Prompt 11: Ten Things About My Family
I don't know a lot of the people in my family, and some of them are dead now, but I'll try my best to tell you anyway.
1. My mother has been running away from the police for almost a year and a half now, but they haven't caught her yet. Sometimes I'm scared that she'll catch me before they catch her, but I guess it's stupid to think that because the police say they have to reason to think she's even looking for me. But still.
2. My father got drunk a lot, but he didn't hit people or get into fights or anything. He was happier when he was drunk. Sometimes he was nice to me, and would give me Hershey's chocolate bars from the corner store near the bar. I liked him better when he was drunk. When he wasn't, he never noticed I was there.
3. I have a baby brother. Well, half-brother, really, and he was only a year younger than me, so I guess he's not a baby anymore. But I'm not supposed to know about him. Sometimes, inside my head, I pretend to talk to him. I play that his name is Daniel, and that he lives in California with his father and that our mother never comes to see him and hit him or anything. He has a stepmother, who's really nice, and some half-brothers and sisters, but I'm still his favorite.
4. Right now I live with my aunt Meredith (who is my mother's older sister and is forty-six), and my cousins Veronica (who is fifteen) and Lindsay (who is fourteen), and their dog, Will, who I am not supposed to teach any tricks because he is really Lindsay's dog and if someone else teaches him tricks he might start liking them as much as he likes Lindsay, and that wouldn't be fair. That's what they say, anyway.
5. My aunt wants me to think of my cousins as my sisters, but it's hard because they're both older and they always tell me to go away and stop bothering them. She says that's how all teenagers act to their younger sisters, but I still don't know.
6. My father is dead. My uncle, who was my aunt Meredith's husband, is dead too, but he died before my father, and he died because of cancer, not because of an axe. Also, it wasn't my aunt Meredith's fault that he died, and she obviously isn't running away from the police because of it, or else I wouldn't be living with her.
7. My cousin Veronica has a boyfriend, and I'm the only one who knows. I'm not supposed to know, but I heard her talking on the phone to him one time when no one else was home, and I listened. She's not allowed to have a boyfriend 'cause my aunt says she's too young, but I think she really sneaks over to his house when she says she's going to study at a friend's. If they get married and she moves away, I'll only live here with my aunt and Lindsay, and that'll be sad, because I like Veronica better than Lindsay. I'm still not going to tell on them, though.
8. My aunt didn't really want me to come live with her. I'm not supposed to know that, either, but Veronica told me. Veronica usually tells me the truth about things- that's why I like her more than I like Lindsay, even though I know she doesn't really like me much because I'm too young to be interesting.
9. I know she's not my real family, but I still liked Alison. I only saw her three times, but she was really nice. She had a big office with lots of pictures and a jar of candy on her desk, and when she when into her back room and left me alone, I'd always take a piece without asking and put it in my pocket. But then I'd feel bad about stealing, so I'd put it back. Sometimes. This was during the time when I didn't talk to anybody, right after my mother disappeared and they put me in foster care. After my third meeting with Alison I had almost made up my mind to talk to her the next time I went, just a little bit, but then my aunt came and took me back to her house and I couldn't go anymore because we were too far away from the city.
10. I think pets count as family too, so I'll tell you about the time when I was five and I had a cat named Star. She was black and white (but mostly black), and she had a collar around her neck with a purple tag shaped like a star, so that's where I got her name. She didn't live with me, though, and I only had her for about a week, because one time the people who she lived with saw me playing with her in their backyard, and then they started locking their gate.