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STIFLING A YAWN BEHIND her hand, Judy peels her eyes open to the sound of seabirds squawking outside, cheek smushed against her pillow. Despite the flying avians, the Chateau is filled with complete silence. It almost feels like Hurricane Agatha never even happened yesterday.
Stretching out the cracks in her limbs, she rolls out of bed, throws her hair up into a messy bun and slowly opens the bedroom door. Another yawn escapes her lips. A few metres away, she notices a familiar head of blond hair laying face down on the sofa, snoring away.
Judy's stomach twists, a reminder of how she'd snapped at him last night, and then got all weird about it. They haven't spoken since then. He left to find his friends and she cried herself to sleep... metaphorically, of course, though she did feel like crying the entire night.
Slipping straight out into the hall, Judy directs herself towards the bathroom, retrieving her plastic orange toothbrush. Squirting paste onto the bristles, she scrubs her teeth until two minutes are up in her head, and splashes her face with water in hopes of waking herself up a bit more.
Tiptoeing through to the kitchen, she picks up one of the oranges she stole from Mr Grantley's tree the other day and takes it out into the yard. Everything is dishevelled; trees, branches, leaves. Agatha has certainly left her mark on the place.
Judy flops into the hammock, peeling away a perfect spiral of sunset rind until she's left with fresh juicy segments. Each one explodes in her mouth as she rips them apart and devours every piece in blissful silence.
Around fifteen minutes pass before the door to the Chateau opens to reveal her brother, squinting through his sleepy brown eyes to observe the damage. Eventually, he spots his sister in his peripheral vision.
"Hey." He waves, plodding over to the hammock and sitting opposite her.
"Hey." She copies, shredding up the orange zest with her small fingers to pass time.
Neither of them say anything for a long while. That is until Jude feels John B gently nudge his foot against hers.
"Happy Birthday."
She returns a sad smile, "Thanks."
Truthfully, she's been putting off her sixteenth for a long time seeing as it was going to be her first birthday without her father. Now it's here, and he still isn't, it's bittersweet. She doesn't feel happy, or jolly, or excited. She just feels numb.
