Run Away Teen

Chapter Two: Busted

I walk into the dining room to find my whole 'family' sitting already. At the head of the table sits mum. One one side of her, is 'The Man', who is finishing up a conversation with my 18 year old brother Benson (who's sitting next to him) probably on rugby, knowing them. On the other side of mum is Leilani, and then there's my seat, and then there's Prima.

"Young lady..." mum begins.

Uh oh. This doesn't sound good.

Benson and 'The Man' stop talking, and I feel all eyes on me. I fiddle with the ends of my long, pale blonde ponytail.

"Umm...hi?" I say uncertainly.

"Why did you go to Alise's without permission?" mum glowers.

I look at Prima, and she's practically begging me with her eyes not to say it was a lie. I can't rat her out. So instead I fake laugh.

"Perlease mum. I'm 14 now. I'm a big girl," I say, looking as nonchalant as I can possibly manage.

Primavera gives me the thumbs up when I look at her, but mum's a completely different story. She glares at me.

"Good. Now that we've got that sorted, we can talk about why my step daughter got KICKED OUT OF P.E!" 'The Man' shouts.

As you can probably tell, he's a major sports fanatic.

"Science grades," I say in the same cool as a cucumber tone I used before. I'm hoping I sound bored, like the rebellious teenagers on t.v shows.

Benson seems to be enjoying this. His eyes are flicking between 'The Man' and mum, to me, and back again. I'm actually a little surprised that he hasn't called for popcorn yet.

"I'm going to get them to ask them to put you back in Drama. Then you can become a famous actress and actually make us proud. By your age, Primavera had already landed a modelling job; she's been modelling since she was 11! And Benson, he's been 'Rugbyman' of the country since he was 8, and that's not even legal!" mum exclaims, frothing at the mouth.

I roll my eyes and sit down at my seat, noticing for the first time that there's actually food on everyone's plates. Mum cooks about a billion meals a night. Don't get me wrong; she hates cooking, but she believes that everyone needs different meals, depending on what they do everyday.

For example; Primavera's plate is filled with fresh lettuce and spinach leaves, cherry tomatoes, and grapes (I'm actually surprised she let Prima have grapes, at 2 calories apiece) to "keep her figure fantastic for modelling." Benson's plate is ¼ the same as Prima's, the other ¾ being meat. My joke is that mum feeds him meat to keep him beefy. Get it? No? Okay then... Mum and 'The Man' tend to eat the same as each other, be it curry, lasagne, or bolognese, or take out pizza, McDonalds, or fish and chips. I feel so sorry for Leilani when it comes to her eating. Yeah, I know. It must be pretty extreme if I'm feeling sorry for the step sister that I hate. But mum rations her meals, so she eats about 1/10 of the amount of food that a 3 year old should be eating. It disgusts me. Leilani's a gymnast, and is crazy flexible for a 3 year old. And it has nothing to do with mum.

I just eat whatever's left over from everyone else's meals. Today's is some salad from Prima and Leilani's; some meat from Ben's (despite having told mum countless times that I've been vegetarian for the past three years); and some pasta from mum's and 'The Man's'.

"No leaving the house for two months, grounded!" mum and 'The Man' say in unison, after looking at each other as though to confirm telepathically.

What is it with people punishing me in a way that actually isn't punishing? My principal takes away my P.E and Drama lessons (of which I both hate), and mum and 'The Man' have taken away my 'leaving the house' privileges. Hah. That's a laugh. I have the social life of an ant. Actually no, ants are very sociable. So maybe the social life of an, um, me, I guess. The only people I actually leave the house with, are Prima and Alise. But I'm not complaining. About the punishments, I mean. I am a bit disappointed with my social life though. Or lack thereof.

After dinner every night, Primavera and I sneak Leilani some chocolate and chips from our secret stash. But tonight I just want to sleep. I pull my chair out from the table and sign to Primavera (we both learnt New Zealand sign language in intermediate. As one of the 3 national languages, our school was intent on teaching everyone) saying that she could feed Leilani today, I was too tired. I excuse myself from the table and go to my room.

I drag my laptop back out and lug it over to my window seat. I stare at our private back yard and watch my eldest sister tumbling on the trampoline (she used to do cheerleading when she was younger, before mum forced her to switch to modelling), as I wait for my laptop to turn on for the second time today. When it does, I refresh my e-mail page, and find another "New Blog Maker!" e-mail. Gosh! These guys are persistent! I scroll to the next e-mail, titled "Urgent", from Alise, and click on it.

"Y u no ansrng mi msgs grl!" it reads, and I roll my eyes.

Alise is the queen of incomprehensible text language. I flick through her previous e-mails and sigh when I finally get that I can't understand them.

"What on Earth are you talking about?" I message her.

"Fnaly! ive bn waitng 4eva 4 u 2 email me!" she sends back immediately.

"So, what's up?"

"Wel, u no how we wer going dress shopng 2moro 4 jess' bday prty? wel i cant go im sory im bizi," she tells me, then goes offline, while I sit there, completely gobsmacked. She's never pulled out of one of our shopping trips before!

My laptop makes a pinging noise, alerting me of a new e-mail. I raise my hopes, thinking it's Alise, telling me that she was just joking. But when I check I find that it's mum, saying that we're travelling up to Auckland tomorrow for one of Leilani's gym competitions. Oh well. So I wouldn't be able to go Jess's party, or dress shopping, anyway.

I hide my laptop and change into a light blue singlet, embedded with minimal sequins, and a pair of blue zebra print shorts. I then snuggle into my zebra print duvet, (blue), and close my eyes, falling asleep to the oh so beautiful (not) sound of mum and Prima arguing. Ah, bliss.

Next Update: Wednesday or Thursday