Arranged Marriage.......... to a Secret Agent?!?!?!?!
I woke up in my bed cold, the sound of my alarm going off. I growled and snapped it off and looked up. Damn it! I'm going to be late! Why didn't anyone get me up? I jumped out of bed and quickly dug through my closet until I grabbed some outfit that was clean. I ran a brush through my hair and bounded down the stairs to the kitchen. "Mom! Dad?" I called.
There was no answer in the house. I looked around and found a note on the counter with my name on it.
Nelly
We went on vacation, sorry we didn't tell you it was a little short notice for us. We'll be home in two weeks or so. Be a good girl and if you have any parties, please be careful and clean the house before we get home.
Love you lots
Mom and Dad
Just great! This must be because of that stupid Jason Bishop's fault. I was all over the news along with our arranged marriage. I lifted the note to stick it to the fridge when other papers fell to the floor.
Divorce papers? A grin spread on my face. Mostly everything was signed, I grabbed a pen and put my signature at the bottom and folded them up. Smiling to myself I checked the time. "Damn it!" I screamed and bolted for the door.
I ran through the drizzling rain all the way to school. My friends were waiting at the door. "Hey we heard you came back last night!" They called when I came inside. I smiled, extremely giddy this morning.
"Guess what?" I asked with bright happy eyes.
"Jason Bishop died in a hole so deep he ended up in China?" my friends said happily. I shook my head.
"Close." I said and pulled the papers out of my bag. "I found them this morning on my way out the door." They pulled them out of my hands and read over them quickly. "I am no longer married to him." I said proudly pointing at my signature at the bottom of the page.
"You go girl!" They patted my back. I grinned like mad and we all headed to my locker.
"Where is he anyway? I want to rub this in his face!" I said looking around. His group of friends were separated talking to girls around the halls.
"Don't know don't care." My friends said. I nodded and threw all my wet stuff into my locker and grabbed all my homework and the three of us headed to our first class.
Today was nice. Every now and then I got sneers from girls, but at least I was mainly invisible again. No one talked about the fight and the teachers didn't even seem mad. It was weird though, no one seemed to concerned that he hadn't shown up at school. I didn't really care, I just needed him to sign the divorce papers and be done with his sorry ass for the rest of my life.
I veged through my classes not paying attention, why do I have to come to school? It's like torture!! I was halfway through math when the fire bell went. Half my class screamed, the other half dropped their math and cheered. I sighed and picked up my bag and tried to make it to the door.
Do these idiots not know what to do when a fire bell goes? Our math teacher tried to calm everyone down, but failed miserably. I opened the door and peeked out at all the students filing neatly down the hall. "Teacher!" I called and pointed. She sighed and looked at me with pleading eyes. "Hey guys!" The class froze and looked at me. "Word is that the class leaving the most orderly gets Pizza!" The class erupted into a chorus of cheers and they all lined up neatly. The teacher praised me and I watched as each person left.
After the class room was empty I closed the door behind me. I wondered a little slowly, thankful that I hadn't actually have to finish the worksheet assigned. I didn't have a lot of cares until I actually smelled the smoke. This is a real fire? I turned back to see a thick black smoke working it's way down the stairs from the upper classrooms. A scream ripped through the air from the stairs.
I bolted towards it. My shoes squeaked across the floor as I made my way as fast as I could down the hall to the screams. "Help! Someone Please Help ME!" It sounded like a girl.
When I reached the stairs they were completely blacked out by the smoke. "Hey! Where Are You?!" I called up the stairs.
"I'm up here! I can't see!" She started coughing. I pulled my hoodie over my face and ran up the stairs. At the top I hit the floor and crawled under the toxic smog.
"Keep calling, I can't find you!" I shouted. I could hear her coughing again.
"I'm here! In here! Oh Please help me!" Her voice seemed to be coming from the end of the hall. I moved as fast as I could, and was met with a wall of orange flames. I could hear crying now. "Please, help!" She called in a weak voice. I peeked into the classroom she cried from. She was surrounded by the flames.
"Hang on!" I shouted and jumped to my feet. Without thinking I leapt over the flames into the burning class room. A tiny girl was on the ground, coughing making incoherent words. "It's okay, I've got you!" I said shaking her shoulder. I pulled my hoodie up over my head and tied the strings. I scooped her up and headed out to the flames again. The room was completely burning now.
I closed my eyes and ran through them, holding the girl as close to me as I could. My shoes stuck to the floor as I ran, their soles melting under the heat. I tried not to think about it and threw the girl up over my shoulder. He coughing had stopped now, and I lost where the stairs were. Quickly dropping I started crawling again, the flames chasing close behind. "Damn it!" I hissed, the stairs were still a far bit a head. "Guess I'm running." I said.
Quickly jumping up I stormed down the hall as fast as I could. The first stair surprised me and I tumbled down the next few before gaining my balance. I grinned under my hoodie and took them two at a time until the bottom floor hit my sneakers.
The math teacher's voice was calling from the end of the hall, she didn't dare come in. Sirens were wailing outside, the fire department. "Hang on, we're almost out now." I said, though I'm sure she's unconscious. The afternoon sun seeped through the smoke that had now covered the entire hall way, and this seemed like the longest run of my life. The end seemed to be getting further away, not closer. I growled at the thought, I was not! Going to die! I pushed harder, the smoke burning my lungs with each breath, my head dizzy from lack of oxygen. Shapes started to bend and moved, the door moved this way and that with each step.
Coughing burned my throat, and the more I tried to breathe the worse it got. Finally the doors! I didn't pause at them, I barreled past losing my footing and tripping on the sidewalk. My hoodie fell away, and sweet oxygen filled my lungs.
"GET SOMEBODY OVER HERE!" Someone shouted. Someone rolled me over and started poking me.
"Not me." I whispered, even though it burned. "Her." I pointed to the girl who landed a few feet away. "Her." I pushed their hands away and sat up on my own. My head was bleeding, I could feel the warm liquid down the side of my face.
"Nelly!" My friends screamed rushing over to me. I waved and looked at the girl. Someone was giving her CPR, I prayed waiting for her to start breathing. My heart pounded and everything seemed to slow down.
Breathe. I demanded, taking deep breaths like it would some how connect to her. Breathe, come on, breathe. I wanted to shout at her. Finally a cough came out of her, a little bit of smoke and she took in a ragged breath.
Paramedics came over and moved her onto a stretcher. She smiled and waved at me. I waved back and she was put into the back of an ambulance and it drove of, sirens splitting the air. "Nelly are you some kind of stupid?" My friends asked me. I shook my head and held my arms out so they could help me up.
"Just had to." I rasped out. "Someone get me some water?" the shook their heads. They dragged me over to another ambulance. The paramedic smiled at me and made me sit down. She wrapped a blanket around me and handed me an oxygen mask.
"Breathe in the oxygen, exhale with the mask off." She told me and handed me a bottle of water. A stream of water hit the school, followed by three more. The one top section was a blaze of orange and red, the brick turning red. Firefighters walked around to students asking if anyone else was left inside. One of them walked up to me.
"That was some stunt kid." He said I nodded and took a deep breath of oxygen. "You shouldn't do stupid stuff like that again." He warned.
"If I didn't, that girl would have died." I stated.
"And if something happened you both would have died. You got lucky this time, don't think of doing it again." I rolled my eyes and breathed in the sweet air. It's okay I didn't want to do it again anytime soon. My friends moved away, a news reporter talking to them. I downed my water and relaxed against the side of the ambulance. When I opened my eyes I caught sight of something on the other side of the school yard.
A black van?
I swore I could see someone staring at me with a pair of binoculars. I rolled my head trying to figure it out. Probably the idiots who started the fire. I rolled my eyes and took another deep breath of air. "Excuse me miss?" a reporter came up to me. I opened an eye and looked at her. "Your friends tell me you're the one who ran after the trapped girl." I nodded and breathed in more clean air. "Can you tell me what was going through your head when you ran into the fire?" she asked holding a microphone out to me, her camera man moved behind her, his lens turned to me.
"Not really, I wasn't really thinking of anything when I ran. Just that I had to help that girl." I shrugged.
"Even when you put your own life in danger?" she asked stuffing the microphone back into my face.
"Yeah, even if it meant my life." I growled, hoping it was the answer she wanted. I was getting tired of the microphone in my face.
Thankfully she took it away and turned to her camera man. "There you have it. This selfless teen risked her very life to save a fellow classmate from such a dangerous chemical fire. The bravery shown here today is amazing and surly something we will never forget." Her voice vanished, and so did most of the sound. I started to slowly doze off, content with just sleeping for now.
I had another dream about my prince. This time he rode up on a white motorcycle, wearing a covered helmet so I couldn't see his face. I was sitting in a field picking flowers and dropping the petals around when he rode up. I jumped up happy to see him. He stepped close to me and wrapped his arms around me. I reached up to take the helmet off.
As soon as my fingers brushed it he vanished, and the sound of my alarm rung in my ears. "Ugh!" I groaned sitting up. Yesterday's fire fiasco left me too tired to do anything. I picked up my phone and called the school.
"Hi, Mrs. Penter? Yeah it's Nelly Mantigo, I was just calling in sick... Yeah that fire took a lot out of me. Thanks." I got up slowly and made my way to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I jumped in feeling the water run down my body and burn my legs. I looked down to see large red burn marks. I groaned again and turned the water on cold and sat down. I sat in the cold water for about an hour letting the water splash on my red legs, before I had to get out. If I stayed any longer I was going to have burnt legs and hyperthermia.
I crawled out slowly, that shower did nothing to ease my soarness and wrapped a towel around me. I dug around for some shorts and a shirt. When dressed I dropped two towels in the bathtub and soaked them with cold water. I laid on the couch, my legs wrapped in cold towels and flipped through the channels until I settled on the news report.
"Nelly Mantigo is really making a hit in the news world these past few days. First the fight at school with her alleged husband Jason Bishop, then disappearing for three days, and on the day she shows up back and school! She's running through the flames to save the life of a fellow classmate! She suffered minor injuries, from what was told by paramedics and went home. The young girl she saved however remains in the hospital. It hasn't been determined how the fire was started, but Firefighters are sure that it was a chemical fire, and those who breathed in some of the smoke should be careful and get checked out at the hospital for any poisoning. Back to you in the studio Tom!" He called and the man behind the desk appeared. My school picture showed up beside his head.
"Well it really does seem Miss. Mantigo really made an impact in the last little while." He laughed. "But I'm sure the family of the girl she rescued from the fire are ever great full to her." I flipped the channel to some mindless cartoons and dozed on the couch.
Everything seemed normal now. School was closed now, officially, apparently it took half a day of classes for the teachers to figure that out. The kids enjoyed their early summer break and went off. I stayed at home laying on the couch missing my parents.
I tried calling them, but I always got the same message. It would have been nice if they could have left me a number I could get back to them on! Jeez why did they up and disappear. I called a number of my friends looking for Jason's number. I wanted him to sign the divorce papers and let me get on with my life. But no one seemed to have his number, not even the sluts he always slept with.
Why? I moaned sadly (and a bit over dramatically) to myself. "Come Home!" I snapped, wishing my parents heard me. Didn't they have the news where they were 'vacationing'? hadn't they noticed that I might need some parents right now?
Maybe I should call Jason's parents?
It might be a bad idea, but they were my parent's friends, and they are parents. I pulled a phone book off the shelf and started flipping though the pages.
Barns...
Beterns...
Billards...
Bishops!
I quickly dialed the number. "Hello?" Dan's voice said slowly.
"Hi, Dan? It's Nelly." I said.
"Oh Nelly! Dear how are you doing? We saw what happened on the news!" He said.
"I'm fine, it's just..." Now how do I ask this? "You see, my parents went on vacation... and I can't... get through to them... so..."
He caught on quickly. "Oh no problems Nelly, we'll be over right away." I could hear the jingle of keys and a woman's voice in the background. "See you in a bit Nelly!" He said happily.
"Yeah, see you soon." I said and hung up the phone. Well that made me feel a little better, but I would have preferred if MY parents came home.
Not twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door, and Dan's voice called through. I called him in and the front door opened. "Nelly?" he called.
"I'm on the couch!" I called. I heard his wife's voice and the walked in and faced me.
"Dear what happened to your legs?" Jason's mom cried looking at the wet towels wrapped around them. She picked up the corner and looked at them. "Honey you said you were fine." She scolded me. I smiled, thankful for the mothering.
"I've had them wrapped up." I defended.
She laughed and took the towels away. "Dan dear, go make her something to eat, I'll take care of her legs." She announced, taking authority. She went and got some cream from the bathroom and started rubbing it on, it was cold, which I liked. I laid back and let her work, and enjoyed the parenting.
Occasionally she would scold me for something, which I apologized for, it was in all a light heart. They curled up on the couch with me at dark and we watched a couple movies until I fell asleep.