This is a short story I am working on, here's the first chapter...enjoy,
Chapter One - Coming Home
The bell rung loud throughout the school signalling the end of lunch and beginning of last lesson, I groaned internally at the thought of playing table tennis for the next hour and a half. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that it’s an offensive sport but just that i can think of many different ways I’d like to end my last day of school. I was relieved to have finished all my coursework before the last day and I don’t know why I still had to come in to school to do P.E. Next year I would be back as a six form student, I looked forward to that.
“Alyssa! Wait up!”
I turned around to see my friend Louise running up to me, a little flustered.
“Hey, whats up?” I asked curiously.
She had an excited look on her face, “I just spoke to Miss Williams, she said since we’ve finished all our coursework we can leave early!”
“Ah, yes!” I high fived her happily, “I was really not looking forward to table tennis.”
Louise lent against the wall slightly and nodded, “I know right, but this means you can come over to mine and we can get ready for my party!”
My smiled dropped, she’d been asking me for weeks to come to her end of school party but i really hadn’t thought of going at all. It would just be a house full of sweaty, drunk teenagers; that wasn’t my idea of fun.
Before i could saying anything Louise pushed on, “Look, I know you don’t like to drink but that’s fine, it will be fun just to hang out, also I heard Aaron say that he’s definitely going to speak to you if you turn up” She nudged me.
Aaron was tall and sporty, he went to the boys school twinned with ours and I had to admit he was attractive and seemed like a nice person but I wasn’t really that interested in him. Louise and I were the complete opposite, unlike me she had had her fair share of boyfriends. She was pretty different to me altogether, while I was fair skinned and blonde she was dark haired and a light golden colour that darkened in the sun almost as soon as she stepped outside. She was beautiful and curvy while I was flat and freckly.
“I don’t know if I’ll even be allowed, my brother is getting home from uni tonight and there’s some more packing I need to do before we leave.”
“Bring Isaac along!” She practically jumped at the thought of seeing my brother, I sighed, for as long as I’d known Louise she’d fancied my brother, when I told him he’d laughed and said she was cute, when I told her his response she had been confident from that moment on that he had felt the same way.
She grabbed my hand, “Just come for a few hours, so we can spend sometime together before you leave”
I looked around at the deserted corridor, everyone else was already in class, “Fine, for a few hours.”
“Yes!” She jumped and wrapped her arms around my neck, “It’s gonna be so fun!”
I laughed, “Yeah” although I seriously doubted it.
Three hours later I was laying on Louise’s bed in a tight black dress that was inappropriately high with my hair curled and loose, falling around my waist, I had to admit that I felt like I looked decent. Louise was standing in the mirror curling her eyelashes, she had a bodycon aztec dress on with long sleeves that emphasised her skinny arms. Her hair was long like mine and she had it tied up and a high ponytail with a ribbon.
The party wasn’t initially starting for another two hours but Louise had invited a few of the girls from school over that we were good friends with. There was Sophie, Alex and Kate, all extremely pretty girls, in party dresses. Kate had blonde hair like me except hers had been straightened and pinned at either side of her middle parting. She was sitting casually on Louise’s window sill, doing something on her phone.
I leaned over Louise’s bed and reached into my bag, retrieving my phone and turning it on. I had three new messages and an email. The email was from my teacher confirming that she’d received all necessary coursework. Then there were two messages from Isaac:
From: Isaac
Hey Ali, I’m on the train now,
should be there in an hour,
possibly two. I have something
for you. See you when I get there :P
From: Isaac
I can’t get hold of mum, are you at
home as I don’t have the keys?
The last one was sent half an hour ago, I mentally pinched myself for not seeing this sooner, if Isaac was locked out he’d be annoyed, I hoped that Emma was home from school to let him in.
From: Emma
Isaac just rung me saying
he was locked out, mum
and I are in town, you better
get home and let him in.
Damn it, I thought. Why can’t someone else go home and let him in? For one night can’t i just have some fun!
I got up from Louise’s bed, “Hey, Isaac’s locked out, I have to go home and let him him” I went to get my shoes.
Louise turned away from the mirror and looked at me, “You must be joking, can’t someone else go let him in?”
“Well mum and Emma are in town picking up last minute things for tomorrow and I’m not allowed to contact dad while at the races unless of an emergency.”
Louise sighed, “Okay, go let him in quick and then come straight back”
“I will, I promise”, I grabbed my coat and bag and went to the door, “I’ll be back in 10 minutes”
I heard some ‘okay’s and ‘bye’s before shutting the door and walking down the stairs.
Luckily Louise's house is a two minute walk from my house and I find myself outside my front gate without even realising. A familiar looking boy is sitting on the porch next to a massive suitcase and another big bag.
“Isaac!” I yell out, half walking, half running towards him, he recognises me straight away and gets up, pulling me into a tight hug, I missed him when he went away, I was glad he would be coming on holiday with us, it had been a long time since our whole family had been together, with Isaac at university and dad busy with the horses, our big family house looked empty and unhomely.
I slid the key into the lock and let us into the house, picking up his bag without realising how heavy it would be, “Wow, Isaac, what do you have in here, a dead body?”
He laughed and swept his arm under the bag, picking it up with ease, and carried both bag and suitcase into the hallway, I followed behind and turned the lights on, as well as the heating, the house got pretty cold, especially in the evenings. Then I went to look at Isaac, he was unzipping his bag and pulling out some pretty heavy duty books. No wonder it was so difficult to pick up.
“You know you’re meant to be on holiday right?”
He turned and looked at me, giving me the older sibling face, the one that says ‘I know what I’m doing, I am older than you, you know?’ And then he went back to retrieving his books. Isaac was the most intelligent in the family though he specialised in English Literature, he could annoyingly quote authors all the time, to fit any situation. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, he studied whenever he could, anything and everything he could get his hands on, when he had been living at home his bedroom was always clustered with big, expensive , hard-back books that you could only get in certain ancient libraries and bookstores.
Once he’d placed about seven books on the floor he looked up at me, well, up and down actually. His nose crinkled and he stared intently at me, “Ali, can I ask you why you are dressed the way you are?”
Oh, crap. I’d completely forgotten that I was in Louise’s dress, which I now noticed was way too short and revealing to be walking round my family in. “It’s Louise’s!” I started, “She’s having a party, start of Summer thing, you’re meant to dress up”
He looked at me, “Yeah, then why are you dressed down? To a vest top?”
I was flustered by his reply, he didn’t usually care about how I dressed. My slow reply gave him enough time to walk into the kitchen, I followed after him.
“Louise said you can come too!”
“No offence but, no thanks, I just got back from uni, it’s a non stop party.”
I highly doubted that, he was just making excuses.
“Well, I’ve let you in, so I’m going back”, I say, crossing my arms.
He laughed without looking at me and opened the fridge, “Not like that Ali, you will not leave this house looking like that. I know what boys will think when they see you.”
“And what’s that?”
He slammed the door of the fridge shut, “They will take advantage!”
Now I was offended, what kind of girl did he think I was?
“That is not going to happen.”
“Yeah, well I guess we won’t find out, don’t even think of leaving the house tonight, especially the night before we leave for holiday. What did you think? Do you want to sit on a twenty-one hour plane journey with a hangover?”
“I wasn’t going to get drunk!”
He walked past me with a glass of water, “Yeah, whatever Alyssa.”
I stared at his back resentfully, he could be so controlling, but I didn’t want him to be angry with me while we were on holiday, I wanted us all to have a good time so I decided I’d text Louise, she’d understand, we could always party when I came back from Australia.
Abruptly, Isaac appeared at the door, “And by the way, whose idea was it to buy four carton’s of apple juice? Not funny.”
I almost laughed as he walked away, Isaac despised apple juice, he said it was after going to a friends birthday party when he was five, he said he would never tell the story. Anyway, mum had thought it would be funny to buy them before he came home, he probably would of thought it too if I hadn’t of ruined his mood.
I’d texted Louise and made a cup of tea before heading up to my room to make sure everything was in order before we went away. I had been so excited when mum told us we were spending our first two weeks of the summer holiday in Australia, the furthest anyone had been in my friendship group was New York which is about nine hours but it still doesn’t beat a flight to Australia. I’d went out shopping with Louise and bought so many different items just for this holiday: floral patterns, flowy skirts, pastel crop tops, about ten different bikinis and as a gift, mum had gotten me some new Ray Bans.
On the way upstairs I heard the front door open followed by the sound of footsteps and rustling bags. Leaning over the banister I saw it was mum and Emma with - it looked like - twenty bags between them.
“Last minute shopping guys!” I shouted out.
They both looked up, “Ali!”, mum started, “How are you? Did Isaac get in, did he see the apple juice?”
She looked proud of herself, I didn’t want to upset her by telling her that Isaac was already in a mood because of me, “Yeah, he laughed”, I smiled.
She smiled back and laughed at Emma, “We got him.”
While she was distracted I began walking back upstairs but was momentarily caught.
“Ali, wait! I got you a couple of little evening dresses for when we go out for dinner, come back and see if you like them.”
I backtracked a little to look down at the dresses she was holding.
One was a simple, pale print, tight top with a long flowy skirt while the other was a shorter halter neck that was vivid pink . They had definitely been bought at different shops.
“Yes to the long one, no the other one”
Emma looked at mum knowingly, “I told you, didn’t I tell you?”, she looked at me, “I told her you wouldn’t like that one”
I laughed and ran down the stairs to take the dresses, mum gave my the long one and put the other back in the bag.
“If you don’t want it, I’ll have it.”
Emma looked appalled and surprised while I laughed and went back upstairs.
“While you’re up there can you tell Isaac to get his unsociable ass down here to say hello to the other family members, please Ali!”
I sighed, I really did not want to talk to him right now, “Yeah, sure”. Great.
