Ollie didn't want anything to do with Kentucky. Kentucky was hot, there were too many bugs, overly-religious folk, and especially, too many sour memories. But, did Ollie's parents care? Ollie didn't think so. Every year, the day after school let out, Ollie found himself on a six-hour flight to Nashville, where he was eventually driven to a small town by the name of Rosemary by his oversized, nagging grandmother, Granny Shrieker.
There were several ways that this made Ollie's summer inexcusably horrible. First of all, he was to remain in Rosemary for his entire summer while his parents forgot their worries of having a child and partied under the summer sun for three months. Unlike his parent's house, living in Rosemary was far the opposite of "fun," or as he liked to describe it: "hell."
Granny Shrieker's house was a tiny, ancient two-story home with a serious spider problem and an old roof. Summer thunderstorms are not a fun thing, especially if heavy drops of water were seeping through cracks in the ceiling all over Ollie's bed. Combined with the spider issue, Ollie found himself sleeping with a sheet over his head so spiders didn't fall from the ceiling after being carried down by water. This made sleep very uncomfortable for poor Ollie.
The second thing that ruined Ollie's summer was the fact that Granny Shrieker lived up to her name. More than often, Shrieker would freak out over the littlest of things, such as: she ran out of eggs, it was cloudy outside, Ollie's shirt had a stain on it, and several other hitches that mattered close to nothing. If the neighbor's dog got loose and peed in her yard, Granny Shrieker would panic and toddle around the house screaming at the top of her lungs until Ollie could constrain her. Doing this was not an easy process, as Shrieker usually was armed with pepper spray she liked to buy in case of emergencies. (Such as salesmen coming to her door.)
The third reason Ollie hated Kentucky was a very good one, indeed. Rosemary, a secluded town that didn't even make it on the map, was positively swimming with bible-slammers. The residents of Rosemary were very strict about their standards, believing that of you weren't a straight, white Christian, you were definitely going to hell. Ollie found this amusing on some level, considering he didn't fit into half of their expectations. First of all, Ollie wasn't a Christian. Second of all, he wasn't straight.
Still, he wouldn't tell anybody in Rosemary these things, considering word would more than likely get out and he would be shunned. Ollie wouldn't actually care, except Granny Shrieker would go ballistic when she heard. The last thing he needed was his own grandmother forcing him to spend the summer in her old doghouse, which like Shrieker's own house, didn't even have a proper roof. (He found this out from not eating his green beans a few years ago.)
To add on, there was nothing to do in Rosemary. Nothing. There were no bowling allies, bookstores, attractions, or anything that would be considered remotely fun for a teenager like Ollie. The closest thing to "fun" was an old frozen yogurt shop down the street from Granny Shrieker's house, and even that was barely ever open and served yogurt that tasted like gooey plastic. This forced Ollie to live out each and every summer with absolutely nothing to do but sit in his room drawing, and he had actually gotten very good at it. He might actually enjoy it if the heat didn't melt his crayons.
It was the same exact thing every single summer. Ollie finished the school year with average or failing grades, was shipped across the country on an uncomfortable plane ride for hours, arrived at Rosemary after a (barely) tolerable car ride with Granny Shrieker, and suffered for three months in sweltering heat and three-hour church services while his friends back home went on camping trips and ate ice cream. Even so, this was just the tip of the iceberg.
The worst thing about Rosemary wasn't the bible-slammers or the heat. It wasn't the fact that Granny was a shrieker, and it wasn't that there was nothing to do. It wasn't even that the frozen yogurt tasted like plastic or that Shrieker's home was swarming with black widows. None of these things could compare to the worst reason that Ollie hated Kentucky. All of these things combined couldn't even match up.
Simply, the worst thing was the boy next door.
