Red-Heads On The Battle Front

3. This Means War

Warning - Swearing ahead, so if you're susceptible to that kind of thing, I suggest you don't read on.

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I woke up at around noon the next day (owing to falling asleep at around 3 am - credits to Mr. Moron's book) to the beatific sound of my mother's hollering.

"Gwen Taylor! You get your lazy ass out of bed this instant!"

I'm pretty sure Mum could've chosen to be a town crier if the job was still open. Groaning about my aching head, I dragged my sleepy form onto the toilet seat to finish my nap there instead. Five minutes later, however, I was jolted awake by the incessant banging on the door.

"Gwen! I'm serious! Wake up!"

On second thoughts, maybe Mum filled the job requirement to be something more like...Hulk. I sniggered quietly at the thought of her going all green, casting a mutinous look at the reflection of the door behind me. She still had my book and I wasn't allowed it back till next week because of yesterday's...debacle.

I scowled at the thought.

Trooping downstairs, I cast an eye around for my book, hoping it would be somewhere in plain sight. Fat chance. What was in plain sight, though, was Mum's best apple pie, steaming away gently on a plate. My mouth watered just looking at it and the smell drifting from it was heavenly. Maybe there were some uses to a mother after all.

"What's the occasion?" I asked, sliding into the seat across her. She looked up from her newspaper and cast me an appraising look,
"The occasion, Gwenwyn" Uh oh, not good "Is that you will be apologizing for your misbehavior yesterday! You will go over to the Whitfields', ask for Devon, the poor boy, and apologize" she said in a carefully controlled voice, her smile looking more like a grimace. Uh oh. Okay she's gathering up steam, better head her off before-

"How could you, Gwen? How come every single time you come into any kind of human contact, you send them running?" Ouch. That was harsh. True, that was my aim, but to put it that way...
"...and now look what you've done! Devon's bruised and battered like he went to war, not dinner and-"
"Technically he deserved it" I said and then regretted it instantly after looking at her face. Okayy wrong choice of words. Abort mission, abort mission, abort-

"GWEN!"

Mum exploded and let out a torrent of verbal abuse chastising my very existence and blah and blah and blah...
"Okay! Okay, Mum! I'll go! He owes me a book anyways" I muttered the last part under my breath. She stopped for a blessed moment.
"You will?"
"Yes. Okay. I will. Now spare me they kind words, Mother dearest, for my ears do ache so"

With that, I rushed upstairs to change, leaving her to figure out what I just said a safe distance away from my person.

Sigh.

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I slipped into my flip flops, tugging at the white top Mum put me in, as I shut my wonderful door behind me. Would I ever see it again? Would I ev-

"Gwen! Wipe that melodramatic look off your face and get over there!" Mum hissed from the window. The Whitfields had lived here before they'd moved away and the house had always seemed familiar and welcoming to me whenever I deigned to look past it when I walked by. Now it just seemed scary, like it would eat me.

I sighed and stepped onto the sidewalk, turning left so that I was now right in front of it and its shadow cloaked me. My eyes zeroed in on the door which was, obviously, my favorite part...it had these wonderful carvings of flowers and leaves and miniature birds and beasts that you could go looking at for hours and-