R93: Smile
Title: Smile
Characters: Pearl, Silver (Giovanni and Green are mentioned)
POV: Silver
Notes: Wrote this like last year, but I just finished it now.
“Don’t you squash it, kid! There’s good eating on one of those buggers!”
Ma’m pushes me aside and runs after the squeaking rat, spatula in hand and bosoms flying.
“Ma’m!” I race after her. “Wait! You’re supposed to drop me off at a friend’s house!”
There’s a loud crash as she dives into the hedges. “Get your father to do it! I’m busy!”
“He’s dealing with that one old rich guy!” I nearly tear my hair out in frustration. I’m already fifteen minutes late, plus the time it takes to drive… “Ma’m, please, there’ll always be rats! Can you please just drop me off?”
“Shut up or I’ll hang you up by your pretty little ears.” I hear more rustling in the bushes, words that even I wouldn’t use, and pretty soon, she’s looming over me like a breaching whale over a very small boat. “Thanks for distracting me, kid, I lost it!” she snaps.
What can I do? “I’ll just walk,” I mutter. Waiting all this time for nothing. First she needs to finish her accounts, and then that stupid rat comes by and she gets distracted. If I had walked I’d be almost to Green’s house by now.
“I’ll drive.” And just like that, she nearly hauls my arm out of its socket.
“Ouch! Wait-“
“Your father told me to drive you, and technically he’s still my boss, isn’t he?” She drags me over to the garage. The car’s a little thing, newly-purchased and ready for a small little family. A middle-class normal family living in the suburbs. Probably conservative. Go to church every Sunday and attend all the bake sales benefiting West Ridge Elementary School. Participate in rummage sales and PTA gatherings. And without a suspected crime record ten miles long, thank you. Point is, not us.
Point is, the moment Dad bought it home, it probably realized it was in the wrong family and should have ran away the moment it got the chance to. I didn’t like it at first. But it grew on me quite a bit. And hey, Dad cleans it every week even though we don’t really drive a lot.
Ma’m jumps in the front seat. “You can go shotgun since the boss isn’t here,” she says, waving a hand. I get the vague suspicion she’s trying to be nice. This is rare enough so that I actually do sit there.
And we’re out of the neighborhood before I even buckle up. Ma’m isn’t a bad driver. On the contrary, Dad’s always saying how she’s the only one he’ll ever trust to get the two of them through enemy sniper fire on an icy road. And how she can take a hairpin turn so tight it makes some sort of weather phenomenon right above the car. I guess it’s sort of cool, to have a mother who can do that, just in case. But still, taking three lanes on one signal gives me a bit of a scare now and then. And apparently the words “Speed” and “Limit” aren’t in her vocabulary. I’m not sure whether to sit and pray or jump out of the car and pray.
No one honks at us. I think they’re all afraid to.
She’s twitching her eye in concentration. When she slides her stare to me, I get the feeling I’m supposed to say something.
“Y-you drive well?” I offer. Yes, she does drive well. Because anyone else tearing up asphalt like this would be canned meat by now.
“You sound like your old man. Only without the accent.”
She clearly thinks it’s a compliment, but I choke. What can I do? I don’t know. I stare at my hands. I don’t want to sound like him…
Maybe she senses the sudden change in atmosphere that normally accompanies a death sentence. She changes the subject. “Of course I drive well. Whenever we raided trains or army vehicles, I was always the driver, come and go. And damn, I was good! I could drive circles around those folks, I could.” She pauses. “Still can.”
What? “What?”
“Mind you, this was before I met your father and we had you.”
It was then that I realized I had practically seen a unicorn. Ma’m never talks about her life before meeting Dad. It’s like having a butterfly unexpectedly land on you. Reaching out and trying to catch it would scare it into flying away, but on the other hand… “What do you mean by raiding cars?”
“None of your business,” she suddenly snorts, snapping closed like a clam.
We sit in silence with the engine growling in the background. When we pull up onto Green’s driveway, I thank Ma’m and begin to walk away when she starts laughing.
“What?” Dad often tells me that if Ma’m starts laughing, you’d better watch out.
“You’re so polite, kid. C’mon. Spit it out. What’re you thinking?” She kicks the car door open and swings her legs out, narrowly missing a cockroach. “I know you’ve got a bit of opinion somewhere down there.”
It’s infectious. I start grinning right along too. “You’re crazy and you’re a right nasty piece of work, but you’re really not half-bad, you really aren’t.”
“You’re crazy and you’re a damn mean piece of work, but you’re really not as bad as a lot of people. And hey! We’ve all got our little habits,” she says lightly. Then she picks up the cockroach and eats it.
Characters: Pearl, Silver (Giovanni and Green are mentioned)
POV: Silver
Notes: Wrote this like last year, but I just finished it now.
“Don’t you squash it, kid! There’s good eating on one of those buggers!”
Ma’m pushes me aside and runs after the squeaking rat, spatula in hand and bosoms flying.
“Ma’m!” I race after her. “Wait! You’re supposed to drop me off at a friend’s house!”
There’s a loud crash as she dives into the hedges. “Get your father to do it! I’m busy!”
“He’s dealing with that one old rich guy!” I nearly tear my hair out in frustration. I’m already fifteen minutes late, plus the time it takes to drive… “Ma’m, please, there’ll always be rats! Can you please just drop me off?”
“Shut up or I’ll hang you up by your pretty little ears.” I hear more rustling in the bushes, words that even I wouldn’t use, and pretty soon, she’s looming over me like a breaching whale over a very small boat. “Thanks for distracting me, kid, I lost it!” she snaps.
What can I do? “I’ll just walk,” I mutter. Waiting all this time for nothing. First she needs to finish her accounts, and then that stupid rat comes by and she gets distracted. If I had walked I’d be almost to Green’s house by now.
“I’ll drive.” And just like that, she nearly hauls my arm out of its socket.
“Ouch! Wait-“
“Your father told me to drive you, and technically he’s still my boss, isn’t he?” She drags me over to the garage. The car’s a little thing, newly-purchased and ready for a small little family. A middle-class normal family living in the suburbs. Probably conservative. Go to church every Sunday and attend all the bake sales benefiting West Ridge Elementary School. Participate in rummage sales and PTA gatherings. And without a suspected crime record ten miles long, thank you. Point is, not us.
Point is, the moment Dad bought it home, it probably realized it was in the wrong family and should have ran away the moment it got the chance to. I didn’t like it at first. But it grew on me quite a bit. And hey, Dad cleans it every week even though we don’t really drive a lot.
Ma’m jumps in the front seat. “You can go shotgun since the boss isn’t here,” she says, waving a hand. I get the vague suspicion she’s trying to be nice. This is rare enough so that I actually do sit there.
And we’re out of the neighborhood before I even buckle up. Ma’m isn’t a bad driver. On the contrary, Dad’s always saying how she’s the only one he’ll ever trust to get the two of them through enemy sniper fire on an icy road. And how she can take a hairpin turn so tight it makes some sort of weather phenomenon right above the car. I guess it’s sort of cool, to have a mother who can do that, just in case. But still, taking three lanes on one signal gives me a bit of a scare now and then. And apparently the words “Speed” and “Limit” aren’t in her vocabulary. I’m not sure whether to sit and pray or jump out of the car and pray.
No one honks at us. I think they’re all afraid to.
She’s twitching her eye in concentration. When she slides her stare to me, I get the feeling I’m supposed to say something.
“Y-you drive well?” I offer. Yes, she does drive well. Because anyone else tearing up asphalt like this would be canned meat by now.
“You sound like your old man. Only without the accent.”
She clearly thinks it’s a compliment, but I choke. What can I do? I don’t know. I stare at my hands. I don’t want to sound like him…
Maybe she senses the sudden change in atmosphere that normally accompanies a death sentence. She changes the subject. “Of course I drive well. Whenever we raided trains or army vehicles, I was always the driver, come and go. And damn, I was good! I could drive circles around those folks, I could.” She pauses. “Still can.”
What? “What?”
“Mind you, this was before I met your father and we had you.”
It was then that I realized I had practically seen a unicorn. Ma’m never talks about her life before meeting Dad. It’s like having a butterfly unexpectedly land on you. Reaching out and trying to catch it would scare it into flying away, but on the other hand… “What do you mean by raiding cars?”
“None of your business,” she suddenly snorts, snapping closed like a clam.
We sit in silence with the engine growling in the background. When we pull up onto Green’s driveway, I thank Ma’m and begin to walk away when she starts laughing.
“What?” Dad often tells me that if Ma’m starts laughing, you’d better watch out.
“You’re so polite, kid. C’mon. Spit it out. What’re you thinking?” She kicks the car door open and swings her legs out, narrowly missing a cockroach. “I know you’ve got a bit of opinion somewhere down there.”
It’s infectious. I start grinning right along too. “You’re crazy and you’re a right nasty piece of work, but you’re really not half-bad, you really aren’t.”
“You’re crazy and you’re a damn mean piece of work, but you’re really not as bad as a lot of people. And hey! We’ve all got our little habits,” she says lightly. Then she picks up the cockroach and eats it.