Feline (Chapter Two)

The second chapter of "Feline".

 

At ten o' clock, I joined my parents downstairs in the kitchen. It wasn't a very big room, but the furniture was nice and classy. The dining table was oval and made of fiber glass. Dad was seated in one of the chairs when I entered. Mom was bent over the stove while cooking sausages. She was obsessed with cooking, and I couldn't deny that she was an excellent cook. Maybe that's why Dad fell in love with her in the first place.

“Good morning,” I greeted them as I settled into one of the chairs next to dad. He looked up at me from the daily newspaper covering his face and grinned. He looked young for a forty-five year old. People say I looked more like my father than my mother.

We both have big, hazel brown eyes and brownish-black hair. He was slightly bald so he frequently wore a cap even inside the house. One more thing we have in common were our heart-shaped faces and big ears.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom said as she moved towards the table and placed a bowl of sausages between the empty plates. She was curvy and gorgeous for her age – I don't remember how exactly old she is. I think she's four or five years younger.

Her long, blond hair that usually fell in waves down her shoulders was bunched up in a ponytail today. Sometimes I think I'm so blessed for having such a beautiful mother like her. Not that I'm not contented with my dad, but she's just... wonderful.

I happily scooped up two sausages with a spoon and threw it into my plate. It was the first day of Summer, and I couldn't be more happier about it. Two full months of fun, relaxation and vacation. Vacation! I couldn't remember the last time I've been out of Honey Grove.

It was a wonderful place, less crowds and more mesmerizing scenery than the rest of Texas.

“Are you going somewhere today?” asked Mom as she flopped into one of the chairs across the table and started eating too.

“Mm-Hmm,” I said through a mouthful of sausages.

“With?”

I rolled my eyes and swallowed with difficulty. I waited for the chest pains to cease before I answered her. “The usual. Danielle. Tyrone. Some of the other teenagers from school.”

“And where are you kids going?” she asked in a suspicious tone.

I sighed and put down my spoon. I hated having to ask permission and getting interrogated like a criminal. It was Mom's way of forcing me to tell the truth. I wasn't such a big liar, but she was just too strict that lying was sometimes a necessity.

Dad, on the other hand, was the opposite. He was such a happy-go-lucky guy who couldn't care less. That's what I loved most about him.

“Mom,” I said grudgingly, leaning over the table. “I'm seventeen years old. Don't exaggerate. Besides, nothing is going to happen to me.”

“Nothing!” she cried mockingly. “Remember the time when you went hiking in the woods with your adventurous, little friends and returned home covered in scratches and bruises?”

Crap. How could she bring that up again? That was ages ago. We did went hiking into the woods three summers ago.

During a dare to climb some rocks, I fell ten feet to the ground. Luckily, I didn't have a concussion but the wounds were a two-week long pain in the a*s.

“I was fifteen back then,” I reminded her. “And we're not hiking this time.”

“And seventeen is old enough?” she scoffed.

I rolled my eyes again and saw dad's expression. He was grinning at me teasingly. I chuckled and turned back to my mother.

“It's just a house party,” I assured her. “A summer celebration, you know? Just the school kids. It'll be awesome.”

“Which house are we talking about?” Mom eyed me even more suspiciously. I knew who she was thinking about.

“Don't worry, it's not Kurt Simon's house,” I muttered, reading her thoughts. “It's Samantha Bourghman, you know, the rich girl in my class. Everyone's invited. Not the parents of course,” I added hastily.

She seemed to consider this for a moment and turned to Dad.

“What do you think?” she asked him, and I felt relieved. She could never win against him.

He shrugged and folded the newspaper on an empty space.

“Let her go,” he said. “She's old enough.” Then he turned to me with another of his teasing smiles, “You do promise not to stray from the party, do you?”

I grinned and nodded vigorously.

“Well,” he said, turning back to Mom. “That's it. Nothing to worry about, dear. You don't have to treat her like a five-year old all the time.”

“You two are so alike,” Mom said furiously, but she too was smiling. She took the plates and moved to the sink. Dad winked at me and resumed reading his paper.

Then, as silence enveloped us once more, the memory of the nightmare shifted in my thoughts again. If it was real... Who were they? How could they turn into cats? What were they running from? Wolves. I remember one of them saying.

But it couldn't have been real. Who in the world would believe such a story? It's just a nightmare. Just that. Nothing more.

“Why the long face?” Dad said. I glanced at him, startled. He must've seen the anxious look on my face.

“Nothing,” I murmured and stood up. “I'll take a shower now. Danielle and Tyrone said they'd meet me at the new boutique shop to buy some clothes for the party.”

Mom turned from the sink. “What boutique?”

“Harvendale's,” I said innocently. “Haven't I told you?”

She shrugged and turned back to the dishes.

“Do you want me to drive you there?” Dad asked me without looking up from the newspaper.

“No, it's not that far. I can walk there,” I told him and left the kitchen.

Reviews

[Donna DeLong Matthews a..]

Wonderful Ok lets get the rest on here
Hugs
Donna