It had been three whole nights now since I've had the dreaded nightmare last. I didn't have it the night before Pluto and Jupiter came, I didn't have it Saturday night, and I didn't have it Sunday night. That didn't mean though I was completely excused from dreaming about the newest members of our humble family. For the past two nights after they had arrived, I had a lot of weird dreams about them.
In a good portion of the dreams I was a little girl, probably about five, and we were in a building with a lot of equipment and they were wearing these weird grey skin suits. Unlike the nightmare, Pluto and Jupiter looked human in these. Oddly, I couldn't hear anyone talking in the dream, it was a silent dream, yet I seemed to know exactly what was going on. During each dream, I was interacting with both of them but the way they responded to me during these interactions was creepy. It was like they didn't know how to communicate but they were trying hard to. In some parts, they would get frustrated and then react violently.
While these dreams may not sound very scary and in a way, they weren't, I always had an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach in the morning.
Couldn't I just have a dream I was making out with one of them or something like a normal teenage girl?
At least the dreams weren't bad enough to disturb my night of sleep, in fact I was getting too good of a good night's sleep I'm afraid, because this morning I slept through my alarm and woke up half an hour before I had to go to school. As expected, this stressed me out and put me beside myself as I rushed around to get ready.
Naomi was stressing me out to, because I had run circles around her frantically while getting ready for school in our tiny room. As I did, she worked on her makeup while complaining about the boys taking her room. By the time I had managed to get ready, it was too late to eat breakfast, so I just skipped out the front door to my car with Naomi.
While I drove to school, I tried to be patient with Naomi as she whined and groused about how she was having trouble sleeping because my window was by the nosy road while hers was facing the backyard in her old room.
"It's just so loud in your room, like no offense but I need complete silence to get a decent night of sleep and that stupid road is stripping me of my rights to a silent night..." Naomi continued to ramble on as I struggled to get my backpack on, while we both walked into school.
"Naomi no offense, but shut up," I finally said, earning an offended gasp.
"I didn't ask to be put in this situation, it was thrust unjustly upon my lap," She said gruffly as we pushed our way through the front door, down the hall and to my locker where Jupiter was waiting for me with an unpleasant looking Pluto.
"Hey Abby, I was wondering where you were," Jupiter said, sounding relieved as he watched me open my locker.
"I was running a little late, slept through my alarm." I informed.
"Oh. Well I'm glad you're okay," He said making Naomi raise an eyebrow.
"You know you don't have to bodyguard us just because you're living in our house," She said, rather rudely and Pluto sneered at her.
"Just so you know little girl, Abigail told Jupiter she was going to give us a tour of the school this morning," He said, sounding ruder then Naomi ever could. He was right though. I had entirely forgotten the promise I made to them yesterday about giving them a tour when Jupiter asked.
Even though it had only been two days, Jupiter had already glued himself to me and he spent the whole weekend following me around like a puppy dog as he asked me questions about myself, and about the house. While Naomi thought he was creepy and annoying, I saw it as an innocent gesture to make a friend. Out of all my siblings I had always been known as the more approachable one, and even though there was the unresolved issue of whether they were from my dream or not, I did want them to feel welcomed.
"I'm so sorry, I completely forgot. I'm sorry Jupiter; I promise I'll make up to you at lunch. I'll try to get us hall passes so we can roam the school grounds then." I reassured and Pluto cleared his throat.
"I hope when you say we, that includes me," He said gruffly, and I forced a smile.
"Of course, Pluto." I then turned back to my locker to pull out my gym clothes.
"Of course, Pluto." He muttered back, mimicking my voice. Instead of fighting with him I chose to ignore the comment. I was a nice, peaceful person and I would remain that way no matter what he said.
As you probably guessed, Pluto hadn't glued himself to me. In fact, he practically built an invisible wall between us the whole weekend and he avoided me at all costs. Something I couldn't understand. I barely talked to the guy and he already seemed to strongly dislike me. Naturally, that made me dislike him to, as did my sisters. He did like Toby though, which surprised me because Toby was annoying.
"Well guys, I better get off to gym. I'll see you all later," I said, and Naomi gestured for Jupiter to follow her.
"Where's your first-class space boy?" She asked.
"Um..." He fumbled for his schedule. "Biology, room 1308," He said as the two of them begin to walk away.
"There's no way you're a freshman," Was the last thing I heard Naomi said before they disappeared around the corner. I hope that she shows him to the right class, and not to some place stupid like the school emergency exit or janitor's closet. Sighing, I tucked my gym clothes under my arm and began to walk away from Pluto, only to have him follow me.
"What are you doing?" I asked as he matched his stride to mine.
"Going to gym, what are you doing?" Gripping my gym clothes, a little tighter, I exhaled slowly.
"You have gym to?" I managed to inquire, and a smirk appeared on his face.
"What, you don't like the idea of being in a gym class with me?" When I didn't respond his smirk faded. "You would probably like the idea of it, if I was replaced with Jupiter," He said as we approached the locker room. "It's okay if you are; teenage girls prefer to be around guys like Jupiter. Idiots who think they can run the show with a smile."
At that I stopped. "Look Pluto, I don't know you, but I know you're going through a hard time. With that knowledge in mind, I've tried to be nice to you, and you've given me nothing but attitude. I don't like people who are rude to me, which is unfortunate because I want to like you," I said bluntly, making him frown deeply at me.
"I'm not living in your house to be your friend Abigail; I'm living there because I have to." He reminded.
''Well that's not my fault, so don't take it out on me." Then with that I went into the girl's locker room, not caring to hear his response. I understood that he was miserable and probably hurting that he wasn't with his mom, but that didn't give him the right to be mean to me.
He acted decent around everyone else in the house; I don't see why he couldn't act decent around me. Fortunately, by the time I had finished changing into my gym clothes, I had managed to get my anger under wraps and decided it wasn't worth fighting with him. If I gave in to his unmannerly behavior, he'd probably never come around. Even though I didn't like him at all, I knew things would be harder if I didn't try to be the bigger person here. Unfortunately, though, fate didn't want me to be peaceful around him I guess, because my gym teacher decided today was the perfect day to play dodge-ball and the two of us were put on opposing teams. Something he seemed very happy about.
"Alright kids! You all know the rules. Any part of the body hit above the waist doesn't count. You must throw the ball, not kick it, and if you hit someone in the head, you'll be personally escorted off the court by yours truly!" She then blew her whistle. "Play ball!"
At that the rain of red, ball shaped terror began.
When you play dodge-ball for as long as I have though, you learn a thing or two and the most important lesson I ever learned was to stay in the back behind everyone else. Because of this method I was usually the last person standing.
Pluto's method was the complete opposite.
Instead of hiding, he came as close as he could to the line without stepping over and while he dodged every ball expertly; he threw speed balls at my team vengefully. Driven by his aggression, my team retaliated with the same kind of fury. Within five minutes time, the team numbers began to decrease and before I knew what was happening Pluto and I were the only ones left on the court. "Looks like it's just you and me Williams!" He called out, making me frown at him. There was no way I was going to let this guy hit me with a ball, he was going down. I may be meek, but my camouflage jacket and I were mighty when it came to ball throwing.
Yes, I wore my camouflage jacket in gym class, fight me.
"Hit me if you can you!" I called back, wishing I had something wittier to say as I sidestepped the first ball, he threw at me. "Nice arm Pluto, you'll definitely make little league baseball!" I whistled, earning a sneer.
"That wasn't an accident Abigail! I'm just warming you up!" He announced, that devious smirk appearing once again and with a glare in return, I picked up a dodge-ball and threw at him with less aim then intended. Easily he stepped aside as I had.
"Is that the best you've got Gail?" He asked and I narrowed my eyes at him.
How dare he, I hated being called that.
"The names Abby or Abigail." I yelled, as I threw yet another ball at him, but he sidestepped that one yet again.
"What? You don't like that, Gail?" He asked tauntingly and I stomped my foot as I grabbed another ball.
"No! I don't!" I shouted as I threw another ball at him. This time my aim was perfect, there was no way the ball was going to miss him. But just as it seemed I was going to get my well-deserved victory, I lost horribly.
As the ball swirled towards him, Pluto caught everyone in gym class by surprise with a perfect back-flip to avoid the ball, and then right before he landed on his feet, he picked up the ball in his hand and threw it hard at me. I probably could have avoided that ball, honest, but his back-flip distracted me and next thing I knew I was knocked clean off my feet by the speed ball.
"That's how you do it Gail!" He hooted as his team went ballistic. Feeling anger and humiliation well up inside me like a burning flame, I pushed myself off the floor with an angry scowl.
"That wasn't fair! You cheated!'' I yelled, starting towards him but the teacher held out an arm to stop me.
"He won fair and square," She said firmly.
"No, he didn't! He knocked me off my feet! That's not fair! I call a rematch!" I demanded, red in the face from embarrassment and anger. Hearing me shout, Pluto looked my way with a smirk as he high-fived his team members.
"Let it go Abigail, it's no big deal." She warned and I exhaled deeply.
Very well, let him enjoy his victory, because when we got home later when there wasn't a teacher standing between us, he was going to pay.
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Hiiii guys! My goodness, I am so excited to have a day off tomorrow, work is killing me and my back is all achy. :( I was happy though that I had time to update today, and hopefully if all goes well I'll be updating one of my other stories to! :D that's pretty much it for my plans today.
How about you guys, what are your big weekend plans? :)
-Mari.