One Direction: After Hours

Chapter 1

Picture of Mariel to the side:~

 [Mariel's POV]

~&~

I stared at the recipe, the words scrawled across the page not registering in my head. My teeth clattered at such a rate that it wasn’t a surprise that my jaw felt as if it was going to drop off with exhaustion.

I pulled my sweater impossibly tighter to my skin, before bending over and peering open the oven. I basked in the small portion of heat, my skin responding with a wave of Goosebumps as it tried to take in as much heat as it could as once.

Surprised, but expecting as much, I shut the oven on the rice pudding. It was dad’s favourite, and it was warm, so it got my thumbs up for tonight’s desert. Curious as to what dad was doing, I walked backwards until my bum collided with the island in the middle of the modernised kitchen. I gazed down the well-lit hallway, my eyes locked on his door as if he was going to open it at any moment.

My teeth paused their chatter as I sighed before I moved back to the warmth radiating off the oven, content with waiting for the pudding to cook. I shot the thermometer a dirty look as it hung innocently beneath the cordless phone.

It was nearing a frosty thirteen degrees Celsius. If that was in any way supposed to give me a valid reason to rug up, then I had sorely abused the factor.

I ran my finger over the indents in the thermometer, trying to will the temperature up to the average twenty-five degrees that I was use to. The mercury in it didn’t move, and I gave up with a sigh.

I had recently moved from Australia to England with my single father, after my parents had divorced. Although he had me and three other specific reasons to stay in Down Under, he decided that a holiday back in his home country was in his best interest.

And that was the end of that story. I would send my dad phone calls and postcards until he returned, and everything would once again go back to normal. Or so that’s what I had thought.

However, my dad’s psychiatrist insisted that human companion ship was a must have on his little holiday, and who better to turn to then family? What a lousy psychiatrist.

Dad was an orphan and had no family in England, but that didn’t mean he lacked friends and couldn’t stay with them – which was what I had suggested. It was quickly dismissed by the psychiatrist.

As mum and dad are on hate-hate terms, and my siblings are still glued to the horrors of Primary School, it was decided amongst my parents that I would be the child to go with him for his three month trip. The bonus was that I had no school, but there would be a lot of catching up to look forward to when I get back.

I rubbed my hands together, trying to create some sort of friction.

Sadly, I was misinformed about the below average weather conditions. Not that my weather preferences make or break my parents decision to send me over here, but still, it would have been nice to be given some sort of warning.

A shrill sound caught my attention and brought me out of my moping. After a few seconds, I put two and two together and released that the phone was ringing.

“I’ve got it!” I called out, just in case dad had woken up due to all of the racket. I picked up the phone and cradled it between my ear and my head, curious as to who would be calling us at this hour. It was around one o’clock in the afternoon here, and if I remembered correctly, it was around ten at night in Australia.

“Hello?” I asked hesitantly, ready to slam the phone back down if it was a telemarketer.

“Oh! Ah...” The person on the other line sounded familiar as they stumbled over their words. “Is this the Ford residence?”