The Battle Begins

It was supposed to have been the perfect summer. Living in Florida was always perfect, but this year was even more special since Rennie Aspen would be celebrating her thirteenth birthday along with her two best friends. They were going to have a joint beach bash blowout party that would guarantee them making the most popular list when they entered middle school in the fall. The party would hopefully make up for having a mentally challenged little sister who did all the wrong things at all the wrong times.  All their plans fell apart though when Rennie’s parents’ daily spats turned into all-out war.  Now Rennie, her mom, and her little sister Ella, were on their way to Utopia Station, Iowa.   The sleepy backwater town on the edge of the Mississippi River was not the kind of place Rennie wanted to spend her summer.  Not only was the town boring with a capital B, but it meant they’d be staying with Grandma Grimm.  Harriet Grimm was not your normal cuddly, cookie making, kind of grandmother.  She was more like a fire breathing dragon who ate children for lunch.  She had so many rules it made your head spin.  Little did Rennie know, but Grandma Grimm would not be the worst thing she’d have to deal with that summer…the move north would put their family on a collision course with a crazed killer.

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

 

            Their angry voices woke her.  Harsh words tumbling down the hallway like brittle leaves in a winter’s wind.  Mom and dad were fighting again.  It seemed like all they ever did anymore.  Tossing back the covers, Rennie Aspen slid out of bed and tiptoed over to her door carefully popping it open a crack, so she could hear better.

            “We don’t have any other choice Frank, and you know it.”

            “I’d rather live in a box under a bridge than under your mother’s thumb.”

            “Maybe you should have thought of that before you mouthed off at work and got yourself fired.”

            Rennie heard the crash of a chair hitting the floor, and knew her father must have gotten to his feet in a rush of anger.

            “You try putting up with my father for one day, just one day Carrie Ann.  I’ve had a lifetime of his putdowns and self-righteousness.”

            “He was good enough to give you a job when no one else would.  We’d have been out on the street, or living in some dump infested with rats and cockroaches, if he hadn’t helped us out.  What’s so hard about working in a hardware store?  Would you rather be digging ditches?”

            “Yes, if it meant I wouldn’t have to listen to him bellowing at me all damn day.  Frank you did this wrong. Frank you did that wrong.  Frank why can’t you be more like your brother?”

            “You know I don’t get treated any better by my mother, but we don’t have any other options right now.  You need to think about the kids not your wounded ego.”

            “Yeah, like they need to see their parents brow-beat and running home like whipped pups.  That should really make them proud of us.  I won’t do it Carrie Ann, I just won’t.”

            “Are you saying what I think you are?  That if I take the girls up to mother’s you won’t be coming with us?”

            “I don’t know. Maybe.”

            “Well that’s a hell of an answer.  You’d run off and desert your family after what we’ve suffered because of you?”

            “Oh, you just had to bring that up didn’t you!  I made a mistake, and I paid dearly for it, but can you forget it and give me a little respect, a little dignity?  Hell no!  You just throw it in my face every chance you get!”

            “Well, we wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t tried to make a fast buck instead of working for what you wanted like an honest person.”

            “Right, all that was for me.  What about your nagging, Carrie Ann?  I want this. I want that. All my friends have a better life than me.  Whine, whine, whine.”

            “You lousy excuse for a human being, you are not going to make this my fault.  I defended you, stood behind you when you got fired for skimming from the till at Big Jake’s Hardware. And when your father offered you the job at his store, do you really think I wanted to move here to Gainesville?  No.  But I sucked it up, stuck with you, and look where it’s gotten me!”

            “You ungrateful b***h!  I did it for us, for you and the girls, and even then it wasn’t enough.  All you ever do is complain about what you don’t have instead of appreciating what you do have.  I’m sick of it, Carrie Ann.”

            Rennie cringed as she heard something hit the wall and break.  Her parents were really mad this time.  It was the worst she’d ever heard them speak to each other.

            “Where are you going?”

            “Anywhere but here, Carrie Ann. I told you, I’ve had enough.”      

            When the angry words ground to a halt, and all Rennie could hear was the kitchen clock ticking, she slid her door shut and bounced back down on her bed.  Things were worse than she’d thought possible if her mom wanted to move back home to her mother’s house in Iowa.  The idea sent shivers down Rennie’s spine.  Grandma Grimm lived up to her name.  She never smiled, expected children to be silent unless she asked them a question, and kept her house as spotless and frozen in time as a boring museum.  Living there would be a nightmare.  Plus Rennie would miss her friends Cindy and Jackie.  This was an important summer.  All three of them would turn thirteen.  The mere thought that she might have to face that monumental birthday alone made Rennie shiver all over again.  If only her dad hadn’t lost his job.  How bad of an employee must you be to get fired by your own dad?

            Pulling herself to her feet, Rennie grumbled all the while she got dressed in her school clothes.  It was Monday so she could at least look forward to seeing her friends and crying on their shoulders.  Stepping up to the full length mirror that hung on the back of her closet door, Rennie surveyed her outfit.  Jeans faded to a pale blue with a tiny slit in the knee that had just begun to fray.  A long sleeved t-shirt in her favorite color, deep purple, with sequins across the chest spelling out the word Princess.  For shoes this morning she’d chosen to wear one black sneaker with purple laces and one purple sneaker with black laces.  Pale lavender socks with narrow black stripes peeked out above the tops of her shoes.  Oh yeah, she was looking good.  Tugging her long light brown hair back into a ponytail, she swiped clear gloss across her lips.  Once again she wished her mother would let her use a bit of color or some mascara to make her plain brown eyes stand out more.  Whenever she asked about make-up her mother said the same old thing, “You can wait until you’re sixteen, there’s no sense in growing up too fast.”  Evidently back in the stone-age when her mother went to school ‘nice girls’ didn’t wear makeup until they were ancient hags of eighteen.  Making Rennie wait until sixteen was her mother’s idea of being lenient.  Ugh!

            Just as Rennie stepped out of her door to head to the kitchen, a whirlwind slammed into her legs, almost toppling her over.  It was her younger sister Ella.

            “Rennie!  I get to take dad to school today for Show and Tell!” Ella squealed in delight.

            Looking down her nose at the bundle of energy latched onto her legs, Rennie sighed.  “Did I not tell you a thousand times not to hug me?”  She saw the smile on her sister’s face waver for an instant.

            “You always tell me not to do stuff.  I forget sometimes.”

            Rennie shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Ella, what are you wearing?” she asked as she took in Ella’s choice of clothing for the day.

            Pushing back from her sister’s legs, Ella whirled.  She had on pink tights, her tap shoes, blue plaid shorts, a yellow t-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it, a lime green silk scarf around her neck, and four layers of fake pearls on top of that.  Her hair had been pulled into two lopsided pigtails tied with red ribbons.  She looked like some kind of mutant walking rainbow.

            “I’m wearing happy clothes today,” Ella giggled spinning around again. 

            “Mom isn’t going to let you go out of the house looking like that you know.”

            Glancing down at her colorful ensemble Ella frowned.  “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

            Rennie rolled her eyes.  Talking to the squirt was like banging your head against a wall, all it did was give you a headache.  “You look like a clown.”

            “I like clowns.”

            “But you can’t go to school looking like one.  What would people say?”

            “That I make them smile?”

            Before Rennie could suggest they go back to Ella’s room, and find something more appropriate for her to wear, their mother’s voice came screeching down the hall.

            “Regina Nicole!  Ella!  Hurry up or you’ll be late for school.”

            Ella gave a screech of delight as she turned and dashed down the hall calling over her shoulder, “Race ya!”

            Following behind, Rennie wished for the thousandth time that her mother would remember to call her Rennie.  She hated her given name, Regina Nicole; it sounded so old fashioned and didn’t suit her at all.  Rennie was the name she preferred. Funny, it was Ella who had first called her that unable to pronounce the longer Regina Nicole, shortening it to Ren and then Rennie.  At least the little squirt had been good for one thing.

Slipping into her chair, Rennie popped the Flintstones Vitamin waiting in the middle of her plate into her mouth and chomped it down.  Really, wasn’t she too old for cartoon character vitamins?

            “Do you want Sugar Pops or Fruit Loops?” her mom asked waving boxes of cereal in the air.

            “I want some of both,” Ella giggled.

            Rennie groaned.  Her sister always had to do weird stuff…always.  Even though she loved Ella, Rennie was usually embarrassed by her, and didn’t want her hanging around.  Sometimes she got short tempered and yelled at Ella, which brought yet another lecture from one of her parents on how she had to make exceptions for her little sister because she had ‘issues’.  It had taken several years for Rennie to learn what those ‘issues’ were, and why she was expected to be nice to her sister all the time.  When she was nine, Rennie had snuck into her parents’ bedroom, snooping through the file cabinet they kept hidden in the back of their closet.  She’d found a file with Ella’s name on it. She’d learned that her sister had been diagnosed as having delayed development due to mental retardation.  Rennie had to wait until she got to school the next day to find out what that meant.  Oh sure she’d heard the word retard before, but only in a derogatory manner applied to someone on the playground who was being annoying or acting stupid.  A book in the school library told her that Ella had a medical condition; one that would keep her from growing up to be a normal person who could care for themselves, hold a job or go to college. So she knew her little sister didn’t mean to act odd, she just did.  At least she didn’t have the worst kind of retardation, the one called Down’s syndrome.  Those kids not only acted weird, they looked weird, with thick tongues that lolled out of their mouths like some dumb mutt.  Their eyes were droopy, their heads too big, and sometimes their bodies were misshapen, too.  Although Rennie felt sorry for them, she was glad Ella looked like any other kid; she just didn’t act her age…ever.

            “Give me some Pops,” Rennie sighed when her mother waved the cereal boxes in front of her face. Pouring the golden sugar coated cereal in her bowl she asked, “Are you going to let Ella wear that outfit to school?”

            Carrie Ann Aspen looked at her youngest daughter and smiled.  “I think she looks like a rainbow.”

            “Mother!  She looks like some crazed clown dressed her.  You can’t let her outside looking like that what will people think?”

            “That she has a delightful sense of humor?”

            “Are you going to make her change or not?”

            “Rennie, I can’t deal with your negativity, not today.  It doesn’t matter what your sister wears to school,” Carrie Ann snapped, slamming the cereal boxes back in the cupboard.

            Rolling her eyes, Rennie knew she shouldn’t say what popped into her head, but knowing that didn’t  keep it from coming out of her mouth. “You’re just mad about dad losing his job.”

            Carrie Ann turned to stare at her oldest daughter. “You heard us talking this morning?’

            “If you want to call what you were doing talking, fine.  Sounded like a lot of cussing and name calling to me.  I’d get a bar of soap in my mouth if I talked to dad like that.  He lost his job, big deal.  Lots of people lose their jobs.”

            “Mom, where did dad lose his job?” Ella chimed in as she crunched off the head of her Flintstone vitamin. “Maybe I can find it.”

            “Oh duh,” Rennie said, rolling her eyes at her sister. “You are so dumb, Ella.”

            Carrie Ann glared at her oldest daughter.  “We will talk about this later.  You two need to eat your breakfast and go to school.”

            “I’m not a baby anymore, mom. You can’t just order me around.  And I am not moving.  Ever.  I like living here.  I have a life.  I have friends.”

            “Eavesdropping on other people’s conversations is rude.  You only heard bits and pieces and don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.”

            “Conversation?  Is that what you call yelling so loud it makes the windows rattle?  I heard you just fine, mom. And I am NOT moving!”

            Ella looked back and forth between her mom and her sister.  She hated it when they yelled at each other it made her feel all icky inside.  She began kicking the table leg trying to make their angry voices go away.  “Stop…stop…STOP!”

            “Now look what you’ve done,” Carrie Ann snapped.  Dropping to her knees beside her youngest daughter, Carrie Ann pulled the sobbing child into her arms.  “It’s okay Ella.  No one’s mad at you.  We won’t yell anymore.  Hush now, baby, hush.”

            Rennie rolled her eyes and let out a sigh.  She’d be hearing a lecture any minute.  How she shouldn’t talk back.  How she should be kinder to her sister and more understanding.  How she should act her age and be a help not a hindrance.  Well she didn’t want to hear it, not today.  She had enough unwanted words already beating at her brain.

            “I’m not hungry,” she snapped, shoving away from the table and getting to her feet. “And I won’t need a ride, I’m walking to school.”  Without waiting to hear what her mother would say, Rennie grabbed up her backpack from the counter and slammed out the back door.  Oh yeah this was just how she wanted to start her day, fighting with her mom and making her sister cry.  Just great.  She couldn’t wait to get to school and tell Jackie and Cindy all about this latest drama at the Aspen house. Rennie knew they would both offer her some much needed sympathy.  Move away from her friends?  Never!

Author's Note

Are the characters engaging enough to make you want to read more?