Allison Pestrall pulled the large red comforter farther up her body so that it covered her face. The incesant knocking continued dispite her attempts to disapear from the world.
“What?!” she shouted at the door spewing rage with every letter.
“Get up and help us, the bus will be here in 15 minutes and Max doesn't want to cooperate this morning.” Her father said from the other side of the door. His voice was low and loud, even through the wooden door covered in random paraphernalia.
“Fuck Off, Get Arron to do it.” Allison said rolling back over and pulling the blankets back up.
“He’s feeding the rabbits and Matthew is in the shower. Stop being so fucking lazy.” Allison heard her father’s heavy footsteps as he walked away from the room. He was obviously angry but she knew not at her. Arron, probably, he always pisses Dad off most. Oh well. Allison hopped out of bed and started a mad dash search for the pants she had worn the day before. She threw her shirts and assorted other crap all over the place. It would be helpful if I could see the floor, she thought throwing a handful of captain crunch under the bed ill have to vacuum later.
Finally she found her Pants amongst her Hunter S Thompson books and various british indie rock CDs. She threw them on as fast as she could and put on her prescription aviators, Tinted blue at the top and then gradually turning clear on the way down. She threw aside the black towel she used to keep the light out of the room and opened the door as much as she could despite the astronomical amount of crap in front of it.
Alison walked out into the hallway and found her cat trotting around in front of the bathroom door. His showers take too fucking long, she thought thinking unhappily about her brothers and the mess they always made in the communal bathroom. I’ll probably have to clean the whole fucking room again. Allison had been plagued with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) for years now, any notes taken during school were written at least four times and no doodle went unfinished, Art projects on the other hand had been unfinished quite often. She kept her toothbrush in her room on the bookshelf, far away from the disgusting bathroom and from her disgusting brothers. Whenever taking a shower she would spend at least 15 to 20 minutes mopping the floor and cleaning the shower first.
“Max NO!”
Allison walked away from the bathroom and headed down the stairs trying not to think about the disgusting floor where she would have to go next. She walked downstairs to find her younger brother Max running around in his pullup and underwear, he had one of the cat’s toys in his mouth and was being closely followed by his mother. “Allison! Catch him” her mother shouted. Allison jumped off the stairs and held her almost 15 year old brother in her arms.
Max was diagnosed with sever autism at a very early age. He also had ADHD, OCD, and Pica (an eating disorder in which he would eat anything he could get his hands on). If Max ran around a table once he would keep doing it until someone else stopped him or something new caught his eye, He could not speak and had the maturity of a toddler.
“Hey there little buddy” Allison said looking down into her younger brother’s glazed eyes. He responded with a gurgling sound that meant he was pleased. Allison’s mom walked over and helped put Max’s pants on him while Allison held on for dear life. “what time is it?” Allison asked realizing she had forgotten to look at the clock when she had woken up.
“It’s around 10:45,” Allison’s mom answered now struggling to put on Max’s left shoe, “ the bus gets here at 11.”
Alright so that’s 3 hours, which I suppose is 2 more than last night so that’s good. What did I take last night? Allison wondered. She had spent the evening before sitting on the couch in her pajamas, drinking a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and watching old cartoons. Allison’s vice was popping pills. Prescriptions went faster in the pestrall house than bread, which went pretty fast, especially when Max got his hands on it. I’ll have to take inventory when I’m done with this.
The Bus didn’t arrive till 10 after giving Max an extra 10 minutes to run around finding things to eat and for Allison and her mother to chase after him. The bus finally did arrive and with the help of the Jamaican bus driver with dreadlocks the family was able to achieve the lofty goal of seating max on the bus. When the bus finally departed Mrs. Pestrall retired to the kitchen followed by her daughter. She reached over the sink and grabbed a pack of cigarettes, she shook out the smoke from the package and lit it up, Allison had only tried cigarettes once and remembered the disgusting taste of coffee grounds burning her mouth, but she did love the smell.
“If you want there are some waffles in the fridge.” Allison reached into the tiny refrigerator overfilled with food, mostly Matthew’s. Fat ass she thought grabbing the hidden box of waffles from behind the giant KFC bucket. She walked past her mother and into the small hallway leading from the kitchen to the dining room. Due to the over stuffing of the kitchen this hallway had become a pit filled with anything that just didn’t fit; dishes, a microwave, a toaster, miscellaneous phone chargers, and plenty of food. Allison grabbed two waffles out of the box and put them in the toaster.
She pushed down the black lever on the side of the old metal gadget and waited for the light to turn on, it didn’t. “Son of a bitch!”
“What’s up?” Mrs. Pestrall asked walking over putting her cigarette out in a slightly filled water bottle.
“The fucking toaster won’t work,” Allison said in the whining voice she always used when talking to her mother.
Allison’s mom reached over the toaster and plugged it into the wall socket. “there you go.”
Fucking cheap ass, Allison thought about the most likely culprit to unplug the toaster. Wilbur Pestrall was constantly unplugging appliances and turning off lights, he was also known to turn off the heat to save money in winter. “Light a fucking fire” would be his immediate response to any complaint.
Allison trudged back up the stairs and into her room. She shut the door pushed the towel underneath and climbed across the room and into her bed. Once in bed she hit a snag in her plan. She couldn’t sleep. Shit! Allison could never sleep but was always tired. She reached over to the bookcase next to her bed and grabbed one of many orange prescription bottles.
She found the desired bottle and poured out two or three Melatonin pills. These pills could, and were quite frequently, purchased at the local health food store. Allison then noticed the overbearing cold in the room. She looked down at the ground and saw the exact item of clothing she was looking for.
Allison groaned and got back out of bed to pick up and subsequently put on the large wooly Polo jacket. Allison succeeded at her goal and got back into bed. And then came another knock at her door.
“Allison! Come help me shovel there’s a foot of snow out there!!” Mr. Pestrall shouted through the door again.
Allison rolled over and shouted back “Go Away!”
She fell back to sleep.
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