Welcome to Tuesday Tales. I'm back with a brand new story -- young adult for me this time. It's called "Skit the Scout and Me." Find it here, then go and read the other wonderful Tuesday Tales entries. Find them HERE!
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I’m squashed in the backseat of my new
stepfather’s Mercedes with my mother’s vanity case and extra suitcase. I’m
Sasha Hollister, fifteen, practically an orphan since my father died. My mother
roped in a rich, new husband and they are off to Europe for three months over
the summer.
Why
am I smashed into the backseat? Because they are dumping me upstate to live
with my grandparents while they sail away on a disgusting luxury ship. While
they are eating caviar, I’ll be knee-deep in cow shit, working my fingers to
the bone on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm, while all my friends will be making big
bucks babysitting, taking little kids to the beach, eating ice cream, and
hanging out. Ugh.
I
told my mother I didn’t want to go. I begged them not to go, but they didn’t
care. They booked the trip without asking me.
“Charles
has been counting on this. He’s been working night and day on a merger,” she
said. A merger or something.
And
what about me? I’ve been sweating my brains out in school all year. Daddy’s been
gone – it’ll be four years next month. Charles. Pompous Charles with his oily
smile and big bank account. He’ll never be the man my father was. Only a schoolteacher?
So much more. He was blown away by a drunk driver on his way home from his
part-time job tutoring. Here one minute and gone the next. I know Charles wants
me to get over it. But he’ll never be my father-not really. I miss Daddy every
day.
Mom
leans over from the front seat.
“We’re
almost there. Are you excited?”
I
stick out my tongue.
“Grandma
always said to be careful or your face will freeze like that,” she said, then
faced front.
Excited? I’m dreading it. Not that I’d nominate my mother for mother-of-the-year. But
she’s better than nothing. My grandparents? I don’t even remember them much. Last time
we went to visit was Thanksgiving eight years ago, I think. They got into a fight with
mother, and they didn’t speak for a long time. I know they can’t possibly want me there all
summer.
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