Short Stories

20. The Bully

4:30 AM

The alarm buzzed at 30 minutes past 4 sharp, in Titania Cresst's room. But the thing really shouldn't have wasted its battery like that.

T was already up.

She sat up on her bed, pushing the blankets off her leg, the mattress sinking and easing as she got up.

The sun wasn't yet up yet in the neighbourhood and the air was still cool and crisp. She wanted to crawl back under the sheets.

But no. She wouldn't.

Her heart thudding dully in her ears, she dressed up.

Turning her back to her bed, she resolutely pulled her blue and green football shorts all the way up and tied her--

Oh yeah. She had had her hair cut. There wasn't much to tie.

Letting out a huff, she quickly ran a comb through it and put on a headband, stopping her hair from falling over her face.

The faint noise of silverware clinking and a tap being turned on floated up the stairs from the kitchen and fell lightly around her ears.

"T! Get up!" Mrs. Cresst's voice came muffled fromdownstairs, followed by the inviting smell of toast.

"Coming!" T said as she raked her room once more to make sure she wasn't leaving her head behind. She grabbed a wristwatch and her football socks before leaving her room.

The sunlight, by the time she left, had filtered in through her teal curtains and fell on a little sticky note she had pasted on the wall last week.

Practice at 7 o'clock at Qwasto Football Ground. ~Frens Street.

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Little Ville was practically what the name suggested. A little suburban town which leaned more towards the rural side, culturally. With each resident knowing their neighbours thoroughly.

In the outskirts of the town was a football ground. It used to be used for Qwastiorta, a game similar to football, before the Earthian sport had become popular. Hence the name of the ground, Qwasto.

Though you only had to take a left from Jay's bakery and run straight ahead for a couple of minutes to reach the ground, Titania Cresst usually took a right and looped around Mrs Hillary's tailor shop in Rustoc street to drop by her aunt Rosie's house before going to play. Frens Street lay parallel to the right of Rustoc street and a road perpendicular to it lead to Gradlow's Elementary school, where T studied.

But it didn't make sense to her early-bird neighbours when they saw the ten year old turn right today. Surely the girl knew her aunt was out of town?

Maybe it was just an accident, they supposed, and went on with their lives.

Between you and me , let me tell you it sure was no accident.

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5:46 AM

Elsie thought, when T turned right, that her daughter wanted to jog a bit. Warm up before the practise, you know? They had lost a big match last week. If they had to remain in the tournament, they had to win the upcoming one next month. So she didn't think much of it and went back in to shake her huspand up.

It was high time Jack learned to wake up early like his daughter.

T, meanwhile, kept up with the pretense. A matching blue-green bag on her shoulders bounced on her back as she jogged. She could hear the water in the bottle kept inside the bag sloshing around and hitting her lunch box, and the sound of her boots hitting the pavement, and her quick shallow breathes as her heart thudded in her rib cage.