In Between

Chapter 3

“So,” Pen asked as we drove to my house, “what’s with the outfit?”

I looked down and remembered that I had thrown on a random t-shirt and jeans that morning, and sighed heavily. “My stupid ass alarm clock woke me up two hours late. I didn’t have the time to worry about what I was wearing. Ugh.” If I was talking to most other people, I would probably just say that I over slept, and made a mistake. But, because this was Pen, I could complain all I wanted. I always complained to Pen, but never really anyone else. I felt like an attention whore if I was always complaining to other people, but with Pen, since she knew me for so long and was so close to me, I complained all the time. About everything. Whining was one of my favorite pastimes, actually.

We got to my house and climbed out of the car, and I managed to trip on the doorjamb of my house. Pen reached out her arms and managed to catch me, laughing at my klutziness. I smiled, slightly embarrassed, and then I saw something launch towards me in the corner of my eye.

Tiny arms wrapped themselves around my neck, and tiny legs wrapped around my waist.

My little sister.

"Hey, Cessy," I said cheerfully, wrapping my own arms around her small body, "had a good day at school today?"

Cessy is nearly four years old, and is basically the cutest thing I've ever seen. She has the same shiny black hair as I do, and it grew just about an centimeter above her shoulders in a messy tangle that she rarely brushed. Her eyes weren't the silver color that mine were, they were a clear grey that looked adorable. She was about three feet tall, and stick thin. Her teeth were a brilliant white, which you could easily tell because she was always smiling.

"School was good. We made macaroni necklaces and Tina tried to eat hers," she giggled, "but I didn't. Look!" she said proudly, pointing to the string of macaroni around her neck.

"I painted the macaronies," she told me.

"Oh, Cessy, that's so beautiful!" I told her, lifting it up with one hand while walking into the kitchen with her still attached to me.

"The most gorgeous necklace I have ever seen," Penelope told her, going to the fridge to rummage for food.

"Oh, mommy bought cookies and cheetohs today, you don't need to search for anything," Cessy told her.

"YES!" Penelope exclaimed, seeing the cheetohs and jumping up and down with them. Cessy giggled and I rolled my eyes at her.

"You're silly," Cessy said to her, and Penelope made her eyes wide and stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, making Cessy giggle harder. Pen smiled and ruffled her hair.

 I carried Cessy into the living room and plopped her down on the couch, setting my bag next to her. Pen sat in the chair across from the couch and grabbed her English textbook.

"We should work on our essay on The Fall of the House of Usher," she said, also grabbing her laptop and powering it on, "it's due really soon and I only have the thesis statement."

We had an assignment to analyze Poe's Fall of the House of Usher for Gothic elements. It was going to be fairly easy, but kind of annoying to get started on.

Pen and I worked while munching on our cheetohs for a little over half an hour, occasionally asking each other questions about what word to use, or if our sentence structures made sense. Cessy sat next to us trying to read the first Harry Potter book, asking many questions about what words were.

We got fairly bored with the essay after awhile, so we moved on to other homework. I had a worksheet to do for music, which took me only five minutes, and then I was finished with my homework. Pen still had to study for her history test, which was tomorrow, so I went to sit outside with my iPod.