Dinner was quiet. I was too absorbed in the delicious homemade cooking that I didn’t notice how fast I was literally stuffing my mouth.
Valerie and Vanessa seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes, Ethan stared holes into the kitchen table, and Shane was too consumed in his smart phone. One hand was on the phone while the other awkwardly sat on his left shoulder.
How could one possibly multitask while eating food as delicious as this?
When the fried chicken and pasta were almost gone, I scrapped the edge of my plate with my fork to get every last drop of the red sauce. The greasy chicken filled my insides with pure happiness and the pasta made me feel like I was in Heaven. I didn’t even notice how loud I was until I looked up to see I had an audience.
“Gross.” Shane muttered with raised eyebrows. His cell phone was still in his hand, but his attention was to me. “Do your parents feed you?”
Well, all I knew was fast food and take out. I straightened my back and wiped my mouth with my wrist. Gas made its way up my throat, but I caught it with my hand. I could hear Valerie and Vanessa giggle in their seats.
“Go to bed.” Shane grunted.
“We’re not kids,” Ethan argued. He narrowed his eyes and sneered at his uncle.
Shane huffed. “Kids and Ethan…go to bed. It’s getting late.”
“But Uncle Shane, you said we’d get dessert.” Vanessa’s bottom lip began to shiver.
He impolitely huffed again, placing the phone on the table and folding his arms. “Do I have to repeat myself?”
Without another word, they all listened and left the kitchen.
Rude prick.
“You don’t have any home training. Where’s you etiquette?” Shane said, a disgusted look covering his face, but I rolled my eyes at his discourteous comment.
I really didn’t have any home training, did I? Being raised by a mother who usually worked left little time to teach me anything. I wasn’t always like this. The school’s lunches weren’t at all this pleasant, so no one judged me there. But with this, my etiquette flew out of the window.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
His wide eyes never changed as he stared at me like I was some wild animal. “What?”
“The food,” I groaned. “What’s in the food?”
“It’s chicken parmesan, what else would be in it?”
I rolled my eyes figuring that I’d find out later. Chicken parmesan. “Shane–”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Shane, Shane, Shane.” I said. “Shane, why are you so rude, Shane?”
He scowled at me.
“Just because you told me not to, I’m gonna call you Shane forever and ever.”
“’Forever and ever’?”
I thought about what I’d said. I must’ve been reading too many of Vanessa’s Disney Princess storybooks. I nodded my head, and grinned at him. “Yep.”
I was feeling giddier than usual; the good food put me in a pleasant mood. The scowl never left his face as I got up from the kitchen table. “Lighten up, Meanie!”
I wiggled my hips from side to side, pretending to have Shakira’s hips. There wasn’t any music, but I waved my arms as if there was. I was a terrible dancer, but I couldn’t care less at that moment.
Shane turned in his chair to watch me. His disgusted look had almost vanished when the very edge of his lips twitched.
“It’s not so bad to smile,” I said. A grin of my own made a way onto my face. The edge of his lips twitched again.
I flicked his nose and his scowl had fully returned. He swapped at my hand which I withdrew before he could touch it. “Ah-ah-ah. ‘Where’s your etiquette?’”
It was almost nine-thirty when Valerie and Vanessa were tucked into their beds. Ethan had his door shut, so I didn’t bother to check on him. Since Shane was mean and didn’t give them dessert, I decided to sneak up some cookies I found in the pantry.
As I walk by bedrooms, I noticed that Valerie was sound asleep and that Vanessa’s pink lamp was turned on. I stopped by her room and gently knocked on the open door.
“Nessa?”
She looked up from the book she was holding near the lamp. It was the storybook I was reading to her before we went to the kitchen for dinner. She looked straight at the cookies in my hand and gasped.
“Oh, my goodness! Please, can I have one?” She quietly squeaked.
“Don’t tell Uncle Shane. This is our little secret.” She silently giggled as I handed her one of the cookies.
“Uncle Shane’s mean.” She frowned.
“It’s okay, sweetie. He’s probably got a stick up his b– bad mood…he is…probably in.”
She held the cookie in her little hands and nibbled on it like a baby bird. “He must always be in a bad mood. We don’t like him.”
I could see that, and I didn’t blame them. I didn’t really like him either. “I’ll have a long talk with him, how about that?”
She smiled back ruefully. “I don’t know if that’ll work. He always makes up go to our rooms and tells us to be quiet.”
“All we can do is try, right?”
Without looking up, she nodded.
I glanced at the pink digital clock on the white desk beside the bed. “What’re you still doing up?”
She held up the book in her hand. “I wanted to finish the ending.”
I stared at the Cinderella storybook. It was getting past her bedtime and little seven year-old girls needed their rest. Making my decision, I inaudibly sighed. “Want me to read the rest to you?”
“Please,” she drawled, folding her hands together in prayer.
“Alright, alright,” I decided. I picked up the storybook and began on the page where she left off.
Sorry this took so long! I've just started college this summer.
YOU ARE READING
Mr. Stupid Rich
Teen Fiction"He was made of money, and I knew anything but that. How was I supposed to trust him when people like him cared about nothing but themselves? If they did care, the poor wouldn’t be poor, right?" Meet Ashleigh Wills, your typical high school senior t...
