Morning all. Today I actually took a peek into my garden and I have to say the garlic I have overwintering in one of the back beds is still looking pretty healthy despite the frost on the ground.I know I can’t see what I’ll actually get until I dig it up but it makes me happy just thinking of it there. It was my first attempt at fall planting, mostly because I had some old garlic that sprouted in the back of the fridge when it was still warm enough to plant. If it works out, next year, I’m getting rutabagas. But enough of my garden planning, it is time to write! Timers ready? Good, then let’s go.
I have to admit, I wasn’t terribly thrilled when I picked this starter out of the collection and assigned it it’s moment in the line up. But I have often gotten great stories from sentences that at first baffled me. This wasn’t one of them. This felt like spinning my wheels and it sort of reads like that too. But not all days are good, and at least I didn’t back away from the sentence.
Wednesday, January 6th: “That is so not what I meant.”
“That is so not what I meant,” Jenny declared. She stomped her foot. Then, before Shane could answer she spun around and stalked off. The sound of her bedroom door slamming was heard clearly by everyone left in the room. Shane stared after her for a moment and then turned and sank down onto the couch. He looked at the others, who were trying very hard to pay attention to anyone other than him.
They were trying so hard, Shane felt they might hurt themselves.
“What did she mean?” he said to the room at large, giving them leave to look at him and acknowledge the situation between him and his step sister. He figured it was the best way to avoid bodily injury for everyone around him.
“I think she just wants to be acknowledged for her value,” Michael said.
Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Michael rarely spoke and when he did it was in response to a direct question.
‘Which I suppose this could count as,’ Shane thought. He was too grateful for any sort of life line to question the source too much.
“What value?” Shane asked. Shane agreed to let Jenny stay with him while the folks were out of town. It was supposed to be a bonding experience so the two of them could get to know each other. In the three weeks since her arrival, they hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other. She holed up in the room earmarked as hers for the visit and spend most of the day on her phone texting and messaging her friends. As the room had an attached bathroom, she only really emerged for food.
Shane wasn’t certain how much bonding could be done over ‘Pass the salad, please’. After today he was willing to back to pass the salad and call it a bonding experience.
The small burst of insight that Michael called his own dried up and he merely shrugged and seemed to sink in on himself until the others looked away.
“Maybe,” Lisa suggested. “You just misunderstood what she wanted you to do?”
Shane thought through his morning. “She asked me to stop by Carter’s and pick up the.. thing.”
Shane had no idea what the thing actually was. It was in a duffle bag when he arrived. Carter said. “Okay, cool,” when he asked for it and Shane took the bag away, putting it in his car. He figured he would give Jenny her privacy and not look inside or ask what it was. He suspected this might have been his down fall.
“So I should have looked in the bag instead of giving her privacy?” he asked. Silence met his question. He sighed somehow not comforted by the fact that his friends were as lost as he was in the matter. Thinking he might be able to rectify things if he looked now, Shane looked for the bag. Jenny may have yelled at him over it and stormed off in a huff, but she took the bag with her.
“I wonder what is in the bag,” Shane said.
Ten til Midnight 