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Veronika POV
I felt calm and at peace as I sat down on the hard wooden floor under my family house porch and stared at the blue lake as the moonlight reflected on it crystal clear surface but still it wasn't enough to distract me from whatever punishment awaited me when they had made their verdict. I have been punished so many times than I could even remember most times I was just grounded. But none of the punishment ever took four hours to be decided and by my family member. I kept wondering if what had happened would be enough to warrant any extreme punishment, this thoughts drifted me back to the day before yesterday when my dad and I arrived at Russia for a family meeting that takes place every two years, were relatives from far and wide gather to discuss how the decisions and the family wealth will be managed and distributed just because we had surplus I mean they could have just discussed with their lawyers, but well my family likes to keep things under wraps.
I am not a big fan of this tradition because my cousins and I have never witnessed this meeting or even stepped a foot into my grandfather study room where the meetings are always held. But I overheard from my estranged Dad that this meeting would be different.
On arriving, I told my father that I would meet him at the family house and that I wanted to take a quick tour around the city but as always my father didn't care or even bother to notice me leave, that was when I met her, Zara, I met her at the subway train which she boarded and sat next
to me.
She had a perfectly slim body like a model and a tanned skin I guess that she had been exposed to the sun scorching rays for too long. She wore dark heavy make-up that tried to make her seem older but I wouldn't be made a fool and her dark hair was trimmed right above her neck, she wore a black T-shirt saying 'l HEART ROCK 'N' ROLL' accompanied with a black leather jacket and black jeans. It was obvious to me that she was part of a rock band but she made the obvious more obvious by playing my favourite rock song 'A day in the life' by the Beatles through her white earphones that was when I popped up the first question to start a uneventful conversation
"Are you in a rock band" she stared at me for a second then pulled out her earphones and responded
"I'm sorry what did you say" she asked her face blank of all emotion
"I said are you part of a Rock band" I watched as her face lit up with a smug grin as lips parted revealing a set of sparkling teeths and she began to speak
"What gave me away" she crossed her hands above her chest
"Pretty much everything starting with your shirt it says I heart rock and roll" she gave out a weak chuckle as I made air quotes with my hands
"Plus, I could hear a day in the life playing from your earphones and for the record I totally love that song" she drew herself closer as she inhaled deeply in a shocked manner
"What!!! it is totally my favourite, I have listened to it like eleven times since today" we laughed and talked about how much we loved John Lennon most especially to his band mates before she stretched her hands towards me and told me her name was Zara Manning and I took her hands in mine and told her my name then she invited me to a party where her band the night bats would be playing the party was to
be held tomorrow night, yeah the same night before the family meeting. I should have known it would have only brought problems.
I told her I would be there but honestly at that time I hadn't fully made my decision then.
So when the train stopped I hopped out but I could still feel Zara ember eyes gazing at me till the electronic train drove away.
I took a cab heading to our family mansion, looking at the antique building from afar It seemed scary.
It had cracked pillars, all the grasses looked grey, but for some strange reason the rosebushes weren't affected by whatever mysterious plague affecting the other plants, they were only housing some weird green and black spiders that I was warned by my Grandpa to stay away from, I can still recall the day when I wandered just close enough for the spiders to feel threatened and attack me. I was overtaken with a electrifying pain. I had a high fever, it was so bad I thought I would die. After some time my mom and dad arrived with a greenish goo instructing me to drink it. And by the way it was extremely bitter but I knew if my Mom said I should drink it, it was necessary. Now you see what I meant. Creepy.
I let these thoughts cloud my mind as I walked in. I was shocked to see my father standing next to the grandfather clock. He wore a grey suit with a white long sleeve shirt and a grey trouser. He had changed from his travelling clothes. He held a pocket watch in his left hand
"Where have you been" his brows knitted into a frown as he kept the watch back into the pocket of his coat
"Um...hi dad I..." my stuttering words were brought to a complete halt as I heard a irritatingly familiar voice coming from behind me
"What did you do now roniks" and there he was the face of my arch nemesis Samuel. He had the same smirky smile that always managed to make my skin crawl since we were little.
He walked up and stood behind my dad and leaned lazily on the wall giving me a better enough view to stare at his pale white face. Samuel had a oval face with deep brown eyes in which at times most girls get lost in its void, strands of his sandy hair fell across his face but nevertheless he still had the same smirk he had since he walked into the room. He wore a black tank top with a white short, though we were in summer but it had already began to fade away and paved way for autumn to creep in so I'm sure he wore the tank top to show of his alleged biceps. He wish.
"This is none of your business Samantha so stay out of it" I quickly snapped out of my thoughts and retorted back at him but all I managed to get from him was the same smirk as he shook his head sideways
"No! veronika not now, now isn't the time for your antics" my dad paused for a moment and rubbed his temple, letting out a heavy sigh I couldn't tell if it was out of relief or worry
"Your grandfather and your grandaunt and her family will be arriving tomorrow and I want you to be at your best behaviour, nothing must go wrong, have I made my self understood" he then gave me a stern look and then just walk past me towards the door in a split second Samuel walked up towards me
"Well someone's been a naughty girl" he said to me while pushing off his yellow brown hair that fell across his face
"Buzz off loser, I have better places to be" I replied back to him as I made it up the stairs but I could still hear him saying
"I really hope you can stay out of trouble" accompanied with a weird giggle that I chose to ignore.
As I walked into a long dimly lit corridor and stared at all the rooms and the name tags on them, then I saw my name tag second door on the right. The first door on the right was john then mine followed by Beverly then Samuel and zoey the doors on the left started with Brian then his twin sister Danielle followed by Olivia then
Celyn and Trey at the end of the corridor was Elijah's room it was bigger than ours because he was older than us.
I took some steps and entered into my room to see that nothing had actually changed the bed was still close to the window, the red dragon embroidered carpet still laid at the center of the room, my work space still looked tidy and it still had the books about psyche I often read and my rock band posters was still on the wall, everything was still the same. But it was still missing one important feature, I reached inside one my backpack and brought out a picture of her, my mother, she looked pretty in this picture he blond hair were curled and draped behind her, her aquarium blue eyes sparkled, she looked so beautiful
in this picture.
I placed the wooden frame on my desk and laid down on my bed for some minutes till I heard a knock on my door and I told whoever it was to come in, then I saw Olivia and her brother John walk into my room a smile lit up across my face,out of eleven cousins was it terrible of me to happen to only like two
"I heard you arrived, so how have you been doing" Olivia spoke to me with a smile on her face while John walked slowly around my room as though it was being inspected
"I'm fine just dad issues" I sighed deeply
"Yeah, I heard about that, he is still being very strict on you" Olivia asked while taking a seat beside me
"He has been this way since my mom died" I took a deep breath before proceeding
"And I don't know when he is going to stop"
"okay lets change the subject, what college have you applied for" Olivia's warm hands held mine
"I applied for some colleges but I haven't heard any response" I pushed my hair back
"Don't worry they will come around, well red creek in Colorado has replied me and I got in and I'm going after the meeting" we both giggled in perfect unison
"Wow, that's nice congrats" I and Olivia chatted for a while before she left, Olivia and her brother weren't ones to talk a lot. They always spoke as if they were going to be charged for amount of words they spoke but either ways I would take them over any of my blabber mouth cousins.
After chatting with Olivia I went down for dinner where my dad just talked and argued about politics with my uncles; Thomas,Daniel and Jordan.
