How To Survive The Shaw Brothers

Chapter Six- You're a Neanderthal

Breakfast consisted of pancakes and syrup, something I thought I was the master at making. It seemed I was wrong because Rose's pancakes tasted so damn good that I unashamedly asked for a second stack when I had still yet to finish the first.

It was quite a big mistake on my part because as soon as I passed the halfway mark, I felt incredibly nauseated and once I saw the syrup dripping down I gingerly pushed the plate away with a sheepish grin.

If I ate anymore, I would’ve exploded, and I don’t think that would have been a nice sight for everyone, especially in a house full of what looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models.

“Dani, I hope you don’t mind, but Alex will be taking you to get measured for your school uniform instead of me since I have a deadline for the first draft of my story an-“

As soon as I heard Alex’s name, I stiffened in my seat and internally cringed. Great. Just great.

So I had  to now spend a whole day with Mr Pissy Pants and hope for the life of me that his bad mood wasn’t contagious. God help me if it was.

To be honest, I didn’t even know what his problem was. It was as though he was suffering from a mild case of PMS. Though in his case, he only seemed to have one mood. Pissed.

“Well? Is it ok with you?”

Oh. So she was still talking to me. I half-heartedly shrugged and there began, my depressed mood.  In times like this there was only one method that seemed to make me the slightest bit better and so just before Rose was about to whisk away my plate, I pulled it towards me and began to stuff my mouth with sweet pancakes like there was no tomorrow.

Damn. They were really really good pancakes. I made a mental note to ask Rose for the recipe later just in case I needed those pancakes one day and she wasn’t available to make it for me. It didn’t really matter that I was overeating because I happened to have a very high metabolism that was useful in these situations.

Sadly, my eating time was short lived because no sooner than eight minutes after Rose left me to her devices, a blurred figure appeared in my line of vision. I glanced up to see Alex wearing a pair of dark grey jeans, a white t-shirt and a grey sweater that made him look so mouth-watering, despite the fact that his face was set into a scowl and that his body was so tense. His hair looked as though he ran his hands through it multiple times in frustration, and his green eyes looked dull and lifeless.

“Can you hurry up? I have better things to do than chauffer you around.”  He snapped at me so suddenly making me drop my next forkful of pancake.

Just as I was about to open my mouth and retort using very colourful language, he snapped at me again.

“And whilst you’re at it, have you never heard of table manners before? That,” He pointed towards my now dropped fork, and possibly the syrup around my mouth with his chin, before continuing, “Is distgusting.”

“Yeah well at least I’ve got an outlet for my bad mood. You on the other hand, you’re like.. like..”

He raised an eyebrow at me which I tried so hard to be oblivious to but I failed miserably so I continued repeating the same word until I could think of something better.

And suddenly, I had a brainwave and opted to say the first word that came out of my mouth. It just so happened to be…

“like a Neanderthal!”

Now,  once I more or less shouted the word out loud Alex’s facial expression changed at least a good three times, from confused, to incredulous to downright and utterly pissed.