Broke-Ish [Completed]

Chapter 22

I am sitting on a box filled with several cans of butter bean, kidney beans, baked beans, black eye beans and pineapple chunks, feeling the crushing, crippling and ever increasing weight of what it's like to be the only sane member in my family. It's not the box of long life canned goods purchased by Rain in case of a food shortage emergency and then stored in my room that is the problem, that's just an average Wednesday. The problem arose yesterday morning. It was around 8am so naturally Rain had already been up for 3 hours and I was sprawled across my bed dreaming a Mojito inducted dream that I don't remember when there was a banging at my door.

My dream was so warm and lovely feeling that when I woke from the door banging I forgot my number one rule to never open my front door. Not only did I open the door, I opened the door and smiled like a brainless idiot. My door can't have been any more than three inches open when a foot wedged its way in. The foot was attached to a large bellied, floppy haired, blotchy skinned man with eyes entirely too small for the mass that was his face.

"Olive Ellis?" He asked?

"No!" was my automatic response as I went to close the door before remembering the foot. He'd obviously done this before and knew exactly what my response would be. How very competent at his job he was, prick.

"Olive who's that at the door?" Rain asked no doubt disturbed by the wind sneaking through the door and into the flat. The thing about living alone, is that when people come to your door asking for you and you deny that you are you, tell them you've never even heard of you, there's absolutely zero chance of anybody in your house coming forward to contradict this. None at all. But I don't live alone I live with Rain who confirmed me as Olive and the thing about the name Olive is that it's not likely there's going to be another Olive in your entire school, never mind your home so there was no way for me to get out of it. I am Olive.

"Right, Olive," the man breathed my name as though the sound of It exhausted him. He'd been here less than five minutes and was already fed up of having to deal with me. His counterpart stood a few inches away from him with rectangle shaped, easily breakable looking glasses, holding a clipboard like it was 1997. He looked like one of those "oooo I can't stand technology, what's a snapchat" kind of guy all while having a Facebook with a profile picture so close you can see his pores. He's the type to call a restaurant to book a table instead of doing it online and constantly complain about people being on their bloody phones.

So Mr Brick-foot and Mr Technophobe proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that they were here in relation to an amount of money owed by me to the city council who they did not work for. And even though the city council were in desperate need of the money that I did not have, they were willing to pay more than what I owed (I assume) to hire Mr Brick-foot and Mr Technophobe to harass me on my doorstep. The conversation went back and forth for about twenty minutes or so, ridiculous questions about any assets I may have were asked, the old £1 a week arrangement was denied. Mr Technophobe continued to scribble aggressively on his clipboard so much so that I thought it might break in half then Mr Brick-foot, on realising that his current approach was not working, turned into good cop.

"We're not here to harass you love," he said before trying to entice sympathy from me (the harassed) "I'm just doing my job Olive you know, if I go back with nothing what do you think my boss is going it say?" He didn't take too kindly when I told him that I didn't give a shit about him, his foot or what his boss may or may not say and then it happened. I don't know how I didn't see it coming but in fairness to me nobody could have seen this coming. Over the course of our conversation Rain, who was peering over my shoulder meercat style, had disappeared. I had assumed the commotion on my doorstep was too much for her delicate child-abandoning soul to deal with and having realised it would take months of meditation to resolve, she had decided to stay in the living room or kitchen but this was not the case. Rain was, to my surprise, ready for battle.