Here's a random little story that I had great fun writing. I never really proofread it, so bear with me here. :)
Comments are always appreciated.
-------------------------------------------------Franken and Kit
Kit stared angrily at the stuffed bear that was slouched lazily on the edge of her bed.
“I asked you to clean up my room for me while I was at school, Franken!”
The bear shrugged and fiddled with the red ribbon tied around his neck. “Who said I was gonna?” Kit gave the teddy a look of frustration, her chubby cheeks flushed with anger. “I gave you my last cookie for that! Now mummy’s mad at me!” With a last furious glare and a shake of her chestnut curls, Kit, turned and set down to the task of picking up her belongings off the floor of her bedroom. Franken watched with amusement as she crawled across the floor, throwing various miscellaneous objects in the direction of her closet, many falling very short of their target.
“Stupid bear. You call yourself my friend…” Kit grumbled. Franken merely grinned in his fuzzy, sometimes aggravating way. “Quit mumbling. I can hear you.” The bear rolled over on his side. “So, how was school today?” Kit let her angry silence hang in the are for several moments, but couldn’t help but start to talk. Franken somehow always made her want to talk. It was like magic. Chatting with him left her heart a little bit lighter too, when she was done. “Kevin, that meanie! He wouldn’t let me borrow his blue marker! Kelly didn’t have one either, so I had to ask Kevin! So, I got mad, cause I tried really hard to ask him nicely like Miss Birch asked me to last time.” Kit ranted, repositioning herself and sitting solemnly on the floor. She ran her hands over the rough layer of carpet that lined her bedroom floor. It wasn’t a pleasant color; grey spotted with specks of blue everywhere. Franken chuckled. “You and your classmates.” Kit ignored this comment. “I fell on the blacktop today. Kevin tripped me. Got a plain old regular band-aid.” She commented absent-mindedly, rolling up her jeans to show Franken the battle-wound on her knee. “I was hoping for a pretty one…” Kit flopped onto her back and closed her eyes. “Franken, I’m so tired…” Franken stared at the girl, his brown marble eyes looking worried. “Kit, you have homework to do…” he gently reminded her. The girl lazily waved her hand at the bear. “I know, I know… Just let me take a nap…”
The stuffed bear continued to stare at Kit. Her energy had flickered out so quickly.
Kit awoke to the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Her room was dark in the night. She was eleven years old now. Time had passed. She had fallen asleep on the floor, exactly as she had done five years ago. Franken didn’t talk to her anymore. Withdrawn into a hard shell, and lost into the deep ocean. Her hair was longer now, curls unmanageable. Kit sat cross-legged and turned toward her bedroom door, which was tightly shut. She stared dully, and the war began. She closed her eyes. Shouting ensued on the floor below her. She never knew what it was they were always fighting about. She didn’t want to know. It was expected, but Kit still felt the fear building up inside her chest. She quickly changed into her pajamas, and slipped into bed, pulling the covers over her head, not bothering to brush her teeth. She would do that in the morning. Kit felt the soft felt lining of her bed sheet. She slowly put her hands over her ears, and peeked out of the safety of her bed. Franken was on a shelf, where he had remained for the past three years. Kit looked at him, looking for some kind of sign of life. Something might have flickered in his eyes, but it was lost as soon as it came. A stream of loneliness made its way to join the pool of fear that had already gathered in the center of Kit’s life.
Highschool. The nest of drama. The field in which scandal and gossip springs up, and leaves the soil overrun with weeds. Kit just happened to go to one such school, which just happened to be swarming with rumors and betrayals. She had tried to hard to shy away from this. The painful result of betrayals and jealousy. Her circle of friends had gotten wider, but also more spread out. A group of girls had taken Kelly away from her. Kit had grown prettier. Her hair fell across her shoulders, loosely tied back to keep her curls from getting in the way. She was slender, and reasonably tall. Boys had come to her. But she lacked something. The ability to dare, to do more than just hold hands. Her eyes lacked the fierceness of her past self. They seldom looked at someone directly.
Kit swung her backpack over her shoulder and trudged toward the door. Kelly and her friends walked out of a classroom. Kit slowed her pace to a stop, and watched as her former best friend giggled at some inaudible joke that was whispered between the group’s members, and tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. Kit bit her lip and resisted the urge to call out to her. “Kiiiiiiit!” A voice called from behind her. Kelly’s eyes glanced in Kit’s direction, and the two girl’s eyes met. Kit’s eyes a sad question that would never be asked, Kelly’s a vision of cold ice. Kit’s gaze flickered away, determined to not face the hard expression in Kelly’s eyes. She hesitated, then turned around to meet the face of the girl who had called out to her. She vaguely listened as Kelly’s chattering group moved farther and farther away. “What’s up Sarah?” Kit asked casually, registering the blue-eyed, freckled face that was in front of her. “Wanna come over today? I got a new CD that I think you’ll really like.” Sarah said excitedly. Kit smiled faintly back at the girl. “Sure.” She replied. Off they went, and Kit pushed the exit door open, to be bathed in the afternoon’s sunlight.
Kit stood on the front steps of her house, and waved at Sarah, who was sitting in the front seat of her Dad’s car. “Thanks for giving me a ride back, Mr. McKenzie!” She shouted across the lawn. Mr. McKenzie smiled, and started pulling out away from the curb. “Any time, Kit.” He called back. Kit’s smile faded as she watched the small, navy blue car disappear, and turn around the corner. She turned with a flourish to face the front door of her house, and clipped her heels together. Kit closed her eyes, gripped the door handle, and tugged on the door. She disapprovingly noted that it was unlocked. She stepped inside, and took of her shoes. But, her nose was gradually met with the smell of vomit and alcohol. Kit sighed, and stood for a moment, where she was sitting. Dad had left to play with women half a year ago. Mom tried her hardest to focus all her attention on raising Kit, but on her worst days, she drowned herself in alcohol, and slept. That’s what usually got her fired; skipping work from hangovers. She entered the kitchen and the smell hit her at full blast, making her nose crinkle. She nearly tripped over a bottle that had managed to escape from the table. She gathered the bottles that were scattered around the first floor. She sighed in relief. Mum had managed to use the trashcan to throw up in instead of the floor. After she finally finished cleaning up and taking out the trash, she made her way upstairs. Kit walked past her mother’s closed bedroom door, not bothering to check on her; she was bound to be sprawling across the bed, with a glass of water and a bottle of headache-relief pills close at hand.
Kit tossed her backpack in an empty corner, and sunk to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rocked back and forth, with her face pressed against her jeans. After a few moments, she got up, stretched, and made her way to the small desk that sat in the corner. Only a few necessities were neatly arranged in a plastic cup on the side. Kit’s room was what you would call spotless. A small dresser was tucked in the opposite side of the room. Other than that, a reasonably sized bed and a bedside table adorned the room. No posters, no bookshelf, no stuffed animals. No one had to tell her to clean up her room anymore.
The sun was beginning to set when Kit flicked on her table lamp and started on her homework. The only sound that could be head was the constant scribble and the occasional clicking of a mechanical pencil. Kit’s hair splayed across the wood of her desk as she hunched over her work, her concentration more intensity than one would find from a sixteen year old. Suddenly, she snapped upright, put her pencil back in its place, and put everything back, textbooks and all, neatly into her backpack. A sandwich or a salad and a glass of water for dinner, a quick shower, and then off to sleep. That was her routine. But, while she was pulling a shirt over head, she passed her closet. Kit paused to take a look herself. Those pale, dark rings were still there, rimming her eyes. Kit frowned at her reflection; she had been getting a lot of sleep lately, she had made sure of it. She rubbed her eyes with little effort, as her mind wandered to other thoughts. Thoughts of what had happened during the day, vague worries of the test that she would have in Physics the next morning. Kelly’s stone cold gaze, the gaze of a stranger that pierced Kit’s heart. Kit felt the painful knot in her throat start to develop. It may have been an impulse, she would never know. But, she slid open the closet, watching her mirrored twin slide past, out of sight. There, on a shelf next to a few old sweaters Kit never used, was a brown, fuzzy teddy bear. A memory that had suddenly come back into existence. She placed her hands around the bear, and gently lifted it, as if it would fall apart in her hands. The bear’s soft fur had remained unchanged, and the little red ribbon still hung around his neck. Kit gazed into his hazel eyes, the eyes that her father had once said was the exact color of her own. They remained unmoving, and unemotional. Nevertheless, Kit drew the bear into a tight embrace. “Franken…” she whispered, and let the pool overflow, out into reality. She felt tears stream down her face, and sadness grew even more. Kit sunk to the floor, still hugging the bear. “Don’t leave me alone…” she cried into his fur.
“Mum, she’s breaking down. Getting worse. Dad left since you last saw him too.”
“Kelly, she’s not my friend anymore, you know? She doesn’t even look at me…”
“I don’t know anymore… Nothing seems real… It’s all crashing down on me, like I’m in the ocean, and I know how to swim… but I can’t. I just…”
All of this was met with still silence. Kit continued.
“Franken, I need you here with me, like back then.”
“Please. I’m not mad at you anymore.”
“I promise I won’t forget you anymore…”
“please…”
Kit’s voice grew softer, and finally she stopped talking altogether. Her tears had ebbed a bit, but they still dripped downwards, making a rather large, damp spot on Franken’s fur. Sat there, motionless, unwilling to let go of the bear.
“You and you classmates, silly Kit.” A soft voice answered.
Kit’s eyes widened. She released Franken from her tight embrace and stared into his eyes, willing him to let her hear his voice again. His embroidered mouth did not move. But, his eyes were filled with a tiny glimmer that had not been there before. Their gazes locked, and Kit smiled softly. Reassurance, support. That was all she had needed.
Franken never spoke again, but there was still that twinkle in his eyes.
So, he traveled with Kit.
With her to college, with his own special spot on her new desk.
Next to her computer at her first internship.
Back and forth with her on the subway after she had gotten her first apartment.
Sometimes to visit her mother, who had gotten off drinking, and was steadily getting happier.
Meeting Kelly again for the first time in years.
At her marriage with her childhood enemy, Kevin, which came as a shock.
With her to his final resting place, at a cozy home, where Kit and Kevin raised their first daughter, who they named Hope.
And into the small arms of Hope, where she would cuddle and talk with him for all of her childhood years.
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