SETUP - LONDON + NIGHT
To avoid confusion -- CLARA is ELLY'S STEP MOTHER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be my birthday tomorrow. Daddy took me and my elder sister Lily to the nearby market. Not because he had to buy me presents, but because I like gifting my friends on my birthday. I am six and Lily is ten. I like her because she makes me nice ponytails. But she is usually very bossy because she is older and she's past seven, and I am not. She says seven brings bad omen. And I try to scare her saying "I'll bring bad omen to you Lily, beware" . But I don't know what 'Omen' is. Maybe a cake, but I asked dad to bring the strawberry cake and not the bad omen ones. He always listens to me.
I bought Grace a mascara, because it would look graceful on her, and then we could laugh on Grace's gracefulness. Ethan keeps on saying "I love you, elly", sometimes during recess, sometimes in the middle of class, passing chits, letting the whole class know about his love . He follows me home after school on his bicycle. He even writes poems about me with a lot of difficult words. I like them, I like him too. Last Saturday he fell-off his bicycle, he wanted to show me how fast he can drive. I think he fractured his left leg. He won't be coming to school for another week. I bought him a Pokémon ring. He keeps on talking about Pokémon and Ash and Pikachu, and his nose leaks when he's sad, that's why I don't tell him that I like him too. But tomorrow, I'll save some cake for him, he likes cakes. He even ate my half eaten cake on his birthday. I'll gift him the ring like they do on TV, but they wear long white gowns and black suits, I don't have any white dress. Dad promised me that he'd buy me one on our marriage, he knows about Ethan. I didn't know what to buy for Chloe, she's my best friend, she likes so many things. But I can only buy one thing for her, otherwise, mom would get angry, she's always so angry.
Dad was nowhere near us. He thinks that I think that he'd be searching for gifts for my friends, but I know he'd secretly buy me a Barbie doll and candy floss. That's what I wrote in the chit under my pillow last night and I secretly saw him reading my chit when he thought I was sleeping. I could never sleep well at night. I get scenes coming in my head from somewhere. Sometimes I see my mother, not Clara, but my real mother, Emily, the one whose photo is on my headboard's top and on dad's laptop.. I don't know where she is now, maybe some other town not too far away. The last thing I remember about us is, Emily sitting next to me by a pillar and crying. That's when I see dad lingering around my bed, when he thinks I am sleeping. He comes to my room secretly when Clara's asleep and when he thinks I am asleep too. And he reads the chit I keep under my pillow on my birthday and on Christmas. He still acts surprised the next day. Other times he just sits by me, talks to himself, stands by the window staring at the moon, pecks me on my cheeks or my forehead, sometimes on my nose too, it's hard to act asleep then , it tickles on my nose.
Lily was sitting on the bench near the dolphin fountain outside the complex, ogling at those fancy bracelets. She wants to be a designer. I quietly sneaked into the same shop she was looking at without her noticing me. I bought her the powerpuff-girl's bracelet which glowed in the dark. Now one last gift for Chloe, but I still couldn't think of anything for her. She loves chocolates, but I could not find any chocolate shop nearby. I asked Lily if she knows any. She was too busy with her ogling. Red and white lights were visible on the other side of the road. It had to be a chocolate shop, definitely. I decided to go, buy some chocolates before dad comes back. By the time I returned, dad was already there scolding Lily for not looking after me. When he heard that I crossed the road, he only became more furious. He said he won't talk to both of us for next two days, which was bad, very bad, because it was winter holidays and I had no other friend to talk to except for dad. Even Lily would not talk to me, she had her grown-up friends to play with, moreover, she was allowed to go to her friend's place all alone, but I wasn't.
