Yawns Are Contagious [Steffenee]

Oh goodness, he smells awful. Where has he been? Dad rubs his forehead and smiles at Willow. "And if I don't go to my bed?" He asks, laying down. I start playing with a strand of hair, twisting it and pulling it. I wrap it around my finger over and over, staring at him. "Nolthts," he slurs, "Don't go anywhere." Well if he falls asleep I'm definently not staying. Can't I just have a normal day? Follow Willow around for a bit? See the flowers blooming? I guess not, or at least, not a good wake-up. Maybe Willow will think of something. She's good at coming up with ideas. I watch her, waiting for someone to move. Nobody moves. Dad keeps his eyes open, and I'm too frozen to move. I've no idea what's going on in Willows mind right now. Maybe I should think of something. But I'm no good at that! I'm terrible at making plans. I guess we could just wait him out. There's a plan. A good plan? Could be, could not be. It mostly depends on his mood.

He shifts in the bed, getting on his side to face us. I close my eyes and breath slowly. I might say something, but my throat feels blocked off. Like I've been made mute somehow. I do open my mouth though, and another yawn comes out, and it's a bit hard to stiffle the noise. I'm good at stiffling the noise though, so it's barely audible. Well, if your in a crowded room. "YOU go to bed" He says, pointing at me, and I stare hard at him. I'm trying to be like Willow. She doesn't act as scared as I do, so I'll try and be like her. Wait, no, dad gets mad at her for that. I cover my face, blocking the sight of him far away. I don't want to see him. Or smell him, for that matter. I breath through my mouth, trying to keep the hideous smell out of my nose. Is it his clothes or his breath? Probably both. He's been gone a few weeks. Completely possible he fell asleep in a pile of poop. Although I don't really want to think about that, it's disgusting. I peek out at him, and see his smile. A tooth! He's missing a tooth! What was he doing?

I think he sees my reaction, and he scoots into the middle of the bed. He closes his eyes, and almost immediatly starts snoring loudly. Oh goodness, how're we going to get rid of him now? I look over at Willow, then hug her. "He scared me, Willow!" I whisper, hanging on, "I wish I was like you." I guess now she's going to want to leave and go look for food. Of course, we've got the vomit right in front of us at the moment. I'm just happy he fell asleep before he went crazy. Maybe he'll leave soon and we can come back. He looked pretty sleepy though, and he might just sleep the day away. Happy Saturday.

I put on the shirts and hop over the vomit. I watch silently as Willow gets the door lodged shut. Good thing too, that smell is very overpowering, and I can still smell a bit from here. I'm guessing we would sleep on his bed, it's nice since he never sleeps on it. He'll most likely go into a fit when he wakes up with nothing to drink. Serves him right, why should he get what he wants? I go out the door after Willow and stand next to her, looking a her closely. She was standing there in her thinking mode. She had something on her mind. I try to pry into her thoughts, but fail miserably. Mostly because, well, I got a headache from consentrating too hard. I watch her a little less nosey, not trying to read her mind. Whatever was going on in there was serious. Maybe it was about dad. Or about getting rid of him. Maybe even we would end up going away and living somewhere else, where he couldn't find them! Oh, that would be wonderful.

Willow shakes her head, and I know she isn't in deep thught any more. She begins to walk, and I follow, just like I always do. "Everything will be okay Violet, don't think about him." She says. I can always try to push him out of my mind. I nod my head, and start glancing around. Looking for something someone may have dropped. Something nobody cared about anymore, except the people who found it. That would be us. Hopefully, anyways. Sometimes things like that didn't work out. We'd see someone else carry off something they found. I look at Willow, and try to read her thoughts again. I quickly lose interest and go back to glancing around. Only thing on the ground is crumbs, and you can't eat those. Actually, maybe if you gathered them all you could make something larger. But who's going to got hrough all of town picking up crumbs? Someone very desperate, I guess.

I can notice that due to it being spring, many flowers are attempting to bud. Not many are budding yet, but the early ones are. It's the ones in May that cover the town in glory. I can't wait until May. There, I'm successfully not thinking abou dad. Oh goodness, shouldn't have done that. Now I'm thinking again. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on another matter. When I open them, I examine the people around us. The feeling I have isn't boredom, it's just a mutual feeling of haing nothing to do. It's how I usually feel, so I guess I'm fine. I look at Willow a third time, but I don't try and read her thoughts. I just look at her. Then I turn my head back in front of me, and focus on the people passing.

I don't know anyone, naturally. It's Willow who does all the talking. I'm not starting now, though. Anyways, I can't get dad of my mind right now. I wonder what he dreams about. Nothing? Mom? Drinking more? I have no idea, and feel like turning around to go read his mind. I know I can't though, and it's so unlogical to go back there. Going back might wake him up, which scares me a bit. What if he wakes up before we come back? What if he's angry we left? Ohboy, what is going to happen? I cannot shake this out of my mind, it stays like glue. What if's race through me. A queer little thought comes to me. What if I don't see him? Maybe he'll get up and dissapear, forever. Never come back. Ever. I don't wish him dead, I just wish him away. If he died, well, that'd probably just be better for him. But what would Willow and I do if they caught us alone? Wouldn't they take us some place else? Too many questions. I need to get simple now, I am growing a headache from all the what ifs.

I look at Willow again. "What do you want to do now?" I ask, not bothering to try and figure it out myself. Hopefully I won't need to say too much else today, I already feel queer with all these people around me. We blend in fine, it's the fact they are here in general that bothers me. I'll just keep quiet and stay by Willow. That'll be fine. Like any other day.

Do I want to? Willow looks like she doesn't want to, and I got to eat yesterday. I guess I could wait for a bit, as long as it didn't take too long. I like Ms. Willus, she is a very nice lady. I like going just to see what she will say, although her food tastes great. She's also good at keeping conversations not too complex, and doesn't ask me too many questions. And when she does ask me questions, they are always easy to answer. A yes or no question is common, I think she understands I don't want to talk. She can be funny too, and makes me laugh sometimes. I want to go see her, but I don't think Willow wants to. I don't want to do anything Willow doesn't want to do. So, should I tell her I want to see Mrs. Willus or we should go to the store? I guess we could first go to the store, then go to Mrs. Willus' house. Oh yes, that seems like a good idea. We'll go to the store and do what Willow wants to do, then we can go talk to Mrs. Willus. I just worked it out with myself! "Lets go to the store, and then I want to go see Mrs. Willus" I say, and rub my head. The headache is seeming to be fighting to dissapear for me. That is good, headaches are an unpleasant thing. I don't get too many, but that doesn't mean I don't get them at all. Everybody gets headaches though, it's part of life. Might as well just deal with them, right? I would bet even Willow gets headaches. Okay, enough about headaches, it's giving me a headache. I smile a bit, thinking about that. Thinking about it is what not to do. So I need to not think about it, but it's so hard to not think about something you are trying not to think about. It's like if someone told you not to think about Sidewalks, and suddenly that is the only thing that you can think about. Like when Willow told me not to think about Dad, although I managed to guide myself away from that topic.

Keep it simple Violet. I get off topic so easily. I look at a flower that seems to be in full bloom, it is absolutely magnificent. I look at Willow and smile. March flowers can be just as beautiful as May flowers, even though May has more. Mom used to bing home some flowers and give them to us. She'd explain the types of flowers, and when we were very young, would tell us about the colors. She used to take violets and joke to me about how I must be a flower in disguise. Then she'd make up a fairytale about a flower (a Violet to be exact) that escaped the flower bed, turned herself into a human, and joined people in life. I liked that story, pretending to be a flower was fun. "If I'm a flower, Willow must be a tree!" I would joke. I would stand still and dad would look at me and say I had transformed back into a flower, and he didn't even recognize me. Now he would never do that. He's too busy ignoring us. Oh, what I would give to play flower again. I miss being a pretty little flower, and dancing around with Mom. But I guess all good things have an end. Don't they? Maybe bad things have an end as well. In stories, people always get happy endings, but life isn't a fairytale.

I shove my mind back into reality. We are going to go to the store, and Willow is going to buy some things. I don't know what, because I have no idea how much money she stole. Nonetheless, what she is thinking about spending it on. Maybe new clothes. Actually, that is likely, if she got the money for it. If not she's probably going to spend it on some food. I push my hair behind my ears. Rubbing my eyes, it feels like I'm rubbing my sleepiness away. That is a good thing, being sleepy all day won't help anyone. "Lets have a really good day" I say, glancing at Willow, "I woke up happy, you know. Lets talk about something." I think hard, trying to think of a subject to talk about. I'm very terrible at making conversation, even with Willow, but I want to turn this into a good day. Good days are easy, so my new goal is to have a good day. Then it comes to me. "I think the flowers" I go silent for a bit, forgetting what I was going to say. Then I remember, "I think the flowers are really pretty now." There. I told her something, and now she could tell me something. I like listening to her, even if she only gives me a few sentences, I could think about them while we walk. Think about them until she says something else, then I can think about those words. If she gave me a whole bunch of things, I can just listen and listen while we walk. Either way is good, unless she doesn't say anything. Then I'll feel really akward, and I will only think about wierd things. Just a few words. Please.