worst behavior

sam

I laid on the sheetless bed, staring up at the crackly white paint on the ceiling. My fingers were sticky on the plasticky matress cover that crinkled when I shifted my wieght.

The heat was awful.

My Aunt Clara's centuries-old house seemed to swell with the baked air. I didn't understand. I'd done nothing wrong. I was a great kid and all, yet I found myself thinking I might as well have gone down to visit the devil for the summer.

I peeled myself off the mattress and heard those stupid screams again. They weren't, like, scary screams or anything. They were those screams that girls make when boys tickle their sides or something and graze their boob. Just obnoxious.

I hauled my stupid sweaty self to the stupid window and leaned my stupid forehead on the stupid cloudy glass. The house was too old for air-conditioning to really make a difference.

The loud squeals of the local kids made my head hurt, but they could probably be heard for miles in this stupid, stupid place.

I trudged downstairs and was blasted by intensified heat and heavenly smells. Southern cooking smells beat any other smell, to me, at least."Hi, Aunt Clara," I said, making my voice sweet. I reached behind her wide, short body for a piece of biscuit, but she swatted me away quickly.

"Boy," she warned. I backed off, my hands up.

"It's all for dinner tonight, Sammy, so you better not touch any of this food," she snapped at me good-naturedly. She smiled wryly, the crow's feet along the edges of her eyes crinkling. She was the older and wider image of my own mother with the thick brown hair (her's streaked with gray) and crystalline blue eyes.

"There's only two of us, Aunt Clara. This is...a lot."

"The neighbors are coming 'round tonight. My friend, Evalina, and her granddaughter," she explained.

I thought about the rowdy people making all the stupid noise next door, and asked if it was them.

"Oh," Aunt Clara tutted, dismissively. "That's just Emily's friends." She caught my eye-roll and swatted me again. "Don't you worry. She's a nice girl."

I shrugged and turned to go back upstairs and clean up. "Mmhm,yes, ma'am," I agreed noncommitally. I was too tired to even talk with her and find out more about this Emily. One trip downstairs had left me frosted in sweat, and I was in deep need of deodorant, for the third time today.

"Honey," Aunt Clara called up the stairs.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Promise you'll be nice. Actually nice."

I chuckled, feeling bad for acting like such a grouch. "Yes, ma'am," I said.

"Good boy. Now, clean up, huh, honey? You stink."