The Stray

Chapter 2

Chapter 2-

"Mom" *cough cough* "I'm fine!" I told my mother yet again. After that hair had gone down my throat, it had somehow done something that kept bothering me. It must have gotten stuck, because I could still feel it. Every now and then, it felt like it would grow or shrink. Of course, it wouldn't stop tickling my throat when it did. I almost laughed out loud (yes, lol, hilarious) at my theory. What kind of hair grows and shrinks?

I sighed and leaned onto Jack yet again. He sighed back and snuggled closer to me. Without my father there, he was inseparable from me. I knew what a guard dog was, and Jack was a hundred times that. He always was less than a foot away. I had been excused from school for a week due to my "situation". I was home-schooled anyways, so it didn't really matter. Mom was busy enough with the funeral arrangements.

Rain pounding on the roof made me look out the window as a flash of lightening blinded the outside world. It had barely stopped raining in the two days that my father had been... gone. I was usually an outside with the sun person, but that wouldn't be happening any time soon, whether because of the rain or because of my father I couldn't decide.

Standing, I walked into the kitchen, ignoring my mother sobbing on the phone, and to the fridge. I pulled out some hamburger meat and dumped it into a pan. I turned the stove on and got out the beans, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream, and tortillas. Breaking up the hamburgers, I laughed as Jack leaned against my leg and whined. I took a chuck of meat and tossed it to him. He snorted happily and inhaled it. Chuckling to myself, I shouted, "Lunch in five!" to the household. I cringed away as the meat sizzled and I felt myself get nauseous. 'For your father', I thought determinedly. When Dad died, I had tried to start eating meat. It wasn't going well. I had only managed to eat beef. No pork or chicken yet.

"Fwahahaha! Ow!!" I chuckled as Payton cringed away with a pink cheek at his attempt to scare me. My hand throbbed slightly as I continued to cook the tacos.

"Don't scare me and I won't slap you." I reasoned lightly.

"Yeah. Whatever." He grumbled. I laughed as he pulled out a chair. Trish came down with Aaron in her arms and Joni and Rebecca trailed behind her, giggling loudly. The twins were at a soccer game and slumber party with a few neighbors. I quickly fixed the tacos and allowed everybody to add what they wanted. I leaned across the table to grab some cheese when Mother hung up the phone.

"This looks great, Lacey. Thank you so much for helping out. I know it's hard with the meat and-"

"Mom, it's fine. It's the least I can do." After Dad had died, Mother had tried more to accept my lifestyle. Too bad that it was too late.

"Momma, look at how pretty I am!" Rebecca squealed. "Trishy did my makeup!" I smiled to myself at my little sister's excitement. With light eyeliner and mascara, her green eyes jumped out at you. Her light pink lips shone with the layer of lip gloss that had been applied.

"You're always beautiful, Boo." My mother cooed at her. Mom always called all of the girls Boo, no matter how old we were or how annoying it was. Trish nodded her agreement with a grin on her face. She huffed down her tacos and stood up, pushing her chair back in behind her.

"Hey Mom, Paul is taking me out for a movie. I should be back at about eleven." A honk sounded outside and I jumped up. Grabbing two tacos, I place them in a plastic container and ran out the door, passing Trish and leading Jack outside with me. I bolted into the driveway where Paul sat in his jeep. Jack sat in the grass and watched me warily.

"Lace!!" Paul jumped out and rapped me in a bear hug. We had been best friends for forever. I didn't have many, due to my home-schooling, but Paul lived just down the street. He was like the older brother that I didn't have. I grinned at his ecstatic face and handing him the tacos for his dinner. I usually cooked for him whenever he came over. "Cool! It's been a long time since I've had your cooking, Lacey. I'll have to come over soon."

"Yeah, when Trish isn't around I hope. You're no fun when you're flirting all the time."

"And you're no fun when you're talking to my sister instead of driving us to see our movie." My sister teased from where she sat in the passenger seat.

I look at Paul with the saddest puppy-dog face that I could muster. Seeing as how my father pulled it all the time, I was a master. He was putty in my hands and I could see him breaking. "Fine. I'll come back later tonight and spend the night."

"Yay!" I squealed excitedly. Paul spending the night was always a ton of fun. We were practically banished to the basement so that we couldn't bother the rest of the family, including Trish, who was forbidden to be in the same room as him when he was with me. We didn't mind, because the family couldn't bother us either.

I sprinted back into the house, with Jack hot on my heels, squealing, "Mom! Paul is going to spend the night, so I'm going to set up the basement!" I dove past the kitchen and into the basement through the door next to the stairs. My footsteps banged loudly on the wood until I jumped onto the carpeted floor. The movies were stacked up against the wall next to our flat screen and the Xbox and wii were right beside them. I scooted the loveseat and armchair out of the way and centered the couch. After pulling it out into a bed, I divided it with the pillows down the middle as required by our parents (and Trish). Jack plopped down on it and watched me as I moved away.

Humming to myself, I set out bags of popcorn and put some sodas into the fridge along with our favorite ice cream: Chocolate Moose Tracks. I sighed in content at accomplishing the readying of the basement in just over an hour and lounged around. After about forty-five more minutes, I heard a car driving our direction. It must be just outside the house. I scrambled upstairs and out the front door to find that there was no car in front of our house. I sat there for about fifteen more seconds when Paul's jeep pulled into sight. It was the exact same sound, but it would've been at the main road for me to hear it that long ago.

Shaking off the confusion, I watched as he and Trish pulled into the driveway, shut off the car, and climbed out. I all but tackled them as they walked to the front door. Ignoring their banter about the apparently lame zombie movie that they had watched, I led Paul to the basement. He managed to give Trish a peck on the cheek before I dragged him into the basement and slammed the door into my sister's blushing face.

"It's about time!" I told him as I turned back around. I froze when I saw him grinning at me like a hyena with a pillow in his hands. "Erm, Paul? What do you plan on doing with that?"

"Oh, nothing." He responded casually as he raised it slowly. With a fast movement, I darted around him and grabbed another pillow off of the makeshift bed with Jack still on it and raised it. He was still staring at the place I had just been. It was almost as if he didn't see me move. "Lacey? Where the hell did you go?" He looked around, searching for me and looked totally bewildered at seeing me standing behind him. He managed a quick, "Huh?" before I whacked him with my 'weapon'. Unexpectedly, he flew across the room and landed with a grunt.

With a gasp, I ran over to him. "What the hell was that? How the hell did you do that?" His eyes were wide and he looked genuinely scared. Not of me, but of what I had done. There was no way that I had lifted a nineteen year-old male with a hit from a pillow and sent him ten yards back. Jack jumped to his feet and growled. His nose was raised, and he looked at me with an unknown emotion burning in his suddenly intelligent eyes.