"Ur elect srtd?"
As usual, it takes me a while to figure out what Craig's messages mean. I hate his shorthand messages.
You are elected, Sir Tod? No. Your election serrated? Ah! Your electricity sorted?
Okay, I'll go with that one.
"Settled in OK?"
"R u sulking?"
"WTF?"
"R u rly not c-ing my msgs or r u ignoring me?"
"Don't make me drive over there!" Wow, he was mad enough to type full words!
"Srsly, I dnt wanna drv ovr thr, it's far..."
"Lunabelle!"
"Uve da map, srsly, if I drv ovr thr & gt lst, ur DEAD!"
"R u dead? Looney?"
"Awwww, he's worried about me... how touching."
I'm not sure why the messages didn't come through when they were sent or why I didn't hear them come in if they did. I normally wake up the second I hear a sharp noise. The cackle that announces Craig's messages is pretty sharp and almost as annoying as he is.
I definitely don't want Craig to drive over here!
He'll be lying on the couch all day, eating my snacks and complaining about the lack of TV. Not an appealing idea. Not inductive of creative thinking at all. Besides, the place is bursting with extremely valuable, breakable items.
Craig is the proverbial bull in a china shop personified.
"Do I sleepwalk?" I reply and am startled when the familiar cackle bursts from my phone barely a couple seconds later. He's awake?! Has he been waiting by his phone? I can see a couple missed voice calls from him as well.
I feel a little bad, but really just a tiny little bit. Through the years, I've spent many nights waiting in our apartment, worried about him.
"WTF?! Uve me gng cray w worry all nite & THAT's all u cn say?"
Who is he now, my mother? No, my mother can type full words.
I've never thought of Craig as the caring cousin. He is always bullying me and stealing my sweets, even if it means that he has to wrestle me for them. I have the bruises to prove that he doesn't hold back just because I'm a girl and less than half his size... well, he doesn't hold back enough.
When danger comes, he's the person I vote most likely to throw me in its way to save himself. I've never seen this side of him. Well, maybe on one or two memorable occasions, the last of which was the day Hank dumped me.
Even then, he'd just offered me some beers and held me while I cried tears and snot into his shoulder.
"Sorry, I didn't hear your messages. I'm okay, I guess. Yes, the electricity is working, and I'm settled, but the place is creepy as hell. I might leave today. I seriously need to know if I sleepwalk."
"U raid da fridge at nite. U awake thn?"
"No comment."
"Ur Ma says u did weird stuff in ur sleep whn u wr little."
"I confess, I was awake when I drew on you..."
"I know!"
He's right, though; my mother is always teasing me about my nightly adventures that might have included sleepwalking. Those incidents were limited to my pre-teen years, though. The last one I can think of happened more than 13 years ago when I was about ten years old.
It involved my mom finding me asleep in the dog basket in the scullery, but whether or not I was awake when I'd gone there has never been determined.
"None of Mom's stories involves me walking through locked doors, though, do they?"
"WTF? Belle, r u sre ur OK?"
I send him a thumbs up (I hope. I'm not wearing my reading glasses) and a promise to let him know what I decide about staying or leaving.
"Dnt dspear agn."
"Well, feel what it's like to worry about your missing cousin; why don't cha?" I've had to go through that more times than I care to think about.
"OK." That's all I send. I can't make any promises; after all, I didn't mean to disappear the first time.
There's nothing like ice cream to wake up the brain. I know what I need to do, and washing the dishes is not it. I put the mug and spoon in the sink, stick the ice cream tub back in the fridge and grab my phone and the keys from the table.
The first lock I match to its key is the backdoor in the kitchen. It unlocks with the third key I try. I need to mark the keys somehow because many of them are very similar, and I don't want to accidentally try the same keys over and over on the same lock.
Leaving the keys in the backdoor, I jog to the foyer, where my art supplies are still waiting to find their new home for the month. I dig through the boxes and find some masking tape and a fine marker. Perfect!
Now all I need to do is use the bathroom, brush my teeth, get dressed,... maybe... and play the key-match game.
☼☼☼
YOU ARE READING
The House
Mystery / ThrillerBelle, an art student in need of a place to work on the paintings for her evaluation, makes the mistake of leaving it to her bungling cousin Craig to find that place for her. And find her a place, he did... "Craig! You said this house was, and I quo...
