Ursa Minor (On hiatus)

Find the angels

The cloink of my spoon against the porcelain bowl. The silence of newspaper reading. Our kitchen a peaceful oasis in the mornings. My mum taking another sip of tea, pushing back her glasses again, her long dark hair falling around her shoulders. It was sort of half my face looked like mom's, we had the same slanted eyes and distinct noses, though hers smaller than mine. And the other half like my dad, with the slightly too full mouth and the wide smile and, as my mom never failed to tell me, the stubborn jaw that made me get my way. I wasn't sure she was right about that though. So half and half. Seeing my mom I looked like my dad, seeing my dad, I looked like my mom. But now I hadn't seen my dad for a very long time.

My mum turned a page, her eyebrows furrowed. I scanned the headlines, while chewing down my cereal. We really weren't morning people. And in that us, I only counted me and mum, because the other person sitting opposite me I didn't know, and couldn't care less about. Tim. My mom's boyfriend. I preferred to think of him as this unidentified flying object that landed at our kitchen table from time to time. It wasn't that my mom was too old to have a boyfriend. She was only 38. And she was still very pretty, and it wasn't only me thinking that in a 'my mom's the prettiest mom in the world' kind of way. Even though she had no fashion sense whatsoever.

But Tim. I just didn't get it. He was kinda old, like 45. And he had a beard. And he was one of those freaky kind of people that when you tried to argue with them, they never ever got upset, they were so zen. I knew because I had tried in the beginning. Now I didn't bother, I just ignored him. And also he wore hiking sandals like all the fucking time. It really was a mystery why he was sitting here with us at the kitchen table an ordinary Friday morning.

Delicate steps in the hallway coming closer. I finished my cereal and got up, knowing what they meant. My little sister tripped in. Well, not so little anymore, she was fourteen, with all the giggling and hairstyling and so called trendy outfits that came with it. Like shoes with 3 inch heels that she bought eagerly cheered on by her annoying little friends. 

My mom didn't even bother to look up, having heard the characteristic sound. "You're not going to school with those shoes." 

"But mom, everybody else does!" Julie whined. As soon me and my mom had stopped fighting on a regular basis sometime this spring, Julie had eagerly stepped it up, entering high school and all. 

"I said no. And you're not only drinking tea for breakfast," she added, as Julie rattled with one of our twenty-five or so tea tins and grabbed a mug at the same time, spilling tea in tiny anthills on the kitchen counter. 

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," I quipped, putting my bowl in the sink. If Julie could she would have killed me with a glance. "Freak." Her new pet name for me. Once upon a time she had looked up to me, once upon a time I had adored her, but that was also a very long time ago.  

I accidently or actually not so accidently walked into her on my way out. She towered in her heels, wearing them she was almost as tall as me. "I know I'm like a nobody, but that doesn't mean that I don't exist!" She snapped, whipping around clumsily to glare at me.  

"Isn't that a contradiction?" I retorted and pulled on of her dark brown curls so it straightened back to its naturally limp state. I couldn't help it. Teasing her was so easy. 

"No don't! Mom!" She whined again, grasping after me as I tried pulled another one. "No, stop it! Mom! Did you see what he did?"  

"Mischa, Ljyba, poshalyjsta!" My mom pleaded, still determined not to lift her gaze from the newspaper. "And you're not wearing those shoes!" 

"Why do you always take his side?" Julie shouted, flailing her arms as she tried to turn to the table again. Big anthill of tea on the kitchen counter now. My mom put down the newspaper with a resigned sigh. Looked like the first fight of the day had officially started.