15th Century Girl

Chapter Twenty Six: Ads

Two months passed and the blue light still shined brightly in the broken windows of my old house. Carter would divert my attention from it whenever we passed by it. My nightmares of being sucked up again by the portal came back and with a vengeance, I would wake up covered in sweat, trembling, with tears running down my cheeks and my heart pumping in my chest. Carter would always be there, though, with a glass of water, welcoming arms, and feathery soft lips, he was so patient with me and cradled me as I attempted to calm down. He would whisper that he was there, and that nothing would hurt me whilst he was around, nothing.

I was always tired, once I fell asleep at work and Mr. Prickly smacked me in the back of the head with one of his cleaning rags. "I am not paying you to sleep! I am paying you to work and clean!" He would yell, then he would stomp off to his office and clean his prized collection of piggy banks. My eyelids would droop again, but I would never fall asleep, fearing that Mr. Prickly would dock my pay and I wouldn't be able to get Carter what he wanted.

I had been saving money to buy Carter something nice, for, he always, always bought me something wonderful. Once he bought me a golden necklace with earrings to match, he claimed that his bosses gave him 'extra money' to do that, but when I checked our money box, I saw that he barley had anything left. Carter and I shared a little, dark wooden box that we put all our money in, thankfully, Auntie never made us pay for anything (shelter, food, living, etc.) for, if she did, we would've been even more broke than we were. Carter had one side of the money box and I had the other, sometimes, in my spare time, I would walk up to a hardware store and buy Carter something for his car or a new gadget, Carter loved tinkering with things. I bought him a pen that you rubbed on scratches on your car and they instantly disappeared!

When I gave it to him, his face lit up with excitement. He kissed me, very passionately, pushing me onto the couch and forcing my head into the pillows. Then, he jumped up and excitedly ran to his car, searching for scratches. Earlier in the week, Carter pointed out an add for a 1985 V8 Aston Martin Vantage, he said that it was a replica of the car from James Bond, 'The Living Daylights' to be exact. He sighed when he read the price out to us "140,000 dollars" I walked over to him and began to massage his shoulders.

"Don't worry, baby, we can get it...a little later, though. We can get it my next paycheck." I assured, Carter smiled and kissed my cheek.

"No, my love, I like my car now. It's just something that would be nice to have but, I don't need it and I don't want you to waste your hard earned money on it, sweetheart." Carter pulled me around, into his lap and kissed my cheeks over and over, sighing in satisfaction as I laid my head upon his chest and he turned the page. After Carter had fallen asleep, I went back to the newspaper (which he threw away) and cut out the add for the Aston Martin, I slipped it into my book bag and decided I would count how much money I had made so far (I didn't actually know how much money I had, I was trying to cheer up Carter when I said I needed one more paycheck). The next day, when I went to work, Mr. Prickly was dusting the candy near the cash register.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Prickly, and how was your day?" I asked, walking to the back and clocking in, Mr. Prickly followed.

"It was wonderful, I put an add in the paper about one of my father's old cars and I've gotten a few people offering for it" Said he, holding the feather duster close to his heart. My eyes enlarged as I sprayed myself with perfume, to mask the smell of gasoline, for, Carter hugged and kissed me earlier.

"Wait a minute...was it a V8 Aston Martin Vantage? The one that's the replica from James Bond?" I asked quickly, my breathing quickened.

"Oh, so you saw the add too?" He asked, and a smile spread over my face.