Young Adult / 5 Things You Should Know About Me
5 Things You Should Know About Me
1) My family is crazy.
2) I am addicted to the computer.
3) I’m crazy weird.
4) I often have huge, unrequited crushes on people.
5) I hate pain.
4 Facts About Me
1) My name is Stella-Marie Ashford.
2) I’m fifteen.
3) I have three siblings—two sisters and a brother.
4) My birthday is July 4th, 1992.
3 Things That Make Me Unique (at least to me!)
1) I have six best friends.
2) I’ve never gone out with anyone—or been asked out for that matter.
3) I read really fast.
2 Things I Would Want People to Know About Me
1) I’m compassionate.
2) I like to make new friends.
1 Thing I’m Still Hoping For
1) To find my Prince Charming.
*
I guess you could say I’m a lucky girl. I have all my fingers and toes (partly because I’m a coward and never do anything that might risk them!), my parents are still together (after nineteen years of marriage!), I have three healthy siblings (although I personally don’t count that as lucky!), I’m considered pretty (which is weird because I don’t think I am) and I have a lot of friends (who are all just as weird as I am.). I have four names—Stella (my everyday name) Stell (used by most of my friends and my family), Star (used by a couple other friends and my crush…except he doesn’t know it, and calls me Star just to tease me! Stella means ‘star.’, so its no trouble to see where that came from!), and Stella-Marie (used by only mom, who says if a hyphen has to be put into my name, I deserve to be called by both names…??).
The current issue in my family is who’s babysitting Chad today—we’re up at nine! Horrors… It’s summer—no one wants B.D. (babysitting detail) during the summer! Chad is my baby brother. Well, he’s not really a baby—almost ten years old—but we still think of him as the baby. At any rate, he’s such a monkey he can’t be left alone all day. Mom and Dad both work all day, and after my oldest sister Chloë burnt her hand and had to go to the hospital, they’ve decided to invest in babysitting. Once they had me and Elsie, why pay for babysitters when you have free labor sitting in your house? So every morning, Chloë, Elsie and I duke it out to see whose going to get stuck with babysitting—again. Chloë is seventeen, and fiercely independent. She hates it when she has to baby-sit and sulks the whole day. Elsie’s twelve and already lobbying for pay. She doesn’t think its right that she has to baby-sit for six hours and not get any money for it. Chloë and I agree, but we’ve been trying since we were forced into service. My parents aren’t budging. We admire her pluck, but it just won’t go anywhere.
Us three girls are up in our room that we share arguing, as usual. Our room is strange. It’s on the third floor—well actually, it IS the third floor. It’s one big open space that we’ve divided with curtains/streamers/blankets. As you come up the stairs, Chloë’s is the one you hit first. Then Elsie, in the middle, and me over in the little corner. The walls are crazy because each girl has painted her “room” a different color. We’ve also named our spaces. Chloë’s is called the Muse. Elsie’s is Lady Jane and mine is “the Booknook”. Chloë is artsy—the product of my parents hippie ideals—so hers is an explosion of color. Black, orange, lime green, pink, yellow and a multitude of other colors swirl around the Muse. Her curtains (we’ve each got one window) are some weird pattern that hurts your eyes if you look at it too long. And of course, her floor is littered with clothes, jewelry, electric appliances, paints, etc. Elsie is what we define as a “neat-nik.” Her room is purple, and predictably, little white sheer curtains are hung very properly from white curtain-rods. Her bedspread and pillows match. It’s scarily organized and clean.
“Don’t touch my stuff,” is her common mantra. She throws a hissy fit if Chloë or I mess anything up. I mean…it’s too weird. You can actually walk in Victoria, without getting impaled by something. (In Chloë’s room, you wear shoes, or risk getting maimed. I had a pin go through my foot once…she was sewing some weird creation and left the pins everywhere.) My room is stuffed with books. Quite literally. Dad built me bookcases on three of my walls and I still have stacks of books everywhere. I’m a mix of stuff—modern and antique, weird and normal. I have this huge canopy bed and its covered in a thick red brocade. It makes me feel like a princess. This is my own little area. My journals are lined up against my bed, and everything else fits in between. I have massive pillows everywhere too. I love pillows. In fact, I collect them. If my sisters ever need a pillow, they just come and take mine! (Which is annoying, but unpreventable.) In between the Muse and Lady Jane is our shared closet. It’s massive. But it’s pretty sweet because there’s doors sin the back and front. So to get clothes, Chloë walks through her door to get her stuff on one side and Elsie opens the door on her side. I have my own closet, although I borrow stuff from them and vice versa. (It’s dangerous to go through Elsie’s territory though, and both Chloë and I know it.)
Then, beside our closet is our Truce. It’s our hangout. Of course, I have to go through Elsie’s room to get to it, but she very considerately marked me a path so I wouldn’t ruin anything. There’s my pillows of course, beanbag chairs for Chloë, and for Elsie, a little chair. This is where we all are now.
“I’m not doing it!” says Chloë. “I’m hanging out with Iris today.”
“I did it yesterday!” I say. “’Sides I have to work.”
“Oh yeah,” snorts Elsie, “like you really want to work today.”
She has a point. I hate where I work. We call it Crap Cove. It’s really Coral Cove, specializing in touristy t-shirts and seashells. Unfortunately, my boss is innately creepy. I’m pretty sure he’s some kind of pervert. He’s weird…I’ll explain more later.
“Well, no,” I admit. “But it’s not fair to have to baby-sit two days in a row.”
“That’s true,” says Chloë thoughtfully. As the oldest, we generally defer to her. “And I’ve already made prior plans. Looks like you’re stuck with it Elsie.”
Elsie screws up her face but says nothing. She knows she can’t argue with us. Majority vote. It’s always been like this. Yesterday, they ganged up on me.
“Girls!” calls Mom from the stairs. “Time to get up.”
We burst out laughing. “Mom,” says Chloë, “we’ve been up for awhile.”
“I thought I heard some thumping. Alright, well come on down. I’ve made chocolate chip pancakes,” says Mom. We can hear the smile as she shuts our door.
“’Bye Elsie,” says Chloë with a wicked grin as she thumps down the stairs. “Have fun today.”
Elsie’s still in her nightgown. Chloë and I are already dressed.
“You’d better hurry,” I add. “Elsewise Chloë’n I will eat all the pancakes.” Snickering, I follow Chloë down the stairs as Elsie gives a little yelp and hurries to Lady Jane.
“D’you need a ride to work today?” asks Mom, busily dishing out pancakes. Chad is at her side, looking longingly at the stack of steaming pancakes. Dad is already gone—he leaves early in the morning.
“No, I’m good.”
As my mother bustles around the sunny kitchen, I take a good slurp of orange juice. She gives me an annoyed look, and brushes a soft brown curl out of her eyes. “Don’t slurp Stella-Marie,” she says. “It’s not polite.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Mom is one of those do-it all women. She married Dad fresh out of high school and had Chloë at nineteen. Yet somehow she managed to go to college, sell a best-selling novel, and have me two years later. The one question she gets asked a lot is: “How did you do it?” Mom just smiles and says that she couldn’t have done it without Dad. They were high school sweethearts and although Gamma and Pappy weren’t too happy about the whole early marriage (according to Mom, Gamma grimly predicted they’d be divorced within the year) thing, they went along with it. Looking at her now, I can see why Dad fell for her. Mom has looks I would kill for. As a critical fifteen-year old, that’s saying something. She’s got intense green eyes and soft golden-brown hair that curls in all the right places. Her nose is small and elegant and her cheeks always have a slight color to them. She has a slender figure but a good amount of curves and she’s witty, cheerful, and graceful. Chloë’s got a lot of her looks—although her eyes are blue instead of green. I’ve just got the eyes. Elsie has her hair and her delicate facial features.
“How many pancakes do you want?” asks Mom.
“Three?”
“Three please,” corrects Mom, as she slides the plate in front of me. Behind her, Chloë rolls her eyes.
“Three, please,” I murmur, with the same inflection. Mom looks at me sharply and then smiles. “Butter and syrup are in the fridge. Would you get those?”
“I’ll get it,” says Chloë, and slides her chair across the wooden floor to the fridge. Mom winces.
“Chloë dear,” she says. “Those floors cost money. You’re ruining the wood doing that.”
“Oops,” says Chloë, not looking the least bit ashamed. “Sorry.”
“Chad, sit down. You’ll get breakfast soon enough,” Mom orders my brother.
Chad is a little roly-poly with fiery red hair (no one knows where he got that from—no one from Mom or Dad’s side ever had red hair) and bright blue eyes, like Dad’s. He has a temper and a personality to go along with his hair.
“I’m hungryyyyyy,” he whines.
“So’m I,” says Elsie, coming around the corner. “Listen to Mom.”
“You can’t boss me!” says Chad.
“Can too,” says Elsie, and sticks her tongue out him. “Two please.”
“Come get them,” says Mom.
“Moo-oom, Elsie stuck her tongue out at me.”
“Elsie, don’t tease your brother,” reprimands Mom. “Chloë, give these to Chad?”
Chad lets out a howl of dismay as he sees his plate. “There’s only three!”
“You can’t eat more than that,” says Mom calmly. “Here Elsinore.”
“Elsie,” grumbles Elsie. “Not Elsinore.”
“That was your great-grandmother’s name.” says Mom. “It’s very pretty.”
“It’s very old.” Elsie doesn’t let Mom hear that remark though. I hear it and hide a grin. Elsie’s got spunk.
“I can so eat more than two!” Chad breaks back in again.
“You’re a greedy pig, is what,” says Elsie as she drizzles her own natural syrup (that we’re not allowed to touch) over her own stack. “Look Mom, that’s disgusting.”
Mom looks accordingly and makes a face. “Chad…”
My imp of a brother has an enormous pat of butter and is in the process of dumping half a container of regular syrup over his own pancakes.
“Ewww,” says Chloë.
“Chad, that is completely unnecessary,” says Mom. “Put the syrup down right now.”
“But—”
“No buts!” says Mom very firmly.
Chad’s face is quickly turning sulky but he obeys Mom.
“What time are you coming home?” asks Mom., throwing stuff into the sink to be washed.
“Who?” asks Chloë. “Me or Stell?”
“Stella,” says Mom pointedly.
“Three. Or so. I can bike you know.”
“Okay. But be careful.”
“I am Mom.”
“I’m just saying…Chad! Wipe your face!”
Chad has managed to get almost all the syrup over his face.
“Elsie, get me a rag?” asks Mom.
“Hey! Where’s the OJ?” asks Chloë. “Stell, you had it last…”
I spot it on the counter, next to Elsie’s elbow. “Elsie…”
“What?” she asks crankily, turning too fast. Her elbow catches the handle of the pitcher and it goes tumbling, sending an orange stain across the floor.
Mom turns around, up to her elbows in soap suds and gives an exasperated sigh. “Someone clean that up?”
“I was going to say, can I have the orange juice, but I guess I don’t need to anymore.” I give Elsie a teasing smile.
“Not my fault,” grumbles Elsie, moving over towards Chad with a wet rag. He gives a wail and leaps out of his chair when he sees her coming.
“Not through…” begins Mom as Chad slides into the large, sticky puddle, and falls flat on his back. He looks surprised and then begins to howl. “…the puddle,” finishes Mom, with a resigned look on her face.
Chloë and I can’t help it, we burst out laughing. Our sunny and bright kitchen is a mess and Mom is already frazzled. Soon Mom joins in the laughter while Chad writhes around in the sticky mess.
**
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
Amy I’ve said it so many times but you truely are EXTREMELY talented. I can’t wait to read the next chapter.. for some reason Stella seems familiar, hmm. lol. This is a great start and I’m interested to find out what’s going to happen! WoooOoOOOooooOo. haha okay I’ll stop. :)
- add/view comments (1)
Showing 1 - 1 of 1
Review item
Add to faves
GENERAL
REVIEW QUEUE
Ratings & Rankings
