Phoebe:
I hadn’t told anyone. I don’t know why not. I just hadn’t. I knew what they would say- “Oh Pheobs! How stupid can you get?!” and “You haven’t phoned the police?”
They would never understand, Hell, I don’t even understand myself let alone explaining it to anyone. And that parcel! I had asked Linda if she had put it there, but she hadn’t seen it when she was putting away my clothes earlier that afternoon. She didn’t read into it too much because the fire alarm went off and the noise exploded through the house, reacting from the smoke from the oven. I left her swearing and helped Jeff lay the table in the kitchen. We only ate in the dining room when dad was home, that was very rare though because he was always around the world working. I wasn’t entirely sure on what he did, but it was something to do with the market, whenever I asked he never gave me a full answer.
A ruler was slapped across the whiteboard. It shocked out of my random thought process. Miss Crayola glared at me from where she stood at the front of the classroom.
“Ah, Miss Smith, I am so glad that you’re back with the living. So where did you go this time?” She asked sarcastically. I looked into her eyes, I saw the hate she held in her old grey eyes for me and the enjoyment of seeing me laughed at by my entire math class.
“What? Nowhere miss. Are you seeing things again? My, my you even look a bit green!” I said with utmost honesty and tried not to grin. I could see the anger burning her eyes.
The whole class laughed, and some of them even joined in, calling out taunts about how she looked so ill.
“BE QUIET!” She bellowed at the class. Every one stopped at that instant. Yes Miss Crayola was an old bat but no one had ever heard her raise her voice.
“I want everyone to turn to page 78 and try questions one, two, three, four and five and anyone who doesn’t finish them by the end of the lesson can do them for homework.” She turned to her computer and started to type onto the keyboard.
I looked at the textbook and looked at the questions they were 5 pages long and we only had ten minutes of the lesson left!
“The stupid old cow.” Meredith muttered,
“Sara will help,” I told Meredith, she brightened up immediately and started texted on her phone.
I sighed and thought of Christopher again.
A week later I hadn’t seen or heard anything from Christopher. By the end of the week I wasn’t thinking about him at all. My mind was preoccupied by something else. The date.
I walked through the graveyard, purple freesias in my hands. Jeff and Linda were ahead of me, I stood behind trying to stay strong. They stayed for a few minutes laying down their own flowers. Linda laid her shaking frail hand on my shoulder, before walking on with Jeff. Slowly I sat down and crossed my legs mechanically in front the white marble headstone.
It read:
RIP
Josephine- Esmée Smith
Beloved Mother, Wife, sister and friend.
October 2nd 1970 – February 29th 2001
“Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but it's about how to dance in the rain."
I always smiled when I saw that quote. I can’t remember who chose it; I had only been six when she had died. But the quote suited her. I lay the flowers down and a silent tear fell down the cheek. When she died that was when everything changed. Dad and I used to be close, but he went on trips more and more often till he was only home every few months. It was okay I was used to now but I think when I was younger I needed him. Today was when she was killed in the car crash; she had gone to get some more sequins for my school play costume she was making.
After an hour of just sitting there and talking to her, I promised to visit again and walked towards the Volvo. Linda and Jeff sat in the front, talking.
“Thanks for waiting.” I told them as I jumped into the car, I strapped myself in and Jeff started the car.
“Any time Hun.” Linda replied.
I looked out of the window, tress and buildings rushed past me.
“Oh, Phe, I know this may not be the best time but, I found some booklets on some car instructors. I left them on your desk.” Jeff said,
“Thanks Jeff.” I replied.
Stupid England. I turned 17 in the summer but until then I couldn’t drive officially on public roads but I could still drive on private land with a private instructor.
He smiled at me in the rear view mirror. I tried to smile back but I couldn’t all I wanted to do was lie in bed, eat ice cream and watch Gilmore girls. It was a Monday but school let me off for the day. When I got home, I did what I planned to do, add the oranges, ritz crackers and of course a cup of tea.
Tuesday morning turned out to be a bad start. Texts bombarded me as soon as it turned midnight due to my rule about no contact with me on that particular day. It was hard enough without everyone else being soppy and mushy. Most of the texts were from my friends, about a new extremely hot guy and I quote ‘yummy’ and ‘total hot stuff’. Due to that I fell asleep about one and had nightmares all night. I was running from something and towards someone. I couldn’t make out their faces but whatever it was I knew it was something terrifying, something I wanted nothing of.
My alarm shrieked at 6:30, in response my arm flung out hitting it to the ground; I dived after it. Frazzled, I grabbed it angrily and turned it off.
I was up. I sighed and ran my hand through my hair and walked sluggishly towards the side of my room, to turn on my coffee machine. I had got one for my 15th birthday from Sara, I loved her for it.
I am highly addicted to caffeine and Linda’s always bugging me to cut down, but I never do succeed. I looked around my room, that I had lived in for the past 16 years of my life. My huge bed occupied the room; the theme in my bedroom was white with dark shades of purple. So naturally my headboard would be white, but it was so darn uncomfortable to lean and read against I had to stack pillows up against which isn’t ideal, so I usually sit on my sofa that was in the middle of my room. Two other chairs that matched the white, heavily purple- cushioned sofa were curved along it. In the middle of that circle was a coffee table and a plasma TV. It was almost like a sitting room. It was nice, but lonely. We had an iMac but it was downstairs in the study though I had a dell I desperately wanted an MacBook air, they look so cool! I was planning on asking Dad next time he’s home. I also had a few personal things in my beddroom, photos on the walls, teddy’s and junk really.
Also along my walls, I had about 10 bookshelves all full up. I had moved some of my old books into the library downstairs, I didn’t mind though. I had a huge chest of drawers that held lots of different things and also had a dressing table, but I didn’t use it much.
On my dressing table lay my mother’s jewellery box and some other boxes that held similar things. The jewellery box was beautiful, it was made out of dark wood, and had strange symbols and Latin etched into it, an emerald was studded in the middle of the wood, inside were a few of her necklaces and a note she wrote for me when I turned 18. She had given it to me a few days before she died, despite my young age I remembered it clearly. It was a clear, brisk sunny day; we were sitting in the felid on a cotton blue blanket. I was chasing a butterfly with my eyes, and Amber just a puppy was sleeping in my mother’s lap. She took an envelope with had my name on and a date of my 18th birthday out of the picnic basket.
“Pheobs, I need you to put this somewhere very safe ok! Listen to Mummy; you need to put it somewhere safe!” Her urgent tone, made me listen.
“Can I put it in amber?” I said trying to remove her frown from her perfect forehead. My mother was beautiful; her eyes were the colour of emeralds themselves and twinkled when she laughed which was like an angel laughing it was so perfect. She had fair skin and always dressed like a country bumpkin, no matter how rich her family or husband was. Her roots where nature was, she always said. I also had numerous lessons teaching me what plants were, how to find them and how what the different stages of the moon meant and kinds of things that made her… her.
“No Phoebe.” Her eyes suddenly lit up as she had an idea. “I’ll put it in my jewellery box, and you can then keep it!”
I gasped and laughed happily. “I can have the green rock box?” My mother nodded. “YAY!” I jumped up and danced around the felid. The next day I woke up to find it on my bedside table.
Back to the present, I shook my head as a loud buzz indicated that my coffee was ready; I left it to cool and jumped into the shower.
One hour later, with my hair washed and curled and myself dressed, I walked down to breakfast. Turning on the kitchen TV, I grabbed a bowl of cereal (coco pops of course) I sat down as the news read the headlines:
“An urgent plea is announced from the parents of Jasmine-Katie Dante, for any witnesses or information about her death.”
I looked up, that was that girl Meredith was talking about! It went on to a public interview with the parents, they were pleading for details that would help catch this murderer.
“Hey, Bev!” Sara called from the doorway of my kitchen. I turned to look at her, and gave her a questioning look. She put her hands on her hips and glared “You forgot!” She accused me “I knew you would! You said you would give me a lift for two weeks due to my mum and dad going to my grandparents and my stupid brother smashed his car.”
“Oh....” I said trying to remember saying I would give her a lift, I remember it was in R.E when she was moaning about her weekend; I didn’t want her to have to get the bus, since it takes like an hour. “OH! I remember now, sorry. I totally forgot, because you know…”
She smiled, “Yeah… How are you anyway” she moved to a chair next to me at the breakfast bar.
“Fine,” I said to her, she didn’t believe it though, “Really, I’m fine! Ok, I’m tired but seriously I’m ok. “
She smiled before taking and deep breath and gushing “OMG! You missed so much! There this new guy Blake and I don’t think you have to worry about Sandra stealing Rob away anymore, because she was ALL OVER Blake yesterday it was sickening. She dragged him over to her table at Lunch but Rob and Justin saved him by saying he should come over and help them with the new junior sport teams.” She stopped for breath and I smiled. I had finished my cereal so I grabbed a nectarine from the bowl. “Sandra was soo pissed! Anyway he is so cute! I just want to…”
“And that’s enough, I’m eating!” I said and covered my ears, she only grinned.
“Girls, we need to go,” Jeff came in pulling on his coat.
“Ok, one minute. Let me grab my stuff.” I collected my stuff together – coat, shoes, scarf, bag, phone and lunch. “Ready!” I called to the others waiting for me.
I groaned. We had been stuck in traffic for over an hour now. There had been some kind of car pile up and it we were stuck half an hour from school. I took the time to finish my history homework, whilst Sara was playing on my iPhone, a game - Guitar Hero. Finally we arrived at school at 10:15. Apparently the school had heard of the accident and expected some late arrivals, so fortunately Sara and I didn’t get a late default. I walked in to find somebody was sitting in my seat; I had always sat at the back on my own with Blair and Meredith in front of me. This silhouette had his face hidden by a history textbook. I had already guessed that it was probably the new boy.
“Miss Smith, you’re late.” My History teacher, Miss Carlson said from her desk, looking over her big framed glasses.
“I was stuck in traffic miss, some crash or something a few miles away.” I told her,
“I take it you have already signed in, in the office?” She asked me, I nodded in reply. “Good okay, take a seat. You can copy the missed work off someone, and we’re just reading through the textbook.”
I turned to walk to my seat, and it was then the new student put down his book and I saw his face.
His name wasn’t Blake.
It was Christopher.
Thanks for reading! Sorry it was long, and I hope you enjoyed it
H x