Fiancé

Chapter 5

Nightly Day

"A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful." ~Judith Martin

"Ow!" I yelped as I felt a sharp pang on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see white. I sat up in my bed and pulled the piece of paper off my face as I flipped it over to examine. "What the-" I began.

"Watch your language, young lady," Mum warned me briskly.

"Mum," I croaked out as I wiped the sleep away with the back of my left hand. I shifted my sheets around and noticed that I was still wearing my skirt and halter from yesterday, but, for the life of me, I could not remember going upstairs yesterday. "How'd I get here?" I mumbled at her.

Mum sighed exasperatedly. "Honestly, Lily, where else would you be?"

"But last night I was," I tried to explain. I saw the no-nonsense look on my mother's face and promptly changed tactics. "Nevermind," I sighed. "Where's James?"

"Outside weeding with your father."

I nodded as my tired brain attempted to process the information. Blearily, I stretched my sore arms. "What time is it?"

"Seven," she answered as she straightened out her pretty blue top over her skirt.

I groaned. "In that case," I muttered as I pulled the sheets up over my head and squashed my face into my pillow.

A few muffled footsteps later, and I felt the sheets being ripped out of my hands. "Oh, no you don't, Lily Marie. We had a deal. You went to your Quidditch game yesterday, and now you're my slave all morning."

I groaned for a second time. "Mum," I whined as I clutched back for my warm yellow sheets. "Slavery's illegal."

"Not when it's your child." She yanked the sheets completely off my bed and then grabbed my pillows as I tried to cower behind them, as well.

I sat completely defenseless on my bed in a curled up ball. I rolled onto my side and stubbornly tried to lull myself back to sleep.

Mum pinched my arm. "C'mon, Lily. Petunia's friends will be over at noon for the bachelorette party."

"That's not for five hours!" I griped as I tried to warm myself up by rubbing my hands up and down my arms.

"Which will give you plenty of time to do all the chores I wrote down for you," she admonished me before forcing the forgotten list back into my face. "I better see some productivity coming from you in the next five minutes, Lily, because if not, I'm getting the hose."

Grumbling to myself, I waited until she left my bedroom before I gingerly got off my sheetless bed and rose to my feet. Feeling stiff in my clothes and uncomfortable strapless bra that had fallen around my waist some time during the night, I threw on a pair of stretchy black pants and an old t-shirt. Then I went to the bathroom. My trusty bladder never let me down.

Next, I piled all of my sheets back onto my bed and actually took the minute and a half to make it. It was awful.

Plopping down onto my quilt, I examined the paper she had given me adorned with her untidy scrawl. I saw my name printed on the top and then scanned down the long list of orders beneath it.

Clean the pigsty you call room

Straighten up the living room

Dust the house (don't skip the kitchen like you normally do)

Vacuum the house

Clean the upstairs bathroom (toilet too, cleaner is in the downstairs cupboard under the sink)