Being McKenzie Prince ✔

Chapter Four

Today was one of those days where we had to forcefully endure family dinner with both our mother and Goliath. In normal families I guess that everyone would sit around a dining room table, not at our house though. We do not even own a dining-room table. During these occasions we would usually get takeaways by this Kiosk across the street and we would sit close to each other in the sitting room.

Skye and I were both sitting on my bed, which was an old fold-out couch and my mother and Goliath were sitting on the couch across from us. They sat so close to each other on the small couch that it looked like my mother was almost sitting on top of Goliath's lap. Her hair was a tangled mess and she wore a robe over her dirty pajamas. Goliath was in his boxers with a filthy black shirt on.

There was something going on between Goliath and Skye. They usually did not get along, but it seemed like things were getting worse. My brother looked like he had not slept in days. His hands were shaking on his lap. He was jumpy and he kept looking at Goliath. It was as if though he was expecting Goliath to attach him at any second.

"So tell me about your week? How about you start Skylar?" Skye gave a deep sigh next to me. My mother cornered us the previous night and begged us to give Goliath another chance. We promised that we would try.

My mother was going through a stage where she felt extremely guilty. This usually resulted in her wanting us to be a "real" family. It was similar to the honeymoon phase in abusive relationships. In a few days she would probably be back to her usual self, either yelling at us or ignoring us. I do not know which one I prefer, being non-existent or being the center of attention when it came to her anger.

"The usual. School...Work...Studying...School...Sleep...Work..." Skye mumbled the words and played around with the food on his plate with a fork. He hated it to eat in front of people, especially Goliath. If he was nervous or scared it got worse. The more anxious he got the less he ate.

"Speak up boy! Do not mumble!" A piece of chicken fell out of Goliath's mouth as he spoke. I had this urge to tell him that he should not talk when his mouth was full of food. It was disgusting.

"Fine. I was at school and in the afternoons I went to work. Are you happy now?" I saw Goliath bite his tongue. He glared at Skye. Skylar worked at a record store every second day in the afternoons.

"And what about you McKenzie? How are things going at school?" My mother smiled as if though she was a mouse and I was a piece of cheese. The question may have sounded innocent enough, but I knew my mother. The answer itself was complicating. School and I are not really on good terms. We have this whole hate, hate relationship. The school hates me and I hate it.

"Awesome" I replied dryly and took a bite out of my burger. Awesome is the universal answer for every teenager, that and answers like, Fine and Cool. For example;

How was the movie?

Cool.

Do you like that guy/girl?

He/she is awesome!

How was your day?

Fine

"Anything interesting happen that I should know about?" My mother clicked her tongue and kept staring at me. If I knew my mother like I do, she already knew what happened, so she could be referring to one of two incidents that took place this past week.

Number one; the whole KFC incident in Home Economics.

Number Two; the not so innocent incident which involved me, a spray can and Ashley Castles' abominable scooter. In my defense, she started the whole thing when her and her fake posse jumped me during lunch. I was busy minding my own business under a tree by the Rugby field when they suddenly appeared in front of me. Christina Brown was one of them off course. A bunch of them held onto me while Ashley opened my school bag and threw all of my stuff out onto the grass. That was not all though. After she threw out all of my stuff Harper threw trash into my school bag. It still smells like garbage. Excuse me if I was a little bit mad afterwards and in an act of pure passion I ended up spray painting her Scooter with a word that rhymes with the word "witch".