The Unknown

Writing

Lisa's pov

The four of us enter our room and collapse on our respective beds. I'm not the only one letting out a sigh of relief now that we're out of that tense situation. Thankfully, I won't be sleeping on my stomach tonight. Mike was surprisingly chill about the whole vaping situation. It kinda sucks to be grounded though.

"Hey, I'll give anybody willing to write my lines five bucks," I offer hopefully.

"Five bucks?" Julie questions incredulously, balking at what I considered to be a fair offer. "You've obviously been inhaling some damaging shit, Lisa, cuz you're talkin' crazy. Five bucks?" Julie shakes her head and scoffs, "For one hundred lines, you should be offering twenty."

"I'm not a fuckin' Kardashian for chrissake, Julie. How do you think I could afford twenty bucks a day for three weeks?" I retort.

"Just write your stupid lines yourself, Lisa," Stacey chimes in. "We're grounded from all but breathing anyway, so what else do you have to do? Read War and Peace? Plus, I'm pretty sure Mike would notice if two of us had identical handwriting. He might be old but he's not senile yet."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I reply sighing, reaching for my pen and notebook. We each start the writing assignment Mike gave us, more out of boredom than anything else. Well, boredom and the fact that we don't want to test Mike's limits right now. All of us kinda feel like we got off pretty easy.

Mike came by a couple hours later to check on us and remind us of our early bedtime.

"Lisa and Stacey, we have appointments with Dr. Evans Wednesday after school and Saturday afternoon. Okay?" Mike phrases it like a question but we both know he's not asking our permission.

Stacey says, "Fine, whatever," without bothering to look up from the magazine she's reading.

"Alright," I say, while continuing to finish my writing since I've taken several breaks in the last two hours, including a fifty minute nap.

"Those lines better be done before lights out, Lisa." Mike gives me a stern warning.

"I'm literally doing them right now in front of your face. Why are you being such a jerk about it?"

Mike can be such a nag sometimes. I'm doing what he wants but he's still gotta be a pain in the ass.

Mike ripped the paper out from under me and tore it into little pieces, right before my eyes.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I yelled. "I WAS ALMOST FINISHED!" I glared at Mike.

He slowly bends down to meet my eyes.

"Thanks to your smart mouth and snotty attitude, you'll be starting over after you clean up this mess." He points to the bits of torn up paper he left on the floor. Mike stood up to leave and from our doorway turned and said, "Oh, and if you're not done by 9pm, Lisa, I'll not only extend your grounding to six weeks, I'll also personally deliver you to Dr. Curtis for a paddling."

I crossed my arms, harrumphed, and slouched in my chair while still glaring at Mike.

"If you think I'm kidding, Lisa, go ahead and try me." Mike left, slamming our door.

"Nice job, dumbass, now you've pissed him off," Stacey admonished me.

"Whatever. He pissed me off too." I was still angry Mike ripped up my paper and expected me to start over.

"You know he's not joking, right?" Julie sat up and looked at me. "If you don't rewrite those lines, he'll most likely ground you longer, belt your ass, and have Dr. Curtis paddle you and that'll all be before noon."