"Nah," an uninterested man rejected.
"It'll only take a minute..." she tried to add, but he'd already walked off with a wry smile on his face. "Well thanks a lot," Cindy said staring after him. For some reason she thought he looked familiar.
She was on a school excursion to the Queen Victoria Market, and she had to survey at least ten people about it. So far no one had agreed to do them. She tried her best to look friendly and innocent, but she was fifteen and felt like she was staring to lose those talents.
"Screw this," Cindy said, found a seat and made all of them up.
"How was school Cind?" Cindy's mum asked predictably when she got home.
"We went on the excursion today," Cindy replied, while taking off her school blazer.
"Really? What excursion?" Her mum queried, forgetting what Cindy had told her that morning before school.
"I told you this morning, the one to the market," Cindy said impatiently.
"Oh how did...?" Cindy cut her off.
"It was good," she lied, anticipating the question. "Is there anything to eat?"
"You know that was the first thing your father said when he used to get home," her mum suddenly got lost in her memories.
Cindy sighed, So she remembers that, she thought to herself. "I know, you've told me," Cindy reminded her mum, while looking through the cupboard.
“There are some blueberry muffins in the oven, and they’ll be done in about fifteen minutes,” her mum stated.
"Okay, I’ll have some later. I'll be in my room if you want me." Cindy informed, shoving her hands deep into her pockets.
"Okay Hun," the phone rang as she left the kitchen and Cindy's mum went over to answer it but as soon as she’d picked it up it went dead. “Who keeps doing that?” Cindy heard her mum say as she was walking up to her room.
In her room Cindy had posters all over her walls. Mainly ones of Limp Bizkit and Puddle of Mudd, she didn't like pop groups like a lot of other girls. She turned on her favourite CD.
She lay down on her bed and thought about her unsuccessful day. "Why didn't anyone want to do my surveys?" she asked herself. She wasn't shy or very intimidating, but then again she didn't have many friends.
She closed her eyes and imagined that she was somewhere else. A place where she fitted in, a place where everyone understood her…"I wish there could be some excitement in my life," she sighed. "I wish I knew what happened to my dad," those words came out of her mouth with such longing and such desire that anyone who heard Cindy would console her straight away, but no one was there to hear. Tears formed in her eyes and she started to sob. She buried her face into her pillow, muffling her cries of sadness.
"Aahhhh!" her mum screamed from the kitchen. Cindy jerked her head up from her soggy pillow and jumped up off her bed. Then she heard a gun shot.
"Mum!" she cried and headed for the door, but something held her back, and time suddenly stopped; only she could still move around. “What’s going on?” she looked out the window and saw that cars were motionless and birds were frozen in mid-air. Her CD player had stopped as well. She remembered her mum and headed for the door.
"Cindy," a caring male voice called to her, "Cindy, over here."
She stopped in her tracks and turned around. At the window, where Cindy had just been, there was a man, but he was hard to see. "Who are you? What are you? You killed my mum!" she accused helplessly.
"No I didn't," the man said. "Why would I do that? I’m her husband, Cindy, and your father."
"My father’s dead!" she screamed at him.
"Not quite. I was only allowed to visit once from the afterworld." He gave her some time to take this in.
"The afterworld?" she questioned.
"Yes, that's where you go before heaven, after you die."
"Daddy?" it was as if she were a little girl again.
"Yes Cindy."
"What happened?" Her dad walked over to her and reached out his hand, Cindy reached out hers as well, but they passed right through each other.
"There's no time for that now darling, you’ll find out in due time. Your mum's just been murdered, and now is your chance to escape. They've come for you Cindy, because you're special. You have powers because you're my daughter," her dad explained.
"Powers? Me?" Surely that wasn’t true.
"Yes, get out of here now," he instructed.
"I wanna stay daddy."
"Go now, your mum will visit you later, I love you." He shimmered and disappeared just as quickly as he had arrived.
Reluctantly, Cindy got her backpack, went downstairs and took her mums wallet, some food and her mobile phone. She struggled to walk past her mum's body on the way out of her house, but she managed to bend down, stroke her hair and hold her hand, then kiss her on the forehead, accidentally getting blood all over her clothes. She walked past the two assassins, who were also still frozen, and fled out the front door.
3 comments:
Awesome. I was sure the main character would be a boy - so fooled me there. And I really like Cindy's character. The survey scene was a great way of establishing her. (I remember faking surveys in school, so can relate to that!)
I like...very interesting. One tiny thing tho, i thought the conversation between cindy and her mum seemed a bit forced....didn't quite fit in right. BUt I like it, u better keep going I want to know what happens!
Thanks Luke & Jess.
The survey thingy was loosely based on my own experience at QVM doing surveys - although I didn't make any up, I was a good student!
And I agree Jess, I'm reading through them all before I post them and have picked up a number of style and dialogue issues that I wanted to change, but I'm doing the whole "sticking to the original piece of work" thing to make it more interesting.
Once I've posted them all I might look at re-writing it. Hopefully the difference over... 5 years will be notable. Like to think I've gotten better since Year 9! :)
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