Dakota Girl: Chapter 2

            The next morning, when I woke up in my new room that had been fully decorated the day before, I looked outside to mom had left for work yet; of course, she had. Her navy blue pick-up truck was gone and she was nowhere in the house. Though I knew she was gone, I had hoped she would leave me a note, telling me when I should expect her home, so I won’t worry. But there was no note. I can’t say I was surprised, because I really wasn’t. She always tells me that she has to be somewhere the day before, but she never, ever, tells me how long she will be gone, and she has a track record of talking to co-workers for an hour or two and/or going out somewhere without calling to let me know. I really wish she would because, if something were to happen to her, I would know that something was wrong and not be left in the shadows- again. Plus, it wouldn’t make me feel like her parent when it should be the other way around.

          Just then, my stomach growled so loud that I nearly jumped in surprise. I stole a quick glance at the clock on the stove and saw that it was already 8am, two hours since mom had left for work; she now works across town at this weird business place that tries to develop new echo-friendly products. (I still don’t get how or even why she enjoys her work, but at least I don’t have to do it as well.) Sadly, after I opened the door to the frig, I realized that we hadn’t gone shopping, so we had no milk, butter or really anything that was breakfast material, and I had a craving for Honey-nut Cheerios. Sulkily, I made my way over to the bread counter and grabbed one of the blueberry beagles that was left over from the ride here yesterday and tore a chunk out of it. It wasn’t a very good breakfast, seeing that there was not butter or cream cheese to put on it, and the only drink was had- that wasn’t soda- was water, but it was better than nothing.

          Once I had finished my banquet, I quickly changed into a pair of torn jeans and an old T-shirt to start working on the house. Luckily, mom had remembered to take my tool kit out of the truck so I could start measuring the missing pieces and get the supplies I needed to repair the house as soon as possible. Along with my sketch book, I marched outside to begin inspecting the house. I counted, at least, five shingles missing and twelve that looked loose. (Now that will be a project all of its own.) There were also, about, two missing pieces of wood within each of the thirteen window's shudders. That won’t be as hard to fix… I hope. It took me until lunch time before I had finally written down all the measurements and had a good idea of what materials I would need to buy from the hardware store.
 
          Lunch was much like breakfast, as was dinner. But, when mom had returned, she had gone grocery shopping before she came home, which was 8:25pm, and I looked forward to some really good meals, if you compared them to today’s. Once we had finished putting the food away, I snuck back to my cave to read, which is what I had been doing prior to her arrival. I flopped onto my bed and began reading where I had left off in the book 'Vampirates: Blood Captain Book 3' by Justin Somper:


        Connor awoke with a start. Immediately, he was fully alert. He felt a chill through his bones. The sky was black and the night air was empty of warmth of the sun. But it wasn’t just that. His dreams had given way to memories and the last thing he had seen, a second before waking, was his rapier slicing into Alessandro’s flesh.

      “What is it?” Cheng Li said. He looked up and found her sitting opposite him, making notes by lamplight in one of her books.

      “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Connor said.


      Just as I was about to continue, I heard mom call up, “Emi.”

      “Yah?” I answered irritably.

        “Come down here, please.”

        “Comin’,” I called back as I slammed that book shut in frustration. She always does stuff like this. It never fails that I’m at a really good part of a book and she calls me down for something. I lowered the stairs and went down as slowly as possible, just to piss her off. “What?”

          She gave me a stern look before she replied, “I wanted to introduce you to our landlord, Mr. Robinson. He’s going to help fix the house for us.” She gestured towards a shaggy looking gentleman who was standing in front of our door, which was yet another thing that needed to be painted. ‘Mr. Robinson’ had salt and pepper colored hair and a very wrinkly, hollowed-out face. His cloths weren’t much better. He wore a red flannel long sleeved shirt, with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, over a navy-blue T-shirt. The jeans he wore were worn and had a lot of tarred, especially around his knees. To top things off, he smelt like a smoker. Wonderful.

        “What do you mean ‘help fix up the house for us’?” I was very suspicious of this man and I didn’t want him to stick around our house any longer then he had to. Something about him, and I didn’t know what, gave creeps.

        Taking the opportunity, he said, puffing out his chest in pride, “I am going to assist with the renovations, meaning taking the measurements, finding the equipment needed, and doing the hard labor.” He sounded so arrogant; it really irritated me.

        I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my weight to one leg and stared at him. “I’ve already got the measurements and I’m going to the hardware store tomorrow to look for supplies.” My mom looked really shocked at my attitude; either that or that I had already gotten the measurements and was planning out how to get this place fixed up on my own. “So,” I continued, “I really don’t see how you come into the picture, unless you will give me a hand driving the materials here and that’s it.”

          There was a dead silence, once I had said this, and all shocked eyes on my persistent and stubborn face. There was no way in hell that I’d let this creeper hang around the house more than a few minutes at a time and not say anything about it. Even though we just moved in yesterday, this place already felt home, my safe place, and I am not going to let some bozo ruin that, ever. Mr. Robinson was the first to recover from the shock, “Oh. Alright then, just give me a call when you need a hand,” and he quickly wrote his name and number on a piece of pad paper that he had in his pocket; which was kinda really creepy. It was almost as if he predicted the need to give us his number. I’d just wanted to shove him out the door and slam it in his face.

        It wasn’t long before he left, seeing that it he was not welcome here. However, before I could dash upstairs to my book, mom gave me a good ten minute lecture about how I treated him. I tried to explain that he gave me the creeps, but she would hear none of it. Once I had finally gotten up stairs, I had lost my interest in reading. So, I decided to open the front two windows, letting in a gentle and cool breeze. Then, I positioned myself on the floor in a way that I could see the most number of stars and sighed. The view was almost indescribable; I could never see anything like this in Virginia, there was too much light pollution. But, out here in the middle of nowhere, I could see thousands of little lights against the pitch black night sky. I had never felt so… light- I guess you could say. I felt like I was drifting somewhere in the distance with the stars, somewhere far away from this lonely place, this lonely life in general.