the news. Knowing her she probably hadn’t really needed one.
“I’ll just leave then…” she sighed, motioning to me with a flick of her head.

“Me too.” I added, albeit awkwardly. Janet Clove scratched her head, offering a warm smile.
“You feel good enough?”
“Yes ma’am”. Once again I tried to ignore the slight pain in my back as we left.
The chaotic noises in the hallways of Dodger High made me wonder if the doors to the nurse’s office had been soundproof. The place was swarming with people. A crowd of important looking men dressed in some uniform I’d never seen before plagued the area by the art studio like a cancer. I shuddered as we passed it, looking at my feet, half listening to Tori’s rambling. The girl didn’t even seem to be talking to me, blue eyes completely elsewhere. How was she not the least bit…scared? We’d just had our art teacher pull a knife on us. I looked out at the crowd more, afraid, as if I might see Mr. Clayton standing in the middle of it with a lead-stained knife going: “Well? Well? Well?”

“And…you haven’t been listening. Listen to this, at least; listen”.
We rounded the corner by the gym, now far enough away from the crowd of officers and news people that the booming chatter wasn’t so crushing. I took a few deep breaths, offering an attentive smile to my long-time friend. She tugged on her aquamarine jacket strings, tapping an azure-shoed foot on the ground.
“Are you listening?” she asked, unusually urgent. That got my attention. I frowned slightly, worried that Tori could be urgent about anything.
“Yeah”.
She looked around now, leaning in close to half-way whisper into my ear.
“You know how Mr. Clayton went on vacation a while ago?”
I nodded, aware of the fact. He’d gone to the Bahamas to take a break from work for a few months a while back, when he’d been my favorite teacher. I pictured his bright, excited face, covered lightly in chalk dust, eagerly painting things for us on the big canvas in front of the class.
“Yeah…why? Don’t see why it matters…”
Tori frowned, disappointed in my apparent dullness. She impatiently bit a blue lip, sighing.
“Well-,” she began, the word making me cringe, “rumor has it he didn’t go on vacation. He went missing”. She added emphasis on the last words. All of the alarms in my head went off at once. This conversation was going in a direction I didn’t like.
“No, he w-went on vacation,” I stammered, thumb fingering a loose string on my pants. Tori shook her head vehemently, her usually blonde hair made slightly green by the blue dye.
“Did he talk about it in class? Or show pictures? Did you notice how funny the teachers acted when we asked about how he was doing, when he was coming back? There was a forced cheerfulness there. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it”.
I stood there miserably, the truth of what she was saying and the speed at which she said it rendering me silent. Glumly, I nodded.
“Wonder what the Bahamas are like”.
She frowned, touching me lightly on the shoulder; a gesture that almost made me flinch.
“Don’t change the subject; he went missing and then eventually went insane”.
I closed my eyes, breathing slowly, suddenly wishing for the smell of Lemongrass and a bed so that I wouldn’t have to listen to this. This was sinking rapidly downhill. Vainly, my every bone hoped my friend wouldn’t bring it up.
Tori turned me around with her hand on my shoulder, tipping up my chin with a finger so that I’d have to look at her; pay attention to what I really didn’t want to.
“You know who else went missing and then went insane?”
“No”. A lie, of course.
“That’s right;” she sighed, completely misunderstanding what I’d said. “Nolan”.
Some unseen force punched me in the throat. I coughed, turning my face out of her hand and taking a few quick steps back. My chest hurt.
“Coincidence” I wheezed, frowning hugely now, boring brown eyes trained on the ground.
“You hate coincidence,” she breathed impatiently. “First he goes missing, and then he’s found insane; you know Nolan…he’s…he’s as far from crazy as you can get, or, he used to be”.
“He isn’t crazy!”
I spurted that out so loudly it surprised her and I. At once I returned to staring at my feet, dizzy, and whispered again in my usually quiet voice.
“He’s just sick right now”.
Tori sighed again, blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t you tell me Nolan wouldn’t pull a knife on anybody if-“
“Not on you and I, he wouldn’t”. I interjected quickly, trying to shut down the subject. Once again my attempts failed.
“Exactly!”
Tori seemed nearly giddy, azure shoes nearly flying off of her sapphire socks as she jumped.
“I say we go see Nolan. There’s got to be some sort of connection here, with all the going missing and the going insane”.
“I’m going home,” I squeaked weakly, turning heel at once. My worn shoes squealed feebly against the polished floor of our school’s gym. The bell had rung while we were talking, but it must’ve been drowned out by the chatter in the hallway. Either that or by the blood roaring in my ears…which was odd, because I honestly felt like I’d just had the blood drained out of me. The booming in the hallways outside of the gym got louder, filled with the excited prate of students.
“Kov-,” my friend called out; I could feel her frowning behind me. There were more squeaking sneakers and a flutter of various odd blue accessories as she ran to catch up with me, backpack slapping against her and adding to the sound. “Just wait! There’s more!”
I sighed, trying not to think of the infomercials my mom always watched, adding another layer of sour flavor to Tori’s little plan.
“What?”
“That kid- you know who I’m talking about?”
I shook my head, only partially listening. We stepped out of the gym and into the crowded main hallway, instantly pressed on all sides by throngs and masses of kids. Their voices seemed to float up to the ceiling, regrouping into one billowing, undulating mass of sound. I could, however, still hear Tori decently well.
“There are a lot of kids in our class,” I pointed out, as if the phrase were routine. In fact, it was. Tori tended to get so caught up with her ideas that she figured you understood what she was saying completely, even when what she was saying was incredibly vague.
“Well,” she chirped, making me cringe. “There was a kid that ran out of our class; the first one”.
In a spurt of bravery somebody leapt from their chair, too fast for anybody to recognize as they flew across the room, knocking over a desk and a rack of sketches and a few bottles of paint in their fear-driven flight…
The scene re-played in my mind, as if somebody had inserted a tape into my memory.
“Yeah. What about him?”
“He isn’t in our class. He wasn’t there when class started”.
I frowned, squinting my eyes, trying to remember. The chattering and talking of the kids around us clouded my thoughts, making it hard to concentrate, even if I could hear.
“Justin?”
“There is no Justin in our class”.
“Are you sure?”
Tori gave a cocky smile, rolling her eyes, as if I should know better. “I know everybody in that class. You-“
You don’t talk to anyone. “Yeah, yeah, I know”. We pulled ourselves free of the mass of bodies now, the river of students pouring out of the front doors. Buses hummed in the distance, and most of the students headed over there. Tori and I headed in the opposite direction, the shortest path off campus.
“Just because he called him Justin doesn’t mean anything. He’s mad…he could’ve called him Paul, or Jim, or Beauregard without it having meant anything”.
Tori frowned deeply, and I could tell I’d thrown a massive wrench in whatever she was going to say. Hoping not to give her time to think up another ridiculous plan, I spoke up again.
“And he was moving too fast to be seen clearly anyways”.
Tori shook her head at this, face, I realized, not set into a frown but into one of assuredness. “He isn’t in our class-“
“He could’ve been shadowing somebody, or transferred in, or anything”.
I frowned, thinking at a hundred miles a minute; and not about the kid in our class. The grass was so wet with dew and earlier sun shower that the water was soaking through my shoes, but I hardly noticed.
“Didn’t you feel something odd about him?”
Tori was practically whining now, her blue bag clanking in protest with her. Speaking of which…
I stopped abruptly, casting a look back towards the school building.
“Crap…”
“What?”
“I left my things in the art room…”
“Do ya want to go get them?”
Tori noticed me shudder and added: “I’ll come with you; come on”.
I shook my head, sighing. The place was probably still swarming with officers, and plenty of students must’ve left their things in there. How Tori got hers I had no idea. But the officers…they’d probably put them outside tomorrow or something. Not to mention…
I shuddered again, stepping onto the sidewalk and heading towards home. If I could help it, I was never going to go into that room again.
Tori gave a knowing nod, as if she knew what I was thinking, and we rounded the corner, walking side by side, still arguing over the existence of the kid in our class. Suddenly, she stopped, double taking something in the distance.
“Something wrong?” I asked, frowning slightly, chewing on my bottom lip. Tori waved a careless hand and shook her head.
“Never mind. I just could’ve sworn I saw a cloud of red powder in the air a few seconds ago”.
CHAPTER 3
A serpent of cold air slithered through the chamber, only a whisper of a hiss. After it passed the air grew warm and humid once more, but before long it came crawling back, taking all warmth with it. The cavern seemed to breathe this way. A chilly breath in and a chilly breath out, penetrated by intervals of unbearable heat and humidity, cold droplets of water falling to the ground in short, sickening splats. The floor was a mess of slushy silt and mud oozing along in a slow, thin river. Overtime the walls of the dreaded place had become smoothed from the water trickling down them, and then slightly rounded, as if the place was a tube instead of a cavern. Cave minerals had stained them black; the same color of the bubbling, creeping river on the floor.
The flame shied away a bit as another breath of cold wind echoed through the tunnel, but otherwise seemed oblivious to the rather not-candle-friendly conditions of its current location. Its purpose was to burn and burn it would, regardless of how wet or windy the world was. If one were to dip it in water it’d never be the same, but for now its flame stayed bright, casting a warm glow on the black walls around it and its guardian as they two crept onwards. Presently they rounded a corner, stopping briefly as the cold snake of air intercepted them.
“Stupid air, stupid coat…”
The boy holding the candle muttered under his breath, wincing slightly as the cave muttered back to him. Probably nothing lived in such a dismal place, but meeting a hungry creature in the middle of a narrow cavern wasn’t on his to-do list at the moment. Trembling with the cold, he held his breath. Within moments the stifling heat had returned and he and his candle moved onwards.
Drip….drip…drip…
The sound of water splashing onto the cave floor was the only sound besides the hissing of cold air. Kasios openly cursed the next time the breeze became frigid, stopping, annoyed, and wrapping the shredded remains of his coat around him. Every single time. The cold seemed to pierce through him, moving without prejudice through his coat and then through him. Each time he was chilled to the bone, left miserable until the stifling heat came back. Stifling heat, he liked. Stifling heat reminded him of home. The candle flame perked up, as if it liked it as well.
Not too much longer..ugh. This dreaded cave. After a few moments of crawling the walls narrowed, forcing him to get on his stomach and wiggle his way through. Sunlight! Light , filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. Kasios squirmed harder, freeing his long blonde hair from a snag and crawling desperately towards the light. The candle in his left hand shook with how tightly he gripped it, its glow having less and less effect as it emerged into the sunlight.
Before long the wiry boy was sprawled out in front of the cavern mouth, surrounded my thin-leafed trees. It felt so good to be out in the light again, and in an open space. Being out of his natural environment had been…taxing. With a small, almost silent sigh he sat up, pulling a few leaves out of his hair. The wind blew through the foliage, but not unbearably cold. Kasios sighed in relief, pushing the candle against his arm. With a small hiss and flicker it melded into his skin and disappeared.
“Now, for…”
The boy stood up, dusted himself off, and stared down the hill. A small house stood dotted in the distance, dilapidated and old. Well…perhaps dilapidated was a bit of an extreme, but it had certainly fallen into disrepair. Even from this far away he could see the paint chipping off of it, and the disgusting pale green paint of the front door.
Better get this over with.
CHAPTER 4
I pushed open the sickly, pale green door to my house, my shoulders drooping no sooner than the moment I stepped inside. This place was disgusting. I knew that and I’d lived there all my life. Box upon box of clothes, books, toys, and other things were messily piled up against the smelly walls. Seemingly they were useless, since nobody’d used them in forever. Then again, they were still there. Nobody had tried to move them. I had once, but that’d proven impossible, and some of the boxes had bugs and things inside of them now.
I sighed, reddish brown eyes screwing up against the smell. Everything smelt…old. Next time I walked home with Tori maybe I’d stop at that pharmacy and see if they had any air freshener. While I was at it I could get some cans of Raid, and maybe spray the boxes over. No way was I touching one again; there was the general feeling that something nasty was breeding on the inside. Keeping my eyes now on my feet, I slipped out of the living room (where nobody really did much living) and into the hallway, listening for the sounds of a furious knife assailing some poor and defenseless carrot on a cutting board, or the repeated smacking of a fly against a window. Nothing.
“Mom? I’m hooome.”
There was no answer. I frowned. Mom almost never left the kitchen, except to go to her room. Even then voices sound tended to echo in the old place, and she’d usually respond; even if just for formality. Home was so…quiet. My frown deepened, becoming a bit anxious. It was quiet, but not the usual quiet. The usual quiet was an unspoken conversation, carried along on an unending stream of banging and slamming from the garage. Today, the stream seemed to have dried up. Dad was always in the garage…why didn’t I hear any hammering?
“Dad?”
The house creaked in response, but there was no response from my dad. I rolled my shoulders and swallowed, not being the bravest of girls; easily scared and made easily anxious, reason or not; this was one of those times. Maybe…maybe they’d just gone shopping or something. It was unlikely, but possible. Part of me told me to call for them again, but my more timid part told me not to make a noise, lest the silence in the house lash out. A creak from behind shattered the quiet and I spun around, strangling a squeal. Nothing, again.
A small flutter from the corner of my eye caught my attention. Odd; I hadn’t seen that there before. Then again, it could’ve easily been missed amongst the nasty clutter of my home. The crème colored note sat there on the couch, waving slightly in the breeze that permeated the living room through the more ancient wood of the house. I tipped over and picked it up, eyes skimming over the hurriedly written message.
Hello Kov! Welcome home from school. Heard about what happened with the art teacher. Hope you’re okay. Dad and I went shopping; we’re completely out of food. Be back soon.
I hugged the note against her chest, letting out a sigh of relief. The realization that my parents had only gone shopping, actually left the house, and the nice letter from my mom nearly made me want to dance. Behind that though, there was the creeping suspicion. It didn’t sound like my mother to write something like that.
Bam!!!
A sudden crash from up the stairs made me jump, a small, strangled squeal escaping from my throat, the letter fluttering to the ground. There was another crash soon after; then silence. I froze, brown eyes wide and staring at the staircase as if they were being pulled by tiny strings. I felt my stomach churn. Was there somebody in the house? Every cell in my body was screaming at me to abscond; maybe borrow the phone from the convenience store. Or bolt to Tori’s house. With a small, anxious cry my body broke into a run.
Only when I stopped did I realize where I was, standing, rigid but curious, outside of the open door to my bedroom. Half of me expected to see Mr. Clayton there, knife in hand. “Well? Well? Well?”. The other half expected to see some sort of huge burly man, standing hunched over in my room, pilfering through things that could and would never have any value. What I didn’t expect was…nothing. And yet, the latter made me even more uncomfortable than before. I should probably get out…
My foot took a step forward, and I cautiously peeked around the door and into my room, shaking slightly. Nope. Nobody. My bed was still just like I’d left it, stuck neatly in the leftmost corner of my room, right by the window. The pale blue sheets were slightly ruffled, as if I’d just jumped out of them. Rarely ever was my bed made. What was the point? We never got any visitors, and I was only going to get back into it later.
Under the bed, small and shady but familiar shadows sat dutifully, cast by items that’d been pushed underneath long ago. None of them resembled a person. Next to the bed stood a small night stand, nicely carved out of black stone. I let out a small sigh when I saw the thing intact and in its usual spot. It was one of the only nice pieces of furniture that I had to myself, and I loved it dearly. Sleek, black, cool to the touch; to me the basics of luxury. I’d never been one to want much, but I did love my stone-carved things.
Halfway across the dark wooden floor in the center of the room stood a small desk and a black rolling chair, old laptop sitting atop the surface. Good. That was still there. Didn’t seem like they’d taken anything…and now that I looked, it didn’t seem as if they’d forced an entry or an exit. Perplexed, my gaze wandered to the right side of the room. A beanbag or two lay haphazardly on the floor, various art projects stapled to the wall. Some were decent, some were complete fails. Still…nothing…ah. I walked confidently into my room now, a sheepish smile on my freckled face. A stone vase lay on the floor, fallen from its previous perch. The colorful pebbles that’d once been inside were scattered on the floor.
With a small sigh I bent over, picking them up one by one and putting them back in their place. The stand that the vase had been on had always been a bit small. It was a little odd for it to fall without provocation, but not entirely so. I’d have looked like such an idiot if I’d gone and gotten a phone from somebody. Just the thought of how awkward that could have ended up made me cringe.
“You okay?”
The sound of a voice suddenly behind me made me start, spinning around, holding a pebble in one hand as menacingly as I possibly could. A small blush lit up my cheeks, and I lowered my hand now, pocketing the pebble as if I hadn’t ever been holding it.
“Oh. Mom. Hey”.
She just arched an eyebrow, glancing at me to my pocket and then back to me. After a while she seemed to relinquish figuring out what’d happened and waved a hand, turning to go back down the stairs.
“Calm down. And while you’re at it get your things off of the ground downstairs. There’s a bunch of red stuff on them, and it’s staining the carpet”. 5,563~