Living like Lizzy

Chapter 1 - The Girls Unite

Mia flung herself through the solid door, slamming it behind her whilst she threw her school shoes in the general direction of the shoe rack: knocking a number of posh and indoor shoes onto the floor. She dumped her bags in the middle of the hallway, a small space that was hard enough to move in anyway, launched her wet boring black coat onto the hook and ripped off her horrible blazer. Only Mia's young sister Amily, the maid and father were home so she wandered into the tiny kitchen and helped herself to a biscuit from the naughty-but-nice-tin. It made her feel a bit better, but only a bit.

Mias Father, unusually, hadn't told Mia to get her lunch box out and her drink bottle so that he could

get their one maid to wash them. Nor had he asked her how her day had been, something he had done ever since she was out of nappies and rarely left the house, but it had been obvious from her entrance that it had not gone at all well, not helped by the rain.

In truth, Mias Father's day hadn't gone well either; there still weren't many water plumbing systems that had broken down or any new ones to build and he had hurt his back trying to repaint the toilet system. To top it all off he had received a worrying letter from Mia and Amilys lawyer who was in charge of their future and finances.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Mias grumpiness. "It's so annoying, she's doing it all the time now. It would be mean to just ignore her but I can't keep on telling her the answers and she tells on the teacher when I don't help her."

"Perhaps she learns more when she copies and anyway it's not the end of the world." Father really wasn't a people person.

Mia ignored him, knowing it was a stupid suggestion and that really she just couldn't be bothered to learn, the teachers always took pity on Ella anyway because she had a learning disability so Mia wondered why she bothered to copy. "Maybe Mrs Robinson would move me if I said that my eyes were troubling me and I had to sit further forward. Although she might move Ella with me so that wouldn't work. Ah it's just not fair when I'm working hard and she isn't. Plus she gets stickers for it too, not that I want stickers but its the whole point that I'm getting at."

Father didn't seem very concerned at all which just annoyed Mia more, "We'll ask her at parents evening and discus this then, it's in a few weeks isn't it?"

Mia shrugged and walked up the steep stairs to her room where she found some paper and came down again to doodle whilst sat at the table; it was her favourite way to calm down after a hard day at school.

Mia had stopped being grumpy by the time she had drawn a whole array of made up animals and creatures. She had doodled four headed monsters, no bodied bright red animals, things with scary teeth and claws began to evolve and each one had a funny made up name. The largest one she called Samsungle at which her sister remarked that it was an atrocious name, the one with the claws she called Dysnom and a bright red one she named Rodley.

"What an aweful set of names! At least call them something that will go somewhere like... Wellworth! Now that's a name nobody would forget for a long time! Anyway, would you stop using up all of our ink on naming made up creatures, I have very important school work that I require it for." Amily replied, wandering around the room in her school pinafore that she was trying to make flouncy as the 'important people' wore theirs.

Mia replied, "Well if I ever see anything called Woolworth or whatever your crazy idea was then I shall see to it that I give you a hundred pounds! As for the ink I'm only writing a few words, most of my drawings are in pencil. Now I would like it if you returned to your flouncing and leave me in peace."

"Humfph!" Amily sighed and wandered back to her room where she continually wondered upon how a rich person like Ruth would have her house laid out: 3 drawing rooms or four reception rooms?

Her mother returned later that night than usual, the bags under her eyes were growing with every week that passed, as were the wrinkles that had appeared on her forehead. Fortunately these usually disappeared when it got to the Holidays where she could spend time with her family. As soon as she had greeted the children with a gentle kiss, she was dragged into the office out of which she did not return for a long time.

Eventually she did return, but rather than eating her tea she just went upstairs to wash her face and came down again to talk to Father in the office. Meanwhile the children had eaten their tea under the supervision of the maid Lizzy which went surprisingly well. The only problem was that Lizzy was keeping a close eye on them so they could only catch a few snippets of what their parents were saying in the other room but all of a sudden they seemed to be working together, taking it in turns to distract Lizzy to allow the other to press their ear up against the door. For most of the evening they succeeded, warning each other when she was on her way, but one time it got a little too close for comfort.