The crash interrupted my lecturing of Ralph. Both he and I turned towards the door of his bedroom, distracted for yet the second time today from our anger. I shot him one last glare before heading to the door. He shoved me with his elbow and went out first. I bit my cheek, ready to yell at him. The beginning of my yell, though, shot into Joey's face instead. He recoiled in fear and I bit my tongue. His face was the real thing that got me.
"Sorry," I rasped, though a little bitter. It wasn't fair that I always said things at the wrong time.
Instead of yelling, Joey smiled gently. "That's alright." Again, his face and voice made me a bit bitter. It also wasn't fair that he said all the right things. Right now, though, his eyes still held worry. He glanced to the stairs, where Ralph had disappeared down. "I'm worried, though. Abel ran off in the middle of our chapter."
My painting's demise was still in the front of my mind. My cheeks went hot and I felt my brow lower into a glare at him. "Well maybe some things are more important than your stupid books." I turned, going after Ralph with an aching chest. I could sense Joey trailing me silently.
Downstairs, I had a glimpse at mother's still burning candle before turning towards the front door. There were a group of men not too far away from the entrance, but Abel, Joey's ogre of a servant, stood in their way. I could hear that irritating accent intimidating the group of men.
"No," he hissed, "Ze lady iz not in, unt you vill not be coming in. Iz zat clear?" His accent became more pronounced when he was angry, as he was not focusing on covering it up. It always did annoy me. Right now, though, I guess I kind of appreciated it. The men in front of him looked untrustworthy.
Ralph, now next to me, chuckled at the sound of Abel. I smirked. I imagined Joey glaring at us from behind, but I knew he would never. After a long while of funny sounding words and one eyed glowers, the men finally packed up and left without touching us or our house. As soon as they were halfway down the road, Ralph and I began whispering.
"What do'ya think they wanted?" Ralph's slurring of words always was obnoxious to me, almost as bad as Abel's accent.
"I think," I sneered with haughtiness, my nose pointed upwards, "they wanted to badger mother again about our taxes." I, in fact, had no idea what was going on with them. I just wanted to show up Ralph; I surely knew more than he.
"Are you sure?" Joey's voice slipped in the conversation from behind us. Whenever he spoke, it sounded like he was singing. The song, however, wasn't to my liking this time. "How does that explain those empty wagons and why there were so many of them?"
I blinked a few times. I could feel Ralph's smirk towards me, could hear his voice already jeering how wrong I was. "Well," I snorted, glaring at Joey, "What do you propose they were doing here?"
Joey's shoulders lowered along with his head. I could see his lip moving in and out of his mouth, getting chewed thoughtfully by his pearly whites. He always did that when he was about to say something smart. My heart sped, wishing I wasn't about to be showed up by the youngest of us all. But to my surprise, and delight, he simply looked up and shrugged. I grinned with pride, laughing at him. "See? What do you know, stupid?" My voice was a bit more malicious than I had intended, but there was no taking anything back.
Abel reentered the house and the other two servants shuffled up to him. Mine, a stately woman named Ms. Quinn, consulted him with her nasally voice. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, mostly because Ralph was still mocking Abel's voice. It was my turn to jab him in the arm.
"Shut up, will you? I'm trying to listen."
He just snorted like he always does. "Bossy pants." He crossed his arms and turned away.
I stiffened, unable to control my irritation with him. "And enough with the insults! At least I actually do something with my life! Unlike some people who scratch around all day on their stupid strings!"
He turned towards me. I had pushed one of his buttons. "Don't you insult my music in front of me! And at least I don't waste my time sitting around in front of a white cloth, smearing colored mud around with a stick!"
I felt myself surge forward. I shoved him. "Shut up, stupid! Painting is something a pea brain like you can never appreciate!"
He shoved back. "So now you're calling me stupid?! Try speaking for yourself! At least I'm smart enough to hear resonance in chords! I bet you couldn't tell the difference between adagio and allegro!"
We went on like that for a while, maybe a minute or two, before we were yanked apart. Ralph blamed our servants, as they were the ones to begin the break up. But I knew that it was really Joey to blame. He had brought their attention to us. He also brought his own servant's attention to us.
"Hey." It sounded like just a word, but it had rocked both Ralph and I to our cores. We stopped, took a step back from each other, and stared up at the man above us. He was actually glaring at us. "Zis is not time to be fighting, got it?" His 'g's and 't's were very over-exaggerated, though that perhaps made it scarier. We knew he was angry; he had missed a word in his sentence. When people get angry, they forget things.
What I forgot at that moment was my fear. I took a step forward, hands clenched. I'm pretty sure I was glaring at him. "You don't have the right to lecture us! You're just a servant!" Just after I said it, I regretted.
His dark eye narrowed at me, giving me a violent chill down my back. But it passed, for he closed his eye and bowed a bit. "I am sorry, Miss Elaina. I remember my place. Vill not happen again." Even as he bowed, though, he was still much bigger and taller than me. When he stood straight again, the look in his eye told me he knew that.
Ms. Quinn, though, would have none of what I was doing. I knew that even if Abel had no domain over me, she did. She was, after all, my teacher as well. She scolded me briefly about my actions and told me to go upstairs and stay in my room until supper. I frowned. This wasn't fair.
Joey, standing near the door still, was biting his lip again. I turned away, though, and headed for the stairs. I didn't want to listen to him. His 'soothing' voice would just irritate me.
