The Calm before the Storm

As I wake up, I hear the birds outside. I wonder what they're talking about. I stand up on my bed so I can open my curtains. There's a red bird sitting on an oak tree outside my window. It's a baby tree. My mommy and daddy and sister and I planted it when I was five. I wave to the birdie, and it flies away. I think Daddy said it was called a cardinal once. I hop off my bed and go to find Daddy. I knock on his bedroom door.
"Daddy?" I call into the room.
He doesn't answer. Instead, I hear my sister's voice calling back to me from the couch. "He left an hour ago, Emily."
I rush into the living room. "Where'd he go?"
Matilda sighs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "The store." She says flatly.
She thinks the knows everything because she's thirteen but I know more than her. Yesterday in class we were doing math and no one else knew what twelve times twelve was but I did so the teacher gave me candy, and teachers don't give candy to stupid people.
I look at the round clock on the wall, trying to find out when he left, but I'm not good at knowing the time on the round clocks, so I go into my room to look at the square clock. It's eight eleven.
I go into Daddy's room and watch cartoons on his tv. Matilda doesn't let me watch cartoons when Daddy's not around. She says they're "annoying", but I like them. I flip on to a good cartoon and wait for Daddy to come home.
Some time later, I hear the sound of Daddy's truck pulling up it the driveway I hop up off of his bed and run to the front door. In my mind I imagine him picking me up and twirling me around, just like he used to. The door swings open and hits me right in the face.
"Damn it, Emily, I told you to stop doing that!" He yells.
I move out of his way. He walks into the kitchen and puts down the groceries he was carrying. He goes back outside to his truck to bring in the rest of the groceries. Once he's out of sight, I run into my room and let the tears come.
"Crybaby!" I hear Matilda call out from the living room. I slam the door and lock it.
I get onto my bed squeeze my giraffe, crying into it's long neck. Daddy didn't used to be a meanie. He used to be nice. But now he says bad words and I think he hates me because it's my fault that Mommy fell. He kept telling me not to leave my toys on the stairs but I did and then one night Mommy tripped and now Matilda says she's in a coma and I don't really know what it is but I know it's really bad and it's all my fault and now he hates me.
"Shut up!" I hear from outside my room. I quiet my crying.
Then I remember that I left the cartoon on in his room. He hates when I watch cartoons on his tv. I wait for him to yell at me again. He does. I stay in my room. I listen. I cry.