Guardians of the Diamond Book One: The Rose

Chapter Two

In the afternoon, our father sent us a group text to tell us he and Gilda were going to Las Vegas for the weekend, possibly a little longer, and that they were leaving to go to the airport in a couple of hours. Talk about short notice. Dad also felt the need to make it clear that Matt would be in charge in the case of any possibly troublesome circumstances, like that was anything but expected. I mean, he would definitely try to be in charge but my knack for not liking to have others, especially him, tell me what do would certainly take a toll on his attempts.

All I texted back was, "K."

For an accurate time schedule, the rest of our not so exciting day went as follows: Dad and Gilda left around three. At five o'clock my siblings and I decided to make a pizza for dinner from possibly expired supplies in the pantry because we had been left no money for food and none of us were willing to spend our own. But the homemade pizza didn't work out as well as we planned because we put it in the oven then forgot to set the timer and by the time we remembered and checked on it, it was burnt to a blackened crisp. It wasn't even slightly edible. Anyways, with finding out the pizza idea was a bust, we decided that we would just make ourselves some sandwiches and eat them in front of the TV. Matt and Jessica made turkey and I made Ashley and myself peanut butter and jelly.

At eleven o'clock that night, Jessica declared, "I'm tired," and left the den to go upstairs to go to bed. About an hour later I said and did the same. Except, instead of saying, "I'm tired," I chose to say, "Alright, I'm so exhausted I'm practically dead," because I enjoyed over exaggerating. I moved Ashley's sleeping feet off of me and hopped up from the couch. I bid a good night to Matt and started to make my way up the stairs.

When I strode into my room, I saw Jessica was still awake and reading a book. I glanced at the title of the book. When the Wind Leaves. That was one of my all-time favorite books. It was about a girl who was taken into another dimension by the brother she didn't know she had so they could keep their world from dying. Matt and I had constant conversations about the book, talking about how it was our dream to go to the world it takes place in, Leaves.

As I was getting ready for bed, I crossed back and forth between my and Jessica's sides of the bedroom. They were drastically different in style and appearance. Jessica's bedding and other room accessories had a burnt orange and dark purple theme to them. The items on my side had a lime green and light blue theme. These two sets of colors, I will add, do not look very good together. It was an explosion of ugliness when looking at the room as a whole, but a wonderful representation of our personalities when looking at the sides of the room separately. Jessica's floor was covered in sporting items like softball gloves, basketballs, and a lot more sports paraphernalia that I didn't really care about. My floor was spotless because I could not stand it if it was messy. I had a tendency to push all of Jessica's crap to her side of the room to keep it from tainting mine. However, despite the clean floor, my nightstand held stacks of books and journals and a multitude of different colored pens. Also, my desk chair had a lot of discarded clothing hanging over the back of it because why hang them back in my closet? We may look similar, but we have completely different personalities (the classic twin story).

I changed into my pajamas and climbed into my twin sized bed. Clever, right?

I looked at my sister. "Jess, can we talk for a second?"

She closed her book, using her finger as a bookmark. "Sure. What's up?"

"I'm bored," I said.

She sighed and reopened her book. "Then go to sleep."

I shifted my eyes so I was looking at the ceiling. "That's not what I mean. I'm bored with my life. I want an adventure. I want a change."

She closed her book again. "You could dye your hair purple."