I wake up to the beautiful morning sunshine pouring in from my window and know that this is going to the second most difficult day of my life. The first being the choosing ceremony.
“AJ! Get your sorry behind down here!” My father yells. I rub my eyes and roll out of bed and stumble down the stairs.
“What took you so long?” He asks as I get out a plate for breakfast.
“Dad... I just got up, like, ten seconds ago.” I say, annoyed.
“I don’t care. You should've, LIKE, gotten up earlier.” He says, mocking me. He slaps a piece of toast on my plate. Once I've finished it he says,
“Go clean yourself up. Big day.” I stomp out, grumbling angrily.
“Maybe you should take your own advice.” I mutter.
“I heard that!”
“Heard what?” I ask innocently. A spoon whizzes past my ear, bouncing off the wall and clattering onto the floor.
“You missed.” I giggle.
“I won’t next time.” My father threatens. I keep walking up the stairs.
“Yeah, yeah.” I say without looking back.
Upstairs in the bathroom I struggle to brush my unruly blonde hair. Once I’ve gotten most of the tangles out, I get dressed. I can hear my father yelling at me to hurry up from downstairs, but I choose to ignore him. I put on a black dress, and, since I’m supposed to always wear black AND white, I wear an off-white headband. When I get downstairs, my father is sitting at the table, sleeping. I give him a noogie and walk out of the house. The last thing I hear before I get out of our yard is,
“Not funny. You should know better than to do that, A...” I smile.
You’d think after all that, I’d be scared to death of my dad. But I’m not, truth is. That’s how it’s always been. According to all my older neighbors, my mother was much worse. Apparently, she was really abusive to my sister, Apple Bloom, because she ran away to Amity when she was eight and we haven’t heard from her since. Mom also had a really bad drinking problem. I don’t know how bad, but I do know that she has several other kids that aren’t my father’s from drunk nights with some of her friends.
But she got arrested after they found out how awful she was to Apple Bloom, and I think she’s dead now.