Upside Down

(14) Silly Boy

Chapter 14

Snow : Good :: Blood : Bad

The first thing I thought when I woke up was: Where the hell is Kriss? I could still remember her face last night when she had asked if she could sleep with me. We didn't do anything! Just sleep. She had been having nightmares and didn't want to sleep alone and I didn't deny her. She had stood at my door for a few seconds then walked forward and crawled into my bed. My heart started racing as she curled up close to me, her head rubbing against my chest.

But now the side of my bed was empty, with not even warmth just the smell of her like honey and lavender and bit of kitty litter.

I jumped up out of bed and ran down stairs in only boxers to see Mom and Evie at the counter, calmly eating cereal and not even looking at me. "Morning Emerson." Mom greeted without looking from her newspaper. "She's outside."

Kind of confused but not so freaked out now, I walked to the front door and opened it.

It was snowing.

Thick blankets of snow covered the ground, punctured by little paw prints here and there. I followed them and watched as the holes got bigger as the snow got deeper untill it was more like body prints then paw prints. In a short distance I saw snow being kicked up and flung everywhere.

"Kriss?" I questioned then her little black head popped up from the snow. She sneezed, her head shaking to the side then she jumped, landing and few feet away from me, making another body print in the snow. Another jump, another hole and this time I was able to bend and pick Kriss up. Her nose was a little pinker then normal and snowflakes stuck everywhere to her fur. "Morning, Kriss."

She purred in my bowled hands as I carried her back inside the house. "Hey Mom," I called out to her not waiting for an answer. "I'm staying home today."

[Later that morning]

I watched Kriss wobble out in the snow, still worried. She could still be cold.

I shook my head. I gave her like five coats, two scarves, four pairs of pants, Mom's old leg warmers, three pairs of gloves, a ski hat and a larger fuzzy hat on top of that that covered her earmuffs too. In the top blue jacket she looked like the girl off of Willy Wonka who became a giant blueberry.

Poof.

All I could see is white and feel the coldness hit my face.

I wiped my face of snow and looked at Kriss who innoccently stood there trying her damnest to whistle but was more like blowing air through pursed lips. "Kriss," I played along with a worried and shocked voice. "Someone threw a something at me."

She giggled. "Did it look like this?" She picked up more snow, forming it into a imperfect snowball then chunking it right in my face again.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed after wiping off the second snowball. Had someone been letting her watch Spongebob? "Do you know who it is?" I asked and she shook her head. "Maybe it was ..." I pretended to think. "You!" I exclaimed then lunged at her but turning so when we hit the ground, I would be on the bottom.

She giggled and I laughed as we started throwing hunks of snow at each other.

"Ouch!" Kriss suddenly exclaimed and I stopped fighting imediately. Did I hurt her? Did one of the snowballs hit a sore spot? Did I hurt her? I rushed to her side, kneeling down like she was. Red snow melted around her feet and I realized she was bleeding. I pulled the glove on her right hand off as slowly as I could seeing that it was cut through the fabric and most of it soaked red with blood. She wasn't crying but the cut on her hand traveled from between her pointer and middle finger all the way down her palm.

"Oh shit, come on Kriss." I picked her up gently, bridal style so I could check her hand while we walked. It looked bad and was bleeding alot so I took off my scarf and told her to wrap it around her hand to put pressure on it.

"You know, only my hand got hurt." She whispered to me. "I could've walked. But thank you."

I grunted in reply, opening the door while still holding her and brought her into the kitchen. I could see my green scarf darkening where her wound gushed blood and the thought made me sick as I set her on the counter by the sink. I unwrapped the scarf and put her hand under the warm facet water. I took a good look at Kriss's pinkened face, her nose was a little red but she was smiling at me. Still holding her hand, I got the band-aid box from under the sink. "This is something my mom taught me." I told Kriss, it was an earier way to put on a bandage, you peel the tabs back a little then hover it over the wound then put it down on the wound at the same time you fully take the tabs off. A viola, the band-aid perfectly covered her cut.

"What happened?" I turned to look at Evie, still in her pajamias. After I told Mom I was staying home Evie imediately marched up stairs demanding that she stayed too. Though Mom informed us both that school was canceled anyways because of the snow.

"I got hurt." Kriss told her, raising her injured hand. I went to help her off the counter but she waved me off. "Silly boy," She chuckled and poked my stomach. I was staggering ... from shock. Silly boy? Silly boy? What the hell? "I can get down perfectly by myself. My hand was hurt, not my legs. And you do know that cats always land on their feet." She grinned up at me and I smiled back. Of course they did. Then she ran off with Evie, showing off her bandage.

She was one crazy cat.

"Pick up your phone! Pick up your phone! Pick up your phone!" The ringtone on my phone shouted at me.

"Hello?" I answered it, not even checking the ID.

"Emerson," My father's tone sounded on the phone. He sounded even more strict than usual. "You need to come down to the caves. We have a very serious situation."

That didn't sound good at all.