Perfect Little Angel

A short story about a young girl who does everything right the wrong way.

   “Why? Why? I asked you why!” screamed my sister, throwing my stuffed rabbit against the wall. Why? I’ll tell you why; I wanted to know what happened when you poured that stuff called Clorox on something colorful. Mommy said it was bad for color, but I wanted to see for myself.
   My sister likes to scream, even the music she listens to has screaming in it. So do the movies she watches (sometimes they have a lot of kissing in them too). The shirt she’s wearing looks much better now that I’ve Cloroxed it. It was black but now it’s like a pink color; I think it’s pretty.
   “Farrah, just you wait till I tell Mom what you did!” Atoosa yelled at me. Atoosa is my sister; she has dark hair like Mommy and dark eyes too. My hair is like Mommy’s but I have Daddy’s eyes. When they told me that, I said I would give them back, but they laughed and said I could have them.
Atoosa’s eyes looked angry.
   Mommy came to my rescue then. “What’s going on here?” she said, her hands on her hips and a soapy skillet in one hand. She took one look at her daughter’s shirt and began to laugh. “I see we’ve changed our style,” she said.
   Atoosa pointed an angry finger in my direction, “She ruined it! She poured bleach all over it!” she snapped.
   Mommy raised an eyebrow and walked over to me saying, “No. Not Farrah, she’s my perfect little angel.”
   Atoosa slammed her fist against the wall as she left the room, the chains hanging from her belt clinking as she stomped through the doorway. I was a good girl.

   Two days later, my brother Auron threw my octopus doll against my closet door. He has Daddy’s eyes and hair. His eyes were angry too. I had only been experimenting with these little pieces of paper that had a bunch of grass in them, they were in a little white box in the bottom of his filing cabinet. It said in gold letters on the front Winston Lights.
   I showed them to Daddy and asked how to play the game and he said, “It’s called: Find your brother and bring him to me. Then we watch all hell break loose.”
   I never did see anything jump out of any cage without permission, but I did see Daddy take off his belt and whip Auron really good over his backside, then he started yelling. Mommy said something about smoke being bad for you. I never saw a fire, so I don’t guess there was any smoke. But Auron said, “That little monster shouldn’t have been in my room going through my stuff in the first place!”
   “Well, I’m glad she was.” said my father in his deep voice, “That’s why she’s our perfect little angel.”

   A week or so later Auron and Atoosa had a friend come by. Her name was Samantha and she was head of the cheerleading team at school. She was telling them about a dance at her place that night at twelve. I heard a few new words; one was Vodka and the other sex. Atoosa started smiling and shuffling her feet a lot. Auron began to stutter when he answered her questions. (After she left I asked Mommy what sex was, but she turned red and said, “Go ask your father.” So I did. He said it was a game you played when you were old enough. I asked why you had to be older and he said, “It’s like those warning labels they put on puzzles; For ages seven and up. Sex is a game where you have to be married and up.”)
   Later on at night, I stayed up late to see if they would go. Mr. Bunn-Bunn and Sir Eight-Legs kept me company; all three of us were tired. Atoosa walked down the hall and peeked into my room, so I pretended to be asleep. I’m good at pretending. I once pretended to be a snake that had just eaten a mouse. Once Atoosa thought I was asleep, she went and got Auron and they took his car and drove to Samantha’s.
   I waited to see when it was that they would come back; and I fell asleep for what Mommy calls thirty minutes. I know how long it was because I checked this big round thing in the kitchen that has numbers on it. Daddy calls it a clock, and he wears its baby on his arm but he calls that a watch.
I went and checked Auron’s room but he wasn’t there, so I looked out my bedroom window but the car wasn’t there, so they weren’t back yet. I went to Mommy and Daddy’s room and woke them up and said that my sister and brother weren’t back yet, but not to worry.
   “Back from where?” asked Daddy.
   So I told them about what Samantha had said about the Vodka and the game Daddy said was sex. Mommy turned white and Daddy turned red. Red is my favorite color, but it doesn’t look good on Daddy. Daddy must think so too, because when he’s red he likes to yell a lot. Something tells me that don’t help.
   Mommy drove down to Samantha’s and picked my sister up, Auron drove his own car back. Daddy told me to go to bed as the two cars pulled into the driveway, but I sat at the top of the stairs and watched. Atoosa was green when she came in, and green and black don’t go too well together. Auron’s shirt was ripped and he had red stuff dripping out of his nose. I never got to sleep that night because Atoosa kept making these gross noises and then flushing the toilet after.
   I asked Daddy why, and he said it was because of that game they played called Vodka. Mommy told me not to ever play that game and I said to her, “I won’t.”
Auron came to me later in the night and said he was mad at me, and when I asked why he just said, “Because,” and walked away. But not fast enough because Mommy and Daddy came in and caught him.
   “Why are you mad at her?” asked Mommy, “She wasn’t the one getting drunk.”
   “She’s our perfect little angel.”

   The next day Atoosa stayed home sick from school. Auron went and I did too. Mommy made him walk me to school and Daddy said he had to pick me up after.
   When I got to school, my friend Sam met me at the jungle gym and gave me half of his PB&J sandwich. We walked into the school building together and went to Ms. Honey’s First Grade class. Ms. Honey is a nice lady and I like her. Sam stuck a penny up his nose because Gloria dared him to halfway through class and then couldn’t get it out, so Ms. Honey said he had to go see the nurse.
   While Sam was gone, they introduced a new girl. Her name was Tammy and she came from another school and was living here now, so she had to go to our school.
   I went over to her desk and gave her a picture that I had drawn and said, “This is a friendship flower. Will you be my friend?”
   Tammy looked at the flower, frowned, then ripped it up saying, “She loves me not.” And then glared at me, so I ran away as fast as I could.
   I was crying when Sam came back, and I said, “That mean girl tried to bite me.”
   “Yeah,” he said, “She’s scary, ain’t she? Come on, come sit on the swings with me.”
   At the end of the day I waited for Auron to come and pick me up like Daddy said he had to. Sam’s Mommy came and picked him up. I said bye and he said bye and we waved to each other until we couldn’t see each other anymore.
   I was walking over to the sidewalk when Tammy showed up, she never said anything but she ran up to me and pulled my hair, and then bit me. So I kicked her and she bit me again and I cried.
   “Hey! Get off her, leave her alone! That’s my sister!”
   Next minute Auron picked me up and held me and told Tammy to go away, I just cried.
   “You okay, Farrah?” he asked me, setting me down on the ground. I rubbed my eyes and nodded, sniffing.
   “You not mad at me no more?” I asked, sniffing.
   “Mad?” he laughed, “How could I be mad at you? You’re a perfect little angel.”
   He gave me a hug and walked me home. That’s my story.

Author's Note

I wrote this as a Young Author's Fair entry in 2007 or 2006....can't remember which.