Heart | N.H.

nine - shenanigans

Wednesday, a tragedy occurred. Callie's parents gave away her pet rats, all four of them.

She was furious. I might have been the resident animal nut, but Callie absolutely adored Marshmallow, Muffin, Midge and Minty. If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard her give people the "rats are actually extremely intelligent and precious creatures, and your bias and ignorance sickens me" speech, I'd be rich enough to move to Paris.

Besides that, Annika and I knew it wasn't the only reason Callie was in such a bad mood. She'd been fighting with her parents all week. Ted's presence at home only meant one more thing they didn't agree about. Callie was convinced it was her parents' fault Ted was acting the way he was; she said both their children were tired of their unacceptance and indifference. For their part, the Hyungs grounded Callie and told Ted he really needed to start getting his act together. 

You could tell things were getting really bad by the fact that Callie had come to school today with her hair highlighted a new color: purple. She'd said it was because she was bored with blue, but I suspected she also wanted to spite Mr. and Mrs. Hyung, who strongly disapproved of her coloring her hair. Personally, I thought Callie with purple-streaked hair looked great; she matched it with purple lipstick and pale gray-lavender eyeshadow, a palette so well-put together that I wondered why she wasn't a painter too (then again, maybe the two weren't so similar, since I certainly had no luck with make-up). Of course, every part of this ensemble broke our school's dress code, but whatever.

Liam, Annika and Zayn had work that afternoon, and Louis had to stay back at his school to make up a test; this left the job of calming Callie down after the whole rat fiasco fell to Niall, Harry and I. But she wouldn't calm down. Nothing we did could get her to quit ranting. She was on the warpath.

"I'm getting them back. I fucking hate them."

Harry sighed. The four of us were standing in front of Chiver's, the town's public high school, where all the guys except Niall went.  "Callie, at this point it's unclear whether you're talking about the rats or your parents."

"I'm getting my rats back, and I hate my parents," she snapped.

"That seems a bit backward. And how do you plan to get your rats back?" Niall asked.

A smile crept across her face. Uh oh. I knew that look all too well.

"I have a plan," she announced.

"Run, guys, run," I advised.

Shooting me a poisonous look, Callie perched herself on the hood of Niall's car, her eyes glowing with determination. "I know where they live."

"Who's they?" I asked, resigned to my fate as a tagalong on the mission already.

On the other hand, Harry and Niall looked rather horrified. "How the hell do you know where they live?" questioned Niall.

"They being the jerk who took my rats," said Callie. "And I know, Niall, because my parents dropped the rats off at their house and I checked their GPS history." Her eyes were practically shooting sparks. "Did you hear what I just said, guys? They dropped the rats off. They were that desperate to get rid of them that they went out of their way! I'm so mad right now, you don't even-"

"Know? Don't even know that you're mad? You're so mad that you just spit all over my face," Niall said calmly.

Callie spat at his feet, deliberately and with considerable force.

Scrunching up his face, Niall said, "Ew."

I sighed. "Guys, a word from the wise, nothing you do or say is going to change her mind. Either agree to help or leave, because if you say another word against this she's going to murder you."