satyapriya: Macchu Picchu 2009 (Default)
satyapriya ([personal profile] satyapriya) wrote2018-01-19 07:14 am
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CD GENIE 1

Sammie hammered on her older brother's bedroom door.
"Give me back my cd's!"
Light pop music carolled out from under the door, turned up, and then up again.
"Daaaaavid!"
Bash, bash, bash went her fists in time to Fluffy Cat's hit single 'Dance Like You Mean It'.
Sammie turned away. "Muuuum!"
Her mother's muffled voice came from the laundry. "What?"
"David's got my cd's."
"Then take them back."
"He's locked his door again."
A deep sigh from the depths of the laundry basket, then trudging footsteps up the hallway. Alison Tregonning knocked on her son's door with one hand, running the other through her short sandy hair. No response. So, like her daughter, she slammed her fist into the wood.
David opened the door. He towered over both Sammie and Alison.
"I was giving them back," he said. He shoved a stack of cd's at Sammie, but Fluffy Cat still played on.
"Fluffy Cat's mine," said Sammie.
"Nuh."
Alison put one bony finger under her son's chin, which was planted on his collar bones. She lifted his face until he looked at her.
"Fluffy Cat? Hers?"
Without saying another word, he turned away, tore the cd out of his player, and shoved it at his sister. Sammie grabbed it.
"It better not be scratched." She caught her mother's eye. "Thanks," she grunted.
Alison rolled her eyes. "You two do speak in words, right? Whole sentences? It's like living with neanderthals. Ugh. Yuh. Nuh. Ta. Food." She looked at Sammie. "Sammie, gardening. David, vaccuum."
Both of her kids turned away.
"Now!" she added.
Sammie nipped back to her room, dumped the cd's on her bed, and plodded out into the bright morning sunshine. A magpie warbled, and a raven answered with a hoarse caw. She made a kissy noise with her lips, but knew neither one would magically come to her. That sort of thing happened in fantasy novels, and movies, not in real life.
She pulled on her gardening gloves, and knelt down in front of the flower bed that ran along the front fence. The dandelions, and couch grass were waging war on the basil. The ground already felt warm under her knees.
As she pulled out long runners of grass, she thought about how she was a slave to her mother's endless rota of chores, and a great victim of her brother. It just wasn't fair. Her mood helped give her strength to pull on the really tough roots.
"Stupid!" she said out loud. "Why do I have to have a brother at all?"
"Because that's the way the world works!" said a cross, high-pitched little voice. A tiny brown man wriggled his way out of the disturbed soil, grasped at the long white root of a strand of crouch grass, and pulled it back into the hole with him. "Do you mind? That's my wall divider." And he was gone.