The Snake Queen

Chapter 27

Dedicated to EmmanuelEmeka5

By the time the shop closed, I was the only one there after lock up. Mainly because I had three cobras on the front seat of my car when I got out. It wasn't usual to find snakes on my front seat. Howeverm it was completely normal for Tombutoo to ride in the back seat. Especially when any of my friends were in the car.
"Can I help you?" At this point, I was fairly annoyed. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I want to go home."
"You dyed your hair." Basul, a black and brown spitting cobra, pointed out the obvious.
"No shit, Sherlock. I just woke up and my hair was like this." I said sarcastically.
"No need to get snippy, Mahogany." I heard Tombutoo behind me.
"Maybe it's some sort of teenage horomone thing." The rest of the serpents began to mutter amongst themselves.
"I rolled my eyes. "I'm surrrounded by idiots." I threw my bookbag in the back seat.
"Mag, you aren't supposed to be dying your hair. It's bad for the scales." Tombutoo informed me.
"Don't really care." I climbed into my car and drove off.
At this point, I didn't care what happened to me because of this whole curse. Most teens my age dyed their hair to rebel against their parents. I do it in hopes of having some positive effect to go along with this curse. My parents might worry about how the dye will affect my change, but they'll understand that I'm just trying to be a normal teenager like the rest of my friends. They'll have to understand.
They can't tell me I'm not allowed to do all the other normal things kids my age do when I've done nothing wrong to deserve what I got. It's not like I got myself into a situation I can't get myself out of. I stayed out of enough major trouble to where I could've ruined my life or someone else's. My record's clean, I never really drank or do any kind of drugs, including weed, I don't get involved in illegal street races, and I'm not pregnant, nor have I ever been.
I've come to realize this isn't my fault, and it's not my parents fault. I was just a young kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it affected me greatly. The only part of this that is my parents fault is not telling me sooner. So now I have two choices: I can either run away from it, like I've been doing, or I can embrace it. Unfortunately, that's a descision only I can make.
When I got home, I noticed my dad's car was missing. I figured him and my mom went out. I was wrong. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine when I walked in. Something was up.
"Mom, you okay? Where's Dad?" I asked her but received no answer. "I'm going back to Skye's. I just came home to grab some clothes." Nothing. "I love you, Mom." I kissed the top of her head and went went upstairs.
It wasn't normal for my mom to be in that position and my dad not home. It actually meant something was wrong with Dad. The question is: What's wrong with my father?
I tried my best to put it out of my head on the way back to Skye's but I couldn't. I had so many questions. Is my dad sick? Are my parents getting divorced? Did one of my dad's closest friends die? Whatever it was, it was starting to bother me that something was wrong.
"Did he get mad about your hair?" Skye asked as she pulled a juice bottle out of the fridge.
"No. He doesn't even know I was thinking about it, much less doing it."
"Did your mom say anything?"
"I got nothing from her. No words, no movement, no nothing. Didn't even look at me. She was just staring at the wall."
Skye couldn't even figure it out no matter how hard she tried to guess. Whatever was wrong with my parents was anybody's guess.
"Then your best bet would be to call your dad and ask him what's going on with your folks." She shrugged.
"Yea. Maybe. I'll call him in the morning and ask him. Maybe he'll tell me what's up."
"Until then, we have clothes to go through." I nodded in approval and we went downstairs.
"Hey, maybe it's because you're gonna be a junior, you're trying to get out of this curse, you're being difficult about it, and you might end up not making it to nineteen."
"What do you mean?" I plopped down on her bed.
"Think about it. You're an only child, much less Daddy's little girl. Maybe there's an issue with your parents because there's the possibility you're gonna die, and you're spending more time trying to break the curse rather than do what you're supposed to be doing to even try to prevent your death. Maybe they're upset because they're terrified of, not only losing their only daughter, but they're only child."
"You think so?"
She shrugged. "I know my mom would be upset if something like this happened to either one of us. Hell, my dad would be a wreck if he lost his precious little girl."
Hmmm. Maybe Skye was onto something here. Maybe there was an issue with my parents because of my family's curse affecting my mom's precious little baby and my dad's little girl.