Chapter 6

"Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face."

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was Friday morning, the day that the house guests were arriving for dinner.

I groaned frustrated and pressed my face into my pillow. Great, more work for the maid, I thought as I dragged myself out of bed and trudged to my closet.

I picked out my clothes sluggishly and walked back into my room getting dressed as slowly as possible.

Finally, I looked at my face in the mirror. My eyes looked dull and lifeless. My lips were dry and cracked, and I had dark circles making it look like I had two black eyes.

Grimacing, I quickly pulled out some foundation, carefully applying it under my eyes and hoped I didn't look like a raccoon.

I grabbed a white satchel bag, my keys, and applied a coat of chap stick before leaving my room and walking into the kitchen.

There was no sign of the ice queen and her minions but I was sure they were around somewhere. I quickly approached the kitchen counter where a plate of food was waiting for me, courtesy of Ava who was currently serving up more.

"Good morning Ava," I said, my mouth full of pancake.

"Good morning, Sorsie," she said smiling happily. "How did you sleep last night?"

I frowned at her question remembering the dream that I had. The little girl, her mother, the stars, the pink room, the mirror. Kierra.

"Sorsie, are you alright?" Ava asked breaking me out of the sudden trance the memories brought on.

"Huh?"

Ava looked at me puzzled before repeating the question slowly. "Are you alright?"

"Oh...yeah...just a lot of stuff on my mind. You know, with the guests and stuff."

Ava opened her mouth about to ask more questions when the sound of heels clicking on tiles wafted towards us.

I shoved the rest of my bacon into my mouth and quickly washed it down with orange juice before waving to Ava and hightailing it out of the kitchen.

I got to school in a matter of minutes though I wasn't really feeling up to it today. I walked into the building swiftly and threw my stuff into my locker. First class: ballet.

By the time the last class of the day arrived, my feet were aching and my patience had thinned.

People kept throwing me the same dirty looks as usual. I was pushed, shoved, and tripped during dance.

Someone switched out my lines during drama and let's just say, there are some things that should not be repeated for innocent ears.

I ended up being ten minutes late for orchestra because someone had taken my flute and hidden it in the girls bathroom.

My lunch was eaten by a bunch of jocks who had been passing by after ruffling my hair and making sexual gestures towards me.

Vocal had been okay until someone thought it would be funny to switch my water with diet seltzer. Gross.

I ended up choking on it after doing an impromptu mini spit take.

In Photography..well it would be better if I explained right?

~*~*~*~*~

Mrs. Harris had ordered us to collect our rolls of film and start developing them but me being...well me, I somehow managed to pick up the wrong roll of film.

Instead of my cityscape pictures that I had spent an entire Friday afternoon working on I got body parts. More specifically, female body parts. Still don't understand? Should I spell it out for you? It was a roll full of porn.

Mrs. Harris is a no nonsense type of woman. So imagine her reaction when she walked into the developing room and found porn.

10 minutes earlier....

A sharp knocking sounded on the door behind me and the voice of Mrs. Harris wafted through.

"How are you doing in there Callista? Is everything okay?"

"Y-yes Mrs. Harris. E-everything is f-fine," I replied lying through my teeth.

Everything was not fine. I quickly scrambled around trying to rip down the pictures from where they were hanging, desperately removing the rest of the pictures from the chemicals. In my haste I accidentally knocked down a drying rack full of those things.

The doorknob began jiggling and Mrs. Harris demanded that I open the door. S**t. What am I going to do? There was nowhere to hide the pictures and she was right outside the door.

Suddenly, the door flew open and there stood Mrs. Harris, red faced as ever holding onto the master keys. She opened her mouth to say something but then spotted the pictures lying on the ground.

Her eyes popped out and looked like they were going to fall out at any moment and her mouth was hanging open.

We stood there like that for a good two minutes as she tried to process what she was seeing.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, my face heating up, before saying, "H-hi Mrs. Harris. What are y-you..um...I-I can explain this."

She raised her eyebrow at me skeptically and nodded for me to explain myself.

"Um...y-you see, it seems like I picked up the wrong roll of film...b-because this one sure as hell is not mine." Goddamn my stuttering.

"I-I had a roll of cityscape photos...I don't know how I managed to pick up the wrong one though my initials were on it...and um...okay I'll stop talking now."

I had been rambling for the past minute while she listened intently with a thoughtful look on her face. She walked over to me slowly and reaching out her hand, grabbed the tube and looked at it. On the side, the initials C.R. were written in sharpie.

She looked at me one more time before grabbing hold of my wrist and leading me out of the room.

We entered her classroom where everybody was waiting for the bell to ring and there sitting on her desk were my pictures.

My cityscape pictures that is. My jaw dropped lightly as she picked them up and held them up for me to see.

"These are yours then I presume."

I nodded my head mutely and watched as she walked over to a table full of guys who were all laughing and joking and fooling around.

In a stern voice she said, "Chase Rodriguez, I assume these are yours." and slapped them down onto the desk.

Chase moved forward and looked down at the pictures before grinning and exclaiming in a loud obnoxious voice, "I've been looking for these. Can't have a good night without some material right?"

Everyone burst into laughter as I stood there looking at him in disgust.

"Oh and by the way, Ronan, thanks for getting it done for me," he said and then had the nerve to wink at me causing everybody to burst into laughter again.

Before I could reply the bell rang and everybody left. With an irritated groan I filed out wordlessly behind them.

I walked into my art class cautiously, eyes flitting around trying to find anything suspicious. So far, so good.

I walked over to my station silently and sat down facing a blank canvas. There weren't a lot of people in here and I was thankful for that.

I don't know how long I could go being surrounded by snobs without blowing my fuse. I picked up a pencil and began making a random sketch.

As my fingers gripped the pencil and lines began to flow across the page, I thought of the woman in my dream and how she would have looked had she turned towards me.

I thought of the stars in the sky and a little chubby hand reaching up to touch them and of the dark night surrounding them as they sat on the rooftop and the street below them.

I thought of the soft wind blowing and the echo of giggles as I let myself get lost in the memory and my pencil to guide my thoughts.

A loud shrill ringing suddenly interrupted my thoughts and I blinked slowly. Students were packing up their belongings and cleaning up their stations.

I turned my attention to the canvas in front of me and gasped in shock. On the paper, I had drawn the scene from my dream. Every little detail was pressed into the paper. There was only one difference though.

The woman, Troianne's mother, had a face.

Reviews

[sohadtolba]

"I frowned at her question remembering the dream that I had. The little girl, her mother, the stars, the pink room, the mirror. Kierra." You dont need to state all that cuz already the reader knew about the dream. So just stop at she was frowned with no explanation of the dream in the next sentence... cliche :)