piccadilly chips are delicious

Chapter 10: Piccadilly Chips are delicious

“Hilary, dinner is ready.” Sofi sticks her head in the door.

“I’m not hungry.” I say, not even bothering to pull my face out of my pillow.

“You haven’t eaten anything all day, you have to come down for dinner.” She tells me in her worried voice, the one that I normally can’t say no to. But I say no anyway because I am so sick of the stupidity of people that no amount of Sofi guilt is going to get me out to bed.

“I ate with Colbey on my way home,” I lie hoping she will give up.

“No you didn’t. I asked him. And you didn’t eat breakfast. That means you haven’t eaten all day. Come down stairs.” I hear her stomp her foot, which would have made me laugh if I weren’t so mad.

“No.” What the heck was Colbey thinking telling Sofi what I did or didn’t do. It was none of his business. And what was Sofi doing asking him in the first place? It was my business if I did, or didn’t, eat.

“Hilary, come down stairs or I will file the report.” She uses her ultimate threat and I am up storming past her in a second, hating that she still had that held over me.

When I first showed up at Sofi’s we had written up a report for the police about Paul. On the day we went to give it to them I freaked out. I didn’t want Tristan to be in any more trouble than he was already in and I knew Paul wouldn’t just go away. As soon as he heard about it he would know where I was and I was sure that both Tristan and I would be dead with in the next 3 hours.

I freaked out and told Sofi that I had been lying. I told her that Paul never hit me, that he was nice and I loved him. I told her that I ran away because Tristan and I had a fight and I didn’t want to see him. She of course didn’t believe me; she knew that I was lying. She tried to make me see reason, tried to tell me that he couldn’t hurt me any more and that it wasn’t fair to Tristan not to do anything. But she didn’t get it. I would rather let Paul hurt him than be responsible for him dying because this way it was Paul’s fault not mine.

She knew the truth but I refused to let her do anything about it. I told her that I would lie if she took it to court and she decided that she wouldn’t file the abuse. We went home and ever since she has had the file held over my head. And like any good cousin she has used it to get me to do what she wants plenty of times.

Chapter 11:

Dinner at Sofi’s was defiantly not normal, but then again most things at Sofi’s weren’t normal. When you get thirty girls, most of them afraid of their shadows, together you are bound to have drama. Then you throw in the fact that half of us have eating disorders, the large majority was up all night, and a couple of us hate the world in general, then make us all sit down to dinner together, you are bound to have a mass suicide. Yet somehow Sofi got us all together, acting civil towards each other, 2 or 3 times a week.

I am convinced it is because they all felt like I do about Sofi. She is a pain in the butt, but she was a heck of a lot better than any of our actual parents. And we all knew she only got so irritating because she genuinely cared about us. Because of that we all tried to help her out and that meant we showed up to dinner and went along with her system.

Sofi worked out her system for dinner when she first started ‘Sofi’s Home’. When she had five girls it was easier. They all ate dinner at a different time and she sat and talked to them while they ate. Then on group dinner days, Tuesday and Thursday, they all pretended to like each other and then talked to Sofi later. There were too many girls to do that any more and so she broke us into our groups. We ate dinner with them every day and then on group dinner days we had group hour.

I hated group hour. We went into one of our bedrooms and sat there talking for an hour. It often involved tears and was some how supposed to get us over what ever crap we had been through but it sucked because I didn’t like them and I wasn’t going to tell them my secrets. And to make it worse Sofi grouped us up with the most random people she could.

Becky was the resident cheer leader and she could have gone on and on for the entire hour if she would stop crying and trying to be motivational. She was a ditzy blonde who referred to herself as our ‘group mother’, what ever the heck that meant.

Janice was . . . Janice. You couldn’t really describe her quite right. It was like she was living in a science fiction movie, only it was a really messes up science fiction movie. She ran around in a ‘cape of invisibility’ and fought aliens in her spare time. And if you tried to tell her that it wasn’t real she would challenge you to a light saber dual.

If I had to pick a favorite of the group it would be Sarah. She was cute in the puppy dog way and was always happy, but not annoyingly so. The problem was that she was only Sarah sometimes. Other times she was Samantha and no one liked her. She was horrible, she wouldn’t talk to anyone she just sat there staring at you and making weird noises. And then of course there were the bad days where she was Abby and yelled at every one about everything.

And finally to complete our messed up group we had Baylee. Baylee was like me in the fact that she didn’t sleep at night but she slept through class and group hour, something I could never do. She was terrified of being alone and was constantly clinging to someone. Most of us were opposite and couldn’t get far enough away from people and so when she came and hung on your arm, resting her head on your shoulder, it was hard not to freak out at her.

Chapter 12:

Some how Sofi got it into her head that locking the five of us in a room together and telling us to talk to each other or do some stupid game would be a good idea and because we all owed her so much we went and tried our best not to kill one another.

“Okay you guys. Sofi gave us a game to play. Aren’t you so excited?” Becky yells at us even though every one but me is crammed together on her bed.

“Ya, what are the rules?” Sarah, who is herself today, asks.

“Okay so I am going to change something in the room and then we sit here for fifteen minutes then we can talk about how the change made us feel”

Really? That was going to be easy and relatively painless. They were going to be quiet for fifteen minutes at a time, and when we only had to be in here for an hour that left hardly any time for them to talk.

“Sound like fun. What is the first change?”

“I am going to make the room dark. Will you get the blinds Sarah, and then hang a blanket up over the window?”

As soon as she says dark I start bracing myself. I was not going to freak out in front of them. I could sit in the dark for fifteen minutes; it was silly that I was even worried about it. It was just a room. It was just the dark. It wasn’t any big deal. At least that is what I am trying to tell myself and for a minute I think I am listening. Then Becky flips the light switch and something snaps and I am back in that stupid room; back with Tristan, back with Paul.

“Did you know that I love you?” Tristan whispers as he opens the front door and leads me up stairs, not letting go of my hand like he normally does when we come inside.

“Yes,” I whisper back, “Did you know that every time we come inside you start whispering? He isn’t even home.”

“I know he isn’t. But I always worry that he’s going to be mad when I get back. And he normally is, as your noticing.” He is still whispering. That was true. In the last few weeks since I moved in with them I had defiantly realized that Paul was angry a lot. I had always known that he had a short temper, he was around enough to figure that out, but I didn’t know how bad it was until I was living with him.

Paul was always mad at Tristan for some reason or another and it was normally the worst right when we got home. Paul was really strict about us being on time but we normally weren’t and so of course he would get mad. For every minute we were late I spent an hour in the basement, going crazy in the dark, and when I got out Tristan had fallen down the stairs, or tripped, or something else that always ended up giving him a bruise for every minute we had been gone.

And after that Paul wouldn’t be mad any more, at least until we did something else stupid.

a platypus is a semi-aquatic reptilian mammal

Chapter 7:

Crap. That is the only thing I can think as I see that dumb blonde, Kasey, or maybe it’s Katie, walking towards me. What was wrong with that girl? Everyday for the last week she had cornered me as I walked out of my seventh period class. And then she would keep pace with me, no matter how fast I walked, and ramble.

She shrieks my name, as if she is surprised to see me and starts bouncing down the hall towards me while the football player she is hanging on watches her skirt, which is bouncing just as much as she is, proving Tristan’s point. Cheerleaders where all idiots and football players were all perverted.

“Hilary, how are you? It feels like I haven’t talked to you in for-ever,” She grabs my arm when she gets close enough, and it is all I can do not to freak out, and then she screeches in my ear, stretching out the word forever so that she sounds ridiculous, even though it has not been forever, if anything it hasn’t been long enough. She keeps talking about something that doesn’t matter and I try my best to ignore her.

“Katie, great I was just looking for you,” Colbey comes up right behind us just before I can get outside to find Fielding and Holly and she stops, still holding my arm captive.

“Oh, hi Colbey, do you know Hilary?”

“Ya, we drive to school together. Um. . . I was supposed to tell you that Sadie was looking for you, something about going out to lunch or something.” By the end of his sentence it is obvious that he is lying for some reason. And I really don’t care why he said it because as soon as he does Katie lets go of my arm and leaves with out another word. I decide to run while I have the chance, hoping she won’t turn back around but before I can take a step Colbey starts talking to me.

“Sofi told me to find you after school. She said to give you this and to tell you not to run away,” he says handing me a sticky note with Sofi’s hand writing on it.

Have Colbey walk home with you, he is teaching your

cooking class. And please try to have fun.

I think this will be good for you if you let it be.

“So,” Colbey continues when he sees my reaction to the note, “I am guessing you want to go to a cooking class about as much as I want to teach one. My mom is making me do it, something about sharing my talents or some crap like that. I didn’t think she would talk to Sofi about it. Sorry you got stuck with it too. I promise to make it as painless as possible.”

Chapter 8:

Colbey keeps talking about how he is dreading teaching this as we walk down the hall and I try to act interested or to at least nod at the right moments.

“So, I know we are far from best friends but only stupid people would willingly take any kind of class from me. Please say that you’ll help keep me sane.”

“Sure,” I agree even though I don’t plan on talking to him. Sofi wanted me at a cooking class and so I would go to one. I wasn’t going to try and make friends with anyone though. That was my plan to stay sane and if Colbey thought his plan would involve me than he should think up a new plan.

“Thanks. Shall we?” He opens the door for me and I walk past him, trying to hide the fact that I shuddered when his arm brushed mine.

There were 3 girls sitting in the room when we walked in. Perky blondes sitting in mini skirts and low cut shirts, all three wearing head to toe pink, looking like they came strait out of a horror movie.

“Hey,” Colbey says walking towards them while I hang behind him, thinking about running for it, “So, I’ve never done anything like this before, teach any one anything I mean, so if I suck just tell me and we’ll figure something else out. But that can wait I kind of just want to get to know everybody today, if that’s ok.”

“That sound’s perfect. And I bet you are like, the best teacher ever.” Gushes slutty blonde number 1.

“Ya, it sounds, like, perfect,” Blonde number 2 repeats, obviously the sidekick.

“Great, so I guess we’ll just start with names then. I’m Colbey, and this is Hilary.” He introduces me like we’re friends, telling me to sit down with one of those looks that Paul was so good at, the one’s that tell you exactly what your supposed to do. And of course I do, because after 5 years of those looks I was afraid not to.

“I’m Cassy, and this is Jessica and Amanda.” Blonde number 1 says, making it apparent that blonde number 3, Amanda, was just another mindless minion.

“Nice to meet you. What do you guys like to do?” Colbey asks his next question, and again Cassy answers for all of them.

“We’re all like, cheerleaders, and Jess and me like play tennis, Manda doesn’t though. She like, has a job though; she works at that like, manicure place in the mall. It is just so great; we go like, all the time. And of course we all like, love to cook.” Shoot me now. What was wrong with Sofi to think that I would enjoy this? I wasn’t sure I could even stand it. I was definitely going to have to talk to her about this.

Chapter9:

After 10 minutes of listening to Cassy go on about how ‘like, totally like, amazing this like, store is’ Colbey is looking at the clock every thirty seconds and is counting down the minutes with as much dedication as I had been from the get go. When the hour is finally over I don’t hesitate in standing up, giving my apology and excuse of why I have to leave, and Colbey is convincing when he says the time flew by. Less than two minutes later the blondes are all gone and I am alone with Colbey again.

“Oh my heck. That was torture. How is it even possible to use the word ‘like’ that many times? I am not sure if she had a brain at all. I am so sorry you have to put up with that.”

“No, Cassy is the genius of the group. If you didn’t notice blondes number 2 and 3 didn’t say one word on there own, they just repeated. For a minute I thought there was a parrot in the room. At least Cassy had her own stupid thoughts.” I give him my spiel and then fall silent. It was too easy to talk to Colbey. You couldn’t act the shy, quiet girl if people knew you hated them. It just didn’t work.

“Truth: for a minute there I thought there was an echo.” He laughs and for some reason it reminds me of Tristan. Which when you think about it was probably why I talked to him, and why I shouldn’t talk to him. He reminded me of Tristan way to much for it to be good for me. If he was like Tristan at all then I couldn’t be friends with him. He might have the same bad habits, not just the good ones. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” I ask confused.

“We’ll be having an actual conversation and then I will say something or some one will walk up and you will shut down completely and won’t even look at me. And it isn’t just me, you do the same thing when ever Fielding says anything to you in the morning, and sometimes even with Holly. So why do you do it? Why don’t you like talking to people?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lie because it isn’t any of his business why I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. And even if I did answer, he wouldn’t want to hear it.

I could explain that I don’t trust people anymore. They always end up hurting you: they leave, like dad; they just don’t like you, like Paul; or they lie, like Tristan. Whichever way they do it they are going to let you down and you are going to end up worse because of it. It wasn’t worth letting them get close.

look, a clever title.

Chapter 5:

“Hilary! Colbey and Fielding are here, down stairs, talking to Janice! You need to be ready before they run away in fear of their lives and we have to walk!” Holly yells at me through the bathroom door.

She’d been telling me to come out for at least 10 minutes but I could not get over the fact that my hair looked horrible. It used to be long and pretty; I used to be able to do things with it. And then about a year ago I had a dream that I’d never had before. It was about something that happened right after my dad died, but so many horrible things happened that year that I had forgotten about it.

Paul had promised Tristan that he wouldn’t hit me and for almost two years he kept that promise. He never hit me but that didn’t mean that he didn’t get mad at me. All the promise meant was that he had to think of different ways to punish me. One night he decided that my hair was a privilege that I didn’t deserve anymore. When I woke up I could still smell the smoke coming off my hair, still hear Paul telling me how this was something he could never do to Tristan, because his hair was only an inch long. I cut all of my hair off that night.

I still haven’t been able to let it grow past my chin and that really sucked when I was having a hair day like this. It looked like it was cemented to my head and all my efforts had done was to weigh it down with hairspray and make random pieces stand up stupidly. It was the kind of day where you pull it back and hope for the best. To bad I couldn’t pull it back.

“I need your help with my hair.” I yell back, unlocking the door and letting her in.

“How do you ever have a bad hair day? You hardly have hair for heaven’s sake!” She comes in the bathroom and runs her fingers through my hair to mess it up, and of course everything changes the second she touches it. It changes from a blob of gross to golden brown silk. My eyes, which were lifeless 2 seconds ago, shine brilliant green. And suddenly the describing word for my skin isn’t sickly it is stunning, the paleness of it setting off the shadows perfectly.

“How do you do that?” I ask her stunned that she could always fix my hair, and in the process make everything else look better.

“I’ve showed you a thousand times. Now come on, we have to go,” she pulls me from the bathroom and down the stairs, only pausing to let me grab my backpack.

Chapter 6:

Every morning was the same. Colbey and Fielding showed up at exactly 7:30 and I wouldn’t be ready because no matter how hard I tried I was always too ugly to go anywhere. At least until Holly came and fixed me. Then I would be pretty, and we would go down stairs to save them from who ever they were talking to. Then we would get into Fielding’s car, Holly in the passengers seat, me behind her, with Colbey sitting behind Fielding, always sure to put his backpack between us.

Holly would be hanging on Fielding’s arm, regaling him with some exaggerated story. Fielding would be paying to much attention to her, and not enough to the road. Colbey plugged in his headphones and tuned out the world, looking serious like he was facing one of Janice’s imaginary armies. And I would sit there, feeling claustrophobic and lonely, while I thought of Tristan.

Then when we got to school, never late despite me holding us up, and Holly would leave. And with her she would take what ever it was that made me pretty enough to leave the house. And then I would be standing there, fat and ugly, all alone in a crowd of people. It was always the same.

and the plot thickens. . .

Chapter 3:

“Andrew was the third generation of only children and both his parents are dead. Lily was adopted, and when she finally found out who her birthparents were she was 30 and both of them were dead, just like her adoptive parents. Other than an aunt she has never met, who is currently living in a rehab center in Reno I am the closest thing to family that girl has. And besides all of that Andrew said in his will that he wanted me to take care of her if anything happened to him. There is no reason why I shouldn’t get custody of the brat.” Paul explained to Tristan and me, while he had us going through my house, packing anything he could sell into the back of his truck.

“Nothing but the fact that he’s abusive to the kid he already has,” Tristan whispers to me, obviously not quietly enough though because Paul hits him in the head.

“Even if I were abusive, you aren’t going to say anything. Because you know that if you did two things would happen. First, you would never see her again. She would go to a foster home on the other side of the country. And Second, you would be getting in a lot of fights at school to explain away all of the bruises I would give you.”

“Well, actually, only one of those things would happen. I might not see Hilary again but you would get arrested and wouldn’t be able to hit me anymore.” Tristan shoots right back, not the least bit intimidated by Paul’s threats.

“Really? What proof do you have that I have ever hit you?” Paul’s voice fills with venom, getting scary like it never did when Dad was around.

“Hu, I’m not sure. Maybe one of the dozens of bruises that I have right now might work.”

“Nope, you have spoken to the school nurse about every single one of those bruises. You already explained them and gotten in the fights to back up your explanations. It is far too late to change your story. Now shut up and get to work.” He laughs, shoving Tristan back onto his knees next to me and leaving the room.

“Don’t worry Hilary. I am not going to let him hurt you.” Tristan says, pulling my mom’s necklace out of his pocket and handing it to me, “I hid this when we went though your dad’s room. I figured you wouldn’t want him selling it. You’re going to need a good hiding place for it though. The second he sees it, it will be gone.”

“Hilary, Sofi says she needs to talk to you,” Holly pulls me from the dream before it gets to the bad part, bouncing on the foot of my bed being careful not to touch me.

“Okay, where is she,” I say through a yawn, tired from sleeping so long. It was already 7. I had slept for a whole 8 hours last night and only woken up the one time. That had to be a record.

She hesitates in answering which makes me think that I am not going to like what ever she has to say, and of course I could not be more right “Kitchen.”

“Oh joy. One of those talks again.” I sigh, rolling out of bed and stalking out into the hall ignoring everyone I pass. After going down two flights of stairs I finally get to the kitchen, in a bad mood already.

Chapter 4:

“Hilary, perfect I needed to talk to you,” Sofi says as if she forgot that she sent Holly up for me, beaming at me from the kitchen sink.

“I’m not hungry.” I say flat out. I really did not want to fight with her this morning but if she was going to force feed me then we would fight.

Sofi was the only thing keeping Paul from winning completely. Everything he had said would happen if Tristan did anything to stop him had happened, except for me ending up in a foster home half way across the county. I hadn’t seen Tristan since then but I read something in the paper about his mom being arrested for attacking him and putting him in the hospital, and even though it didn’t say anything about Paul I knew Tristan had gotten in trouble, and he hadn’t been arrested for it. Sofi’s was not half way across the county though, it was only about 3 hours away, and it was technically not a foster home since she was my cousin. As long as I stayed here Paul wasn’t winning and so I owed her. That meant that she was one of the people that I didn’t hate, and I didn’t like to fight with her.

“Okay,” she agrees to let it go even though I can see that she is worried, “I had something I wanted to run by you.”

“Okay,” I consent, even though I already know that she has done something that is going to make me mad.

“Well, I was thinking about how you have such a hard time with people and how you don’t really ever feel like eating and I thought maybe if we could replace what ever bad memories you have about those two things with good ones that you would have a better time so I signed you up for cooking classes. It isn’t anything formal, just a few students from your school, people you kind of already know, and even the teacher is your age. And Holly said that she would go with you if you wanted but it would make me feel so much better if you would do this. And you can quit in a few weeks if you don’t think it is helping.” By the time she finishes her explanation she is red in the face and looks ready to die from embarrassment and so I have to say yes.

You just couldn’t say no to Sofi when she got like that. Her life had been just as hard as any one’s here. That is why she opened ‘Sofi’s Home’ and took all of us in. Some how my grandparents had been smart enough to put my mom up for adoption but 3 years before that, when my aunt Kelly was born, they didn’t care enough to even do that. Kelly grew up with out them because they didn’t care enough to come home and was a druggy by the time she was 15, which was about the time she got pregnant with Sofi. She was living in a rehab center the whole time I was growing up and I never met her, and neither did Sofi. She grew up with her dad, Derek, who was just as crazy as Paul. She finally got sick of him and ran off when she turned 14 and has been on her own since then.

When she turned 30 Derek died and for some reason left all of his money to her. She decided that there had to be hundreds of kids in situations just like hers. So she went and bought an old inn with 10 rooms and put the address in the bathroom at every restaurant, in every telephone booth, and on every street corner in the area. Then she waited. Less than a year later she was the legal guardian of 29 homeless and abused girls.