The Accounts of Ruby Zibane: The Heirloom

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I ignore the stares, questions, and smirks as I trudge onto the bus. Connor is sitting with someone else so I throw the Petri dish at him (which is now filled completely with water) and I toss the list into his lap (which has become so wet the ink has run, causing the words to be unreadable).

The Petri dish must've exploded on him or something because after I threw it I heard a loud scream and the dripping of water. Then again it could've been the dripping from my soaked clothes.

I collapse into a seat into the back of the bus where no one bothers to sit. As the driver prepares to leave a list of possibilities goes through my head about what might happen when I got home. Maybe my dad won't be there when I get home? Maybe he'd be in a good mood that he'd forget to check on my medallion? Or maybe he'd be out on a trip for awhile so I could replace the stone with something similar to it? I know that these possibilities are highly unlikely so I go with a few of my distasteful ideas to think about.

By the time we arrived at the school I felt so weak that I thought I couldn't stand. Although the medallion was uncomfortable around my neck, its weight and temperature had grown on me. I feel lost without it.

As everyone eagerly exits the bus I stay seated, not wanting to leave.

"Ruby! Out you go!" the driver yells in her usually loud voice. I still stay seated to the point where the driver gets up from her seat and walks over to me. "What's the matter? Not feeling so well?" I nod. "Do you want to go home?" I nod again, not exactly knowing what I'm agreeing to. "Okay then, I'll get someone to fetch your bags." I sit for a few moments of silence until I realize with a jolt that I had just agreed to go home even earlier than I had intended. I sink into my seat with a low groan and close my eyes thinking, what could go wrong? Too bad I just jinxed it.

I walk into the house and find it in its usual messy state. Bookshelves filled with books and artifacts line every wall where ever there isn't a window and an oriental rug carpets the floor. Furniture from all countries furnish the rest of our house. Now that I seriously think about this I feel my room is the only normal room in the house. I drop my backpack next to an antique piano and wander around the house until I find my dad at his 'study.' His 'study' is actually just a desk pushed into a tiny alcove with windows lining it for natural light.

I watch him as he wets his fingers to flip a page in a book. He adjusts his reading glasses and wears a humorous concentrated expression on his face as he reads.

"Dad!" I call. He doesn't respond, unless you call a sneeze and cough a response. I sigh and yell "Clyde!" this time. He turns around this time with a dazed expression. Clyde is his business name and he rarely responds to the word dad these days.

"Oh," he says, getting his bearings. "Hi Ruby."

I smile; hoping nervousness isn't slipping through my features. He turns around and goes back to his book and after a moments turns to face me again. "You're home early." He looks me up and down and is failingly trying to keep amusement off of his face. "And you're clothes are stained."

"Thanks for stating the bloody obvious," I mumble as I lapse into an English accent. It's a strange quirk of mine that occurs only when I'm nervous, angry, or embarrassed. It used to happen to my mom too and I thought it was quite amusing, until I realized I inherited the quirk.

He looks at me and burrows his eyebrows together. Honestly, his eyebrows look like two fuzzy caterpillars on his face and look even funnier when he scrutinizes me. "What did you do?" he asks.

I give him the most innocent look I can (which I've perfected over the years) and look him straight in the eye. "What are you talking about?"

He chuckles in front of me and I don't pretend that I'm not hurt. "That's possibly one of the worst facades you've given me." He looks at my expression and quickly changes the subject. "So... why'd you come home so early?"

I explain my whole story in an exaggerated fashion and I notice he zooms out in the first three minutes of my story. I pray he zooms out just enough so I can slip away to my room. I begin to talk more quickly without thought to end the conversation until something slips from my lips.

"So then I'm getting away from the stream and my medallion gets caught on something and then I'm pushed by something and then I drop it−" I freeze midway through my sentence. He perks up and whirls around to face me with a sharp stare.

"Where is the medallion?" he says in an icy voice.

Another one of my flaws, which explains why my dad named me Ruby. When he proposed to my mom he had very little money that he could only afford a hand-me-down ring with cheap silver metal and a scuffed and chipped ruby as a gemstone. My mother, being as she was, fell in love with it and when I was born my dad immediately thought of the ruby in the gemstone for some odd reason. When I learned this I began to feel self conscious because I felt that this meant I had many flaws. I especially feel self conscious now and feel as if all my flaws are visible in front of my dad's scrutinizing expression.

"Where is the medallion?" he asks again when I don't budge.

I press my lips together in a hard line and mutter "I lost it in a stream." An overpowering amount of emotions floods my mind and I stagger in my place.

He stands up so sharply I'm afraid he'll strike me. My eyes blur in tears and I turn my head away but instead of a strike to the face I hear footsteps retreating away from me. I turn and see my dad slam the door to his room and everything grow silent. I stand there, confused and scared of what was to happen.

I don't bother to work on homework or change out of my clothes. My dad hasn't come out of his room yet and this gives the house an eerie silence. After I trudge into my room I turn on the television and the radio to fill the house with noise. I flick through the channels quickly, not even stopping for a second on any show or movie, until I bring my attention to the music of the radio. I do this for about an hour until I open my eyes to afternoon light illuminating dust motes in my room. I figure I must've dozed off and check the clock and find it's nearly six.

I get off of my bed, yawn and stretch, and finally walk towards our dinner table imported from Europe. I freeze in my tracks and frown, noticing that dinner hasn't been set out yet. Usually my dad would start making dinner two hours before we actually eat. 'Better late than never,' he'd always say when I asked him about the dinner schedule. And now that I'm older the statement doesn't really make sense for his situation. I walk around the table and eventually into the kitchen. The marble tabletops are not in disarray, which signifies that my dad hadn't been through here.

I walk out of the kitchen with a sudden fear blossoming in my chest. I sprint towards my dad's room and fling open the door. He isn't there.