Weirdly Julie

Maybe it was the fact that I woke up really late; like seven thirty late, or the fact that the house was silent; I mean super silent, but I had an ugly nagging feeling that today would go so wrong. I mean, except the fact that I would face the vicious claws of detention - that was past my worries for now - something seemed... off today.

With a startled yelp, I leaped out of my bed for a quick wash up of both my teeth and my body, which I completed in five minutes. That was a record.

Before I could get to the bottom of the stairs with my backpack in hand to figure out the reason for the solitude in my home at this time of a Monday morning, the time was already reading seven thirty nine. It would take another fifteen minutes walk to get to school. Bummer!

As I entered the center of all chaos, the kitchen, I was surprised to find only Aurora, seated at the wood polished breakfast counter, feasting on an almost empty bowl of cereal, all dressed up and ready for the second week of school. We usually walked together for school everyday, except for days like this when my lazy self couldn't get up from the bed on time and prepare for school.

Aurora was my first cousin. Her father and my mother were siblings. She had been living with us for close to two years now after her father, who was a marine biologist, had to travel overseas for work. She most certainly did not want to go with him, stating that her life was here in Gold Falls. After many nights of arguments and quarrels, he finally decided to let her win, but on the condition that she would reside here with I, my mother and my younger sister, Avril.

"Where's everyone?" I wondered aloud. At the sound of my voice, her head shot up, and then in a span of a moment, returned back to her bowl of almost nonexistent colourful cereal.

"Rae had an important meeting to attend at work," She murmured over a mouthful of her food. "And decided to drop Avril at school at once." She finished.

My mom? Important meeting? It was very rare for her to get those, since according to her, her boss forbade her from being in charge of meeting conductions after two occurrences of late coming... My fault. On the first day, it was a case of missing shoes. I was hardheaded not to wear any other shoe that day. Thing was, it was later found under my bed after thirty minutes of searching. The other was as a result of oversleeping. See, she used to drive me to school, but on the day her boss queried her, she calmly told me in what I expected to be a fit of rage, to walk home to and fro school with Aurora - who already did so as a daily routine - everyday for a month. A whole month. I was just getting into the second week.

"Did she not mention it to you?" She got up and headed to the sink.

It all came back to me. She did mention something of the sort last night. I guess her boss was getting past that phase. "Yeah, now I remember." I grabbed an apple for the road.

"Come on, let's get going. We're already late." She span her head, moving towards the living room in a rush where her backpack was, making her strawberry blonde hair splay around her.

"Yeah, speaking of late, why didn't you wake me up this morning I woke up half past seven." I asked as we trudged down the front stairs leading to the road.

She gave me a brief bewildered look. "Julie, trust me when I said I tried," She paused for a beat. "Once." She added.

I groaned. "You should've yelled, or slapped me or something."

"Well, it gave me an ounce of satisfaction watching you sleep away school hours." She sniggered. "But I assure you, I'll be pleased to try both methods on you next time." She teased.

I gave her the stink eye. Or what I thought of as the stink eye. "That's unfortunate for you, cause there won't be any next time."

She gave a short laugh. "Keep up the high hopes, girl."

"I'll get you back. Just watch out."

She laughed loudly, and made fun of me half the whole trek to school. Five minutes, she spent complaining about the neck breaking homework Mr Eliot gave their History class. The last five minutes, we used to sprint through the road and into the double doors. By then, it was already 8:05. The warning bells sounded off as we rushed to our various classes; mine Chemistry. I wasn't the least bothered as I was handed the detention slip, except for the fact that all eyes were on me. It was not as if i was that rebellious a student, who got handed detention slips every now and then, I had only gotten it twice before now. It was for the fact that the detention class was the only quiet place in the entire school you could find. Not even the library, or the art class was that quiet. It was so because the coordinator there was none other than Miss Dora. Hearing her name one would think she was all sunshine and rainbows, but no, that was not the case. She was strict, scary-looking and overly pristine. No one messed with her. She of course was not my problem. I only read quietly in the detention class. But seriously I had to avoid getting into detention if i was to get into a good university. As for today, my only worry was that I shouldn't share a seat with Thomas in detention. He could be ballistic sometimes. And then this strange feeling...