Have you ever been hung over without having a single drink? No? Well that’s exactly how I felt after waking up on the hard ground smelling of smoke and covered in blood. Awful, right? Just one of the perks of being me. What? You don’t believe me. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the ground I slept on, but the mattress was hard enough and just as uncomfortable as the ground. Maybe I would have been better off if I did sleep on the ground.
After I left my burned down house the other day, I went to my best friend’s house. Yes, my best friend. I do have one you know. Even people as crazy as me, tend to have at least one. If you don’t believe me just ask him. His name is Sequoyah. He lives just two streets over from where my house is, well used to be. Sequoyah accepts me for all my weirdness. Though that might be because he’s not all that sane himself.
Did I tell you about the time Sequoyah painted his room with spaghetti sauce? No? Then let me tell you about it. He said he loved the smell of spaghetti cooking, so he thought it would be a good idea. Needles to say, his parents were less than thrilled, when they cam home that day. I helped him was the walls down to get the smell out. Ah, good times, good times.
The door to my room creaked open. Well speak of the devil. It was Sequoyah.
“Wake up Nickel, rise and shine.” He said to me coming into the room. I groaned and moaned, if it was one thing I hated the most, it was being woken up. Don’t you just hate that. I sure do.
“Why are you waking me up so early in the night,” I asked.
“Early,” he laughed. “It’s not early Nickel. The sun’s out, the birds are singing, the day is ready to be seized. Now, get out of bed. My mom made breakfast. So get up, or else I won’t be able to eat. Your clothes are on the bed.”
“Fine,” I told him, getting up. Can you believe that guy? The nerve of him rushing me like that. You wouldn’t rush me like that, would you? I knew you wouldn’t.
I reluctantly got up and made a trip to the bathroom, emerging in a pair of hand-me-down blue jeans and a pull over black shirt. Clothes from Sequoyah, I bet. I never did find out who clothes they were. Not that it matters. So anyway, I made my way down Sequoyah’s family’s creaky old steps. I know what you’re thinking: everything in their house creaks, and you’d be right. Now you know how I feel, when I spend anytime over here.
I entered their blue and pink kitchen to see Sequoyah already shuffling eggs onto his plate, and he told me he couldn’t eat until I was down here.
“Good morning Nickel,” his mom said as she looked up from her plate.
“Same to you,” I said.
“Come sit down and eat,” Sequoyah demanded. There he goes again, right? Demanding things of me. So annoying, but we’re friends anyway. I sat down, even though I didn’t really want to. I was hungry and the food was looking and smelling great, so maybe that had something to do with it. Why didn’t I want to sit down and eat with them? Well after I started putting food on my plate, the reason had just walked in.
“Good morning family,” Sequoyah’s brother Nate, said as he came into the room. He was about to take a seat when he noticed me. Nate was two years older than Sequoyah and I. He was big and bulky, with brown curly hair. If you asked me he reminded me of a gorilla, but then no one‘s asking. “What’s that Zink doing here?”
“Nate,” his mother warned. “Don’t..”
“Don’t what mom,” he sneered. “It’s bad enough Sequoyah hangs out with this nutcase, but he doesn’t have to be in this house making people lose their appetites, so early in the morning, just from looking at him.
