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A Sad Reality | Shook Chapter 19 Part 2
Dyan is headed to a foster home in Maine. The Blue children are off to boarding school. All looks hopless, but Maya has a plan...
Hours later, Mr. Blue informed the children to pack their suitcases for tomorrow because he would be driving up to Maine first thing tomorrow for school interviews.
As Mr. and Mrs. Blue left the kitchen, the kids sat in silence.
Maya hated her parents. She wished she could beat them up. She wished she could beat anything up. She wanted to yell and scream. There was a thunder cloud inside her, ready to strike.
“This is unfair! They're basically sending us to jail!” Maya yelled.
“This is all Dyan’s fault! How could she get us in trouble like this! She should have just told the dang truth!” yelled Azure.
“I don’t think it was Dyan in particular who got us in trouble. Hearing how fast we got that interview, they had to have been planning this punishment for a while.” said Navy.
Maya glared at Navy. “Even in trouble, he still had to be a smart alec about everything,” she mumbled.
“I’m gonna be the only kid in the house!” True realized, looking at all her siblings with wide eyes.
“Good for you!” Maya barked, her arms crossed.
“No you won’t, Teal will still be here,” said Royal, who was busy staring blankly into nothing, her fingers tapping against the table as if she was waiting for something. As her face crumbled and tears came to her eyes, she said, “this sucks,” and her head fell to the table, where she wrapped her arms around her head and her breaths rasped as she cried.
Maya absolutely loathed her parents, more than anybody else on planet Earth.
Dyan had spent the whole day in a sad ball in bed and wouldn’t get up even when Maya pleaded with her to. Later on Maya spent the whole afternoon working on a drawing of her evil parents. Her father had devil horns and blackened eyes, and her mother had triangle-shaped sharp teeth curved in an evil smile.
It was just when she was wondering if she was really related to them when her father yelled, “Lights out! We’ve got a long day tomorrow, and if you don’t get to sleep now, you’ll be wishing you did in the morning.”
Maya angrily went to the bathroom and raked her teeth with her toothbrush. She angrily rinsed it and slammed it into the toothbrush-glass when Royal said, “You’ll have to pack your toothbrush for boarding school, remember?” With that, Royal clipped a cap on her toothbrush and left the bathroom.
And so Maya angrily capped her toothbrush and brought it to her room. Wild Yonder came to the girls bedroom doorway and just sat there, only moving when Dyan got up and slumped to the bathroom.
“Is Dyan okay?” he asked Maya.
“No. Why would she be? She’s being sent away! She’s been in bed since this morning. She only got up for dinner.”
Wild Yonder sat quiet a moment, then he said, “It’s basically game over for all of us. The surprise vacation, Winter break, Dyan’s leaving. It’s all over.”
Maya’s plan twinkled in the back of her head, but she told Wild Yonder nothing of it. She just said, “yeah.”
“I said lights out!” Mr. Blue yelled again, stomping up the steps. Quickly, Wild Yonder rushed away from the door. A new cloud of anger filled Maya’s chest, and she gritted her teeth as she rushed to bed. Dyan turned the light off and rushed into her bead as well.
The only child to return a “good night” to Mr. Blue was True, and Maya wanted to beat her for it. How dare she be the little goody-two-shoes now, while the rest of her siblings were being sent to the edge of the country to a kid-jail where they'd live for a year? The nerve of her!
***
Navy was busy staring at a school uniform lined up at the edge of his bed, lost in thought.
It was a simple uniform: a white polo shirt, partially covered by the dark green sweater Mrs. Blue had laid on top of it. Crisp dark gray pants, and a plaid green tie.
“You hate us so bad that you’re gonna give us away to strangers?” Navy had asked Mr. Blue earlier that day.
“We’re not giving you away,” Mr. Blue replied. “Yes you are!” Azure yelled from another room nearby, but he ignored this. “We're sending you to a school where you can learn to be more responsible. Maybe then y’all will learn right from wrong. Maybe one day you’ll understand why we’re doing this,” was the last thing Mr. Blue said, and he sighed and walked away. Navy wondered how his father could look so glum when he was the one sending his own children away.
When Navy noticed he had been staring at the uniform for over five minutes, he shifted his attention to the open suitcase in the middle of his and his brothers’ room.
Would he ever understand why his parents would send him off to a boarding school so far away from home? Were they really doing this for his own good? How could this be for his own good?
He put the covers over his head and tried to sleep, trying to focus on something else, but he couldn’t.
His parents soon went to their room and closed the door.
As soon as that happened, He thought heard tip-toeing, but as he listened closely, he didn’t hear it anymore, so he closed his eyes again.
And then he heard more tip-toeing! He waited, hearing the footsteps come closer, and then walk right into his room. He heard wooden clunks and clicks as if someone was emptying out a container, and then he heard wrappers rattling.
He lifted the edge of his covers a tiny bit to see a figure stuffing boxes and bags of Band-Aid bandages and first-aid kits into Azure’s book bag. The contents that used to be in Azrue’s book-bag, including his pencil box, folders, and action figures, were in a messy pile on the floor.
Then he fully lifted the covers from head and leaned up. “Maya! what are you doing!?” he whispered.
He saw the shadowy-girl’s head swivel to him. “Shh! I’m filling Azure’s book bag with first-aid stuff! So we’ll have something to patch ourselves up with if we get hurt when...you’ll see.” and with that, she stuffed a container of their vitamin gummies in the book bag.
Navy glared at her. He glanced at his parents' room door. He could easily tell them what Maya was doing, but he knew if he told, Maya would never tell him what she was up to, and he badly wanted to know.
“What are you planning?” he whispered.
Maya hesitated.
“…promise not to tell anyone?”
Navy thought for a moment. He was surprised he had enough of Maya’s trust for her to tell him without much prodding. Plus, he was mad at his parents. He finally decided that, at the moment, his sister's trust mattered more than his parents' awareness.
“Promise?” she asked again. “I won’t tell you if you don’t promise,” Maya turned her body to face Navy’s bed completely.
Navy nodded. “Now just tell me!”
Find out what happens next in the next part!
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