Two

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I responded to the angry call of the alarm clock by pulling the blanket over my head. On the other side of the room, Katy jumped from her bed with great energy, for the first and last time this year. For every day from now until mid-June, with the possible exclusion of graduation day, I would be the one to face the harsh green light that spelled out my sentence: 6:00.

My duties were relieved from my shoulders, however, on this, the first day of school, in deference to Katy’s excitement. Me, I didn’t see what was so interesting about it. The first day of school was just like any other day, except you had to stress over what unpleasant surprises teachers would throw at you for the next one hundred and eighty days. And, sure, studying gave me something to do with my over-abundance of time, but it still wasn’t exciting. Certainly it wasn’t grounds for leaping out of bed.

The blanket not being exactly the best shield against the shrill assault designed to wake me, it was a relief when Katy finally made it stop. My relief—which soon would have been accompanied by a slip back into dreamland, had I been left undisturbed—was short lived, due to an attack of a different kind. If my blanket did a poor job at protecting me from sound, it was even more a failure at stopping light. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to burrow deeper into the pillow.

This, apparently, was not behavior acceptable to Katy. “Deirdre! Wake up!” she sang shrilly, with alarming proximity to my ear. “Summer’s over! It’s the first day of school!” All her eagerness may make it hard to believe that within the week, she would be whining about schoolwork, and longing once again for vacation time. I, however, have had the experience of living nearly nine years in the same room as my cousin, and have been taught the contrary.

Instead of responding to this behavior—it wouldn’t do to teach her that she can get things without saying please—I clenched my fists around my comforter. It was awfully snuggly and warm inside my blankets, and it was most likely chilly in the house. Besides, school didn’t hold any appeal for me. Unlike the entire rest of my class, I didn’t think that senior year would be any different than freshman, sophomore, and junior years were.

I was only given the half-second’s warning of a knee’s pressure on the side of my bed before my comforter-shield duo was ripped from my body. The cool air hit me like a shot, causing me to pull up into a sitting position and reach for the blanket, which Katy was keeping far from my grasp. Clever girl had learned all my tricks.

Sleepily I slumped forward, defeated. “Are you awake now?” Katy asked, too cheerful on the whole, peering into my face. I shook my head drearily, brushing the hair from my eyes with the back of one hand. Morning is a cruel mistress.

“I thought you were,” Katy sang, apparently taking my denial as a confirmation. “Get up and get ready, Deirdre. It’s the first day of school.” It was almost as if she hadn’t said this already.