HiHi. I’m just gonna get going with the story already…

…CHAPTER 2…

I awake feeling warm sunshine on my face. The clouds are puffy and white as marshmallows. The bed I am lying on is a flowerbed. Daisies and irises tickle my arms and legs, and I lift myself onto my fluffy blue cloud. My cloud floats away from my choir teacher’s droning voice until she snaps, “Jennifer Stocks!”

My cloud disappears, and so do the flowers and sunshine. “Pay attention!” she yells. “Now how many beats are in a dotted quarter note?” My belly growls from hunger and nervousness. “Um…two?” I guess quietly. “Wrong!” she screams. My teacher grabs my arm and drags her into her office.

She slams me against the wall. “Listen to me!” She glares into my eyes and makes me flinch. “Just because you are ‘abused’ by your mother doesn’t mean you get special treatment to float off to Happyville. Cut the poor me act and start acting like a normal citizen.” She shakes me by my shoulders, causing me to slam my head against the wall over and over.

“Stop!” I shout, but her screams and shrieks drown out my pleads for her to stop. “I don’t think you’re one bit pretty, one bit smart, one bit anything! You are a whore! Stop acting as if you are the most important person in the world!” She throws me against the door and I race out as fast as I can.

My head is spinning by the time I sit down in my chair again. The rest of the choir is singing a lullaby for our choir concert in a few weeks. Some kids stop singing and watch me stumble back to my seat. Some just glare at me, but most of them ignore me and concentrate on the music.

The last thing I remembered was someone shrieking my choir teacher’s name, and something hard hitting my head.

“You’re going to be just fine,” a voice soothes me. I pry open my eyes and squint in the bright light. “What happened to me?” I ask, not knowing who was talking to me. It was the school nurse.

“You fainted during 5th period,” she tells me. “Your mother is coming to pick you up.” I can’t concentrate on her words. I would normally freak out and start begging her to send me back to class, but I’m in too much shock to be able to think correctly. Her words swim in my head through one ear and out the other.

“…So Katherine sent you here. Are you okay?” the school nurse asks. She had been talking while I was struggling to catch onto her words, but all I had heard was this bit. I nod quickly.

The next thing I know my mother is helping me to the car. Once we reach the van she pushes me in and doesn’t wait for me to pull my legs into the car. She slams the door, but it doesn’t close because of my legs. I shriek in pain.

“First you embarrass me in front of everybody because you can’t handle a headache. Then you make me get up and have to drag you back home. And now you’re hollering like a mountain climber. See why I hate you? See why I punish you? Because you deserve it, you bitch! I don’t care if you shit your ass! I don’t care if you break a fucking bone! Never make me come back to school to pick you up! I never want anyone to see me next to you! I can’t ruin my look with you little shit!” My mother keeps on screaming at me while I inch my way over to a seat. The clock on the radio says it’s 2:24 PM. If I hadn’t passed out, I’d be in seventh period science right now.

Why had I passed out, anyway? What had happened to me? I was in choir, and my teacher…asked me a question. I can’t remember if I’d answered it correctly or not, but I remember one thing. I remember me stumbling back to my seat with my head pounding in intense pain. Why? Why did I have a headache?

I spend the whole car ride home wondering about this and not listening to a word my mother says to me. More like, not listening to an insult my mother screams at me. And she thinks I scream like a mountain climber.

Mother finally storms into the house, while I sit there wondering if I should just face my mother or run away for life. My legs pound and I see a long bruise across the back of both of my knees. I trace my finger gently along the bruises until I glance at the clock again. It’s 2:41 PM. Should I go back inside? I stand up and shakily scurry into the house, feeling guilty for making my mother have to come and pick me up.

I feel fine now, except for the bruises across my legs. My headache is gone and I don’t feel so dizzy anymore. I crawl into the garage and lay on the dusty mattress that has a plastic covering. The wind is chilly and it makes the plastic paper rattle. Mother is inside yelling at my sisters Ella and Holly, and my brothers Brandon and Sam.

Mother would never dare hurt any of my siblings, because when they first started school (Holly didn’t start school yet, though) they got Cs and Ds on their report cards, when I got As and Bs. Mother said I was a teacher’s pet and that I deserved to be punished since I was different from Brandon, Sam, and Ella. She smashed my face into the wall and let my tears and blood dry against the moldy wood. Never once did she bother to clean it off. There are now red stains along some of the walls.

Ella is sneaking bread to me again. I can here her soft footsteps creeping along the edge of the garage. Her head pokes out from the side of the garage and she whispers through the dark, “Jennifer? I brought you food!”

I crawl over to her and snatch the fruit and bread she is bringing me. As she watches me gobble it up, she says, “It’s not fair how Mommy treats you.” Her six-year-old fingers dawdle together and her breathing is short. “She hit Sam yesterday for trying to bring you a piece of tomato.”

“She’s starting to hit you, too?” My voice is wobbly. No way could she possibly want to hurt my beautiful siblings.

“That was only once. If we get in her way when she’s mad or when we are trying to bring you food she spanks us real hard with belts! But I’ve not been caught yet, though,” Ella explains.

“You’d better go, unless you want her to slap you in the butt with a belt! Go on, now.”

Before Ella can scurry away, a shadow casts over her. Mother. “What are you doing here, talking to this piece of shit?”

Ahhh! Poor Ella. If you don’t review I will throw rocks at you! Just kidding, I’m not a review whore. I just like to throw rocks xD

xx-Starfall-xx