Commute - Camp NaNoWriMo April 2015

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Blended Cheerios?

Saturday. Ah, how I love Saturdays. Freedom from work. Freedom from Miranda French and Mr Clifford. Freedom from Charlotte Finley's dark glances. Free from the horrible, stuffy train...

All right, it's not all that horrible... I suppose. Seeing as I kind of (ish) know all of them now, we exchange friendly "Hello"s when we go to sit down. But apart from that, I don't talk to them. The only noise that occupies Carriage C is the whispering from the twins, Thing One and Thing Two, the beep-beep-boop of Fat Kid's video game, the rustling from Doritos Guy's packet of nachos, and the tapping on Headphones Girl's keyboard.

I usually sit and stare out of the window, or I read a book. I read anything that will occupy me, from Jane Austen to Winnie The Pooh. It makes the time fly by, and I quite enjoy reading about all the balls that the Austen women attend, or all the things Pooh gets up to with Piglet in the Hundred Acre Wood.

So maybe weekdays aren't all bad. But, come Saturday, I'm ready to do a happy dance. Or several.

"You seem excited today," remarks Jamie, as he comes down the stairs. I'm already dressed in my tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt.

"This is a Day of Great Things," I tell him, jogging up and down on the spot enthusiastically. "I will DO things today."

"What sort of things?"

"Interesting things. Things that need to be done!"

"How about finishing your presentation?" he snipes, heading into the kitchen. I follow him with my wounded puppy expression on my face.

"Oh, come on, Jamie. You didn't have to mention that. I was feeling all good about today. Then you went and ruined it!"

"Ruined it?" he snorted. "I just mentioned something that you need to do, that's all."

He opens the cereal cupboard, and I'm beside him in a flash. "Oh, no you don't, mister!" I reprimand, grabbing the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes from him. "Four days this week, I've come down and my box of cereal has mysteriously disappeared. Four days, Jamie. I've been living on Cheerios for four days. Don't you DARE take any more of these cornflakes. From now on, it's Cheerios or nothing."

I shake the last crumbs of cornflakes out of the box and put it firmly in the bin. He takes the Cheerios grumpily.

"Now then, Jamie, when I'm off doing Great Things, you are going to the supermarket. And you are going to buy three things. A box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for me, and a box for you. And a packet of sticky labels. Okay?"

I can't hear his response, because he's put the Cheerios in the blender, but I assume it's an 'Okay'. I keep going. "You know why you're going to buy sticky labels? Because on one of the labels, we're going to write 'Maya'. On another label, we're going to write 'James'. And we're going to stick our own labels on our own boxes, so we'll never eat each other's cereal again. Okay?"

"Yes, Maya."

He's now taken the mushed-up Cheerios out of the blender and is scraping the mixture - it looks like vomit, by the way - into a glass.

"I thought they might taste better as a smoothie," he says, by way of explanation. He takes a sip, and immediately spits it out. "Okay. That was the most wrong I've ever been in my life."

"Supermarket, Jamie," I order, and he grudgingly takes his coat and slams the front door behind him. I can still hear him gagging as he goes up the front path.

I remember my intentions for the day - Great Things. To be honest, I don't really feel like Great Things right now. I have a feeling that nobody could feel like doing Great Things when they've been confronted with blended Cheerios.

I'm going back to bed.