#ya stories

The waiter: What would you like, girls?
Agnieszka: Strawberry muffin.
Carmina: Banana bun!
Hecta: Putin dead on a plate, please

Tuesday, 7 September

Mr Bertie is a stinky sneaker of a teacher. He told Daddy about my low grades, and now I am the lazy bun and total shame on all my bun kin. NO SIMS, NO SWEETS, and NO LIFE until I read all those books. Ow! I’m buried alive under the library! I feel like yelling at him, “I’m fifteen! Too old for reading Dickens. I have too much adult staff to deal with.” Well, mostly sewing dresses for my dolls and playing Sims, but the adult potential is there, I sense it!

He left me locked in his study with THREE books as big as bricks and the laziest bum Tom to guard my studying. Luckily, my cat is more interested in his own tail to catch rather than reading about dirty, smelly London streets. I read five pages of Oliver Twist and felt like puddling in the nasty gutter. Is that what they want me to learn from the author?

It’s nothing new. My life is FULL of nastiness, i.e.:

1. That ugly under-the-skin pimple on my forehead will never face the light of day but brood in the labyrinths of my brains for the next twelve years.

2. If I don’t read one million pages on how hard it is to live in Dickens’ head, I may never see the light of day either.

3. I am having a test in six days and I’m certain Mr Bertie is going to fit in the most sadistic questions to watch us suffer, like Oliver Twist did.

4. And I don’t even have a tail like Tom’s to play busy till the Kingdom comes. Ow!

Monday, 6 September

Got a horrible bruise on my hip and still stink of the river no matter how thoroughly I wash. I was resolved to earn my millions with far less dangerous crafting or blogging, or just marrying a PRINCE. Then at school, Amazons showed me my rather funny pics all over the Net and said only sissies give up after the first try.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. It only matters how many times you get up,” Hecta quoted her favourite Shaolin monks.

“And guess what,” Carmina piped in, “There’s Dress Show Live at Terra Mall today! It’s gonna be a total sell-out and huge fashion event meaning lots and lots of…” she looked over her shoulder to check if our potential rivals listened, and whispered conspiringly, “big fish to fish for.” She wriggled her eyebrows at me, and my heart started thumping the click-clock song of the glam shoes on Milan catwalks. Oh, Lord!

Luckily, my black knight costume dried up by the time I got back into my model role. Hecta did me a mega horrific battle make-up and Carmina sneaked a real camera from her ma. We took a bus to the town, and I breathed into a paper bag all the way to calm my nerves. Hecta went berserk at the smeared mask on my face. But by the time we arrived, I looked more like a dead (few times) knight, and it pleased her even more.

The fair-show was a big noisy place with so many people bustling around the stalls and talking total gibberish (probably, French). Anyone could be a disguised agent, so we pretended we didn’t care and simply played up. Carmina took pics of me yelling pirates’ commands and I wobbled in Hecta’s boots like a wretched ship but kept my powerful and mysterious face.

It was rather fun but not until some Oscar Wilde like man DID come up and fell to pieces with most exquisite compliments. “What grace, what elegance! What zest! A gust of fresh, spicy gale to my lungs! Or dear me, miss, have you ever considered being a model?” he sang.

And turned to Carmina.

Carmina turned to Hecta,
Hecta turned to me
and I turned and ran away, crying. I stumbled and bumped into all French on my way. I wanted to lock myself up in a toilet, but Hecta fished me out and said to screw it. “Forget it, okay? Modelling sucks!” she said. “This all sucked from the start.”

“But…” I snivelled, getting even deader dead knight. “But then I’ll never be rich and famous.”

“Y’know, you’d better be yourself.” She said, fixing my smeared mascara with a wet napkin. “And eat as much cookies as you like.”

That sounded like a good idea. I was so hungry. And I REALLY hated walking in two-size bigger boots. We went to buy sweets instead, and Hecta held my hand so I wouldn’t tumble over again. I’ll think about being rich and famous tomorrow, but right now, I want my cookies!

3/3

<<Previous   
❀Previous Story❀

Haunted

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Agnieszka says as she lights a candle in my attic. Carmina peeks under the covered mess of broken furniture and blast-sneezes, sending a cloud of dust dancing in the air.
“Of course, they are real,” I huff and place my bum on one of the old chairs. “What do you think you’ll do after you die?”
“I’ll go straight to heaven,” Agnieszka murmurs, keeping an eye on the shimmering shadows cast by the candlelight.
“I’d better go to hell,” Carmina beams. “If demons offer infinite pleasures, their homeland must be a treasure island!”
“Nobody goes anywhere,” I state. “Your heavens and hells are right here, in this world. There is no another. We are haunt…”
All of a sudden, the chair crushes under me. I flop on the floor, and we yell like freaking psychos.

Sunday, 5 September

I said no to cream buns and a cupcake for breakfast. I can only eat veggies now. Ow! T_T I went to Hecta’s for a makeover and hoped for some cookie with tea as a small compensation for my deadly sacrifice. But she said if I must, I must, i.e. no cookies FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!

I felt like crying, but Hecta started pinching my cheeks to revive my natural blush and it was rather inconvenient to cry and blush at a time. Then she gave me her ruthless goth boots, macabre skirt with a spiky belt and some ghastly hoodie with a rotting skull on it.

“Are you going to turn me into a walking nightmare?” I vetted a giant sleeping BAT in the mirror.

“Fashion world sucks,’ Hecta grumbled. ‘Everyone looks the same, and it’s boring. You are gonna be something else altogether! A black knight of tremendous power and an air of dark mystery.”

“I don’t look like a black knight. I look just BLACK,” I protested.

“Black is new pink, silly,” Hecta said and got to painting my lips black, too.

When Carmina turned up with her camera phone, she laughed so hard it grew into hiccups. I started doubting she’d take a single picture of all that tremendous power and mystery of mine.

We chose the river bank for the shoot. Hecta’s outfit was so big, I swam in her boots and walked like a fish faking human gate. But it won’t get to the pics, right? Hecta said all models wore two-size bigger drags and still kept cool and fab.

So I pulled myself together and climbed the rock half buried in the river sand. Then crawled over to another panting and sweating and hoping it wouldn’t get to the pics either.

Carmina cried at me some inconceivable commands to “heave ho, mi hearty, set sail!”. “And don’t mess up my rags!” Hecta piped in while I did my best to look powerful and mysterious.

Till my left foot stuck in a crack. I lost my balance and plopped down into the dirty shoal, with one blasted boot still standing on the rock. OUCH! “Sink me!” Photographer said and Stylist joined, “Holy shit, that was cool. Did you shoot that?” as they ran up to get me out of mud.

Okay. Enough of being a model! I’m going home to eat a cake.

2/3

<<Previous   Next>>
❀Previous Story❀

Staff!

After weeks of daily kung-fu practice, Carmina cried, “Look how masterly I swing my staff!” and hit her head and lamp.

Saturday, 4 September

How to be a model? How people become models? Do they need to be simply pretty and wait till someone notices it? I flipped through the pile of Mommy’s magazines that she leaves at her clinic for the ladies in waiting to tune my fashion vibe. I took notes too (like a good girl).
First of all, I must be myself. Secondly, I must gain the mainstream style, i. e. NOT be myself. I must look really catchy and flirty (and naked) but super confident about my slim, tall and entirely WRONG kind of body. Is it even possible?
I asked Amazons, and they started talking complete business instead of anything useful. ‘It doesn’t matter how you look as long as you’ve got a solid strategy,’ Hecta said. ‘Your photos should be everywhere. Like a toothpaste commercial. The more people know about you, the higher your chances to grab an agent are.’
I said I’m not the grabbing sort of girl. If I am pretty (and I am pretty), agents will come running to fight for me like street dogs for just one pic on Instagram. Hecta gave me her annoying humph noise and went back to killing zombies on her phone.
‘Let’s make a plan!’ Carmina beamed, took her kiddish pen with a rainbow pompon on top and made a list of all things that will turn the pretty duckling me into a millionaire model swan.

• A good camera. Since we’ve only got seventy pence left from my magic pot campaign, it has to be Carma’s phone just yet.
• Lots of brand clothes or something really fabulous. And since only Heck among us knows the right way to apply rouge, she has to be my stylist.
• All princess’s composure I could master to charm all possible agents and it means, we’re going to HUNT in every shopping mall in town.
• Inconceivable LUCK and true warrior mood. It’s a do-or-die matter now. Yay!

1/3
Next>>
❀Previous Story❀

Why!

Agnieszka: Why doesn’t he ever ask me out!
Me: Why, you hate him, you’ll send him to hell anyway.
Agnieszka: So? He could have at least tried.

                                                                              September, 7
                                                                              Damnville

  Dear Dad,
Do you know what’s really wrong about teens? Everyone wants to be SOMEBODY and do something UNIQUE. And not like spooky-psycho-sick, but you know, POPULAR. So that everyone will double-tap, comment and follow it. I must have caught the wrong planet coz I really like to be nobody. I think it gives me like freedom to be all I want, not just what’s streaming.
But anyway…

I dropped by Aidan’s the other day. He had his next absolutely *CRAZIEST IDEA* to paint his bedroom walls. And I don’t mean paint like cover it with one colour but draw a complete and utter masterpiece instead of using canvas as all normal painters do. I just caught him climbing the helluva stepladder to do the mountain tops and helped him stay there, not plop down and do the grass instead.

His mom Daffodil (well, actually Annella but nobody calls her that) got suddenly possessed, but not by devils, by LATIN PROVERBS. She kept telling how it was important to BE somebody, DO something, ANYTHING, but try and LIVE not just exist. ‘CARPE Diem, amica mia, carpe diem!’ she splashed out with a graceful swing of her hand.  
I had no idea what she wanted from me but I must have looked really boring and inexpressible coz the very next day she told Ma how really boring and inexpressible I looked. ‘My son is doing a full-sized mural,’ she said with a proud nod. ‘He enjoys his life and brings colours to it while some teens can only climb trees and fall down from them.’ *A glance my way*
Ma was so furious. I thought she’d bring THE SKIES down to Vengeance Her Kin! But she only barked, ‘You’re right, Daff, some teens are true vandals, not like our darlings. You know, we’ve been fixing the pipes and our bathroom is such a mess. My talented little girl was just about to paint the shower tiles with dolphins and mermaids!’

I started laughing but choked on it when Ma dragged me to the first art-n-hobby shop around and then shut me in the bathroom one on one with the blasted wall. ‘If some Aidan Rossetti can do it, you surely can,’ she said lighting a joss stick of patchouli.
‘But Ma, Aidan was born with a brush in one hand, a guitar in the other, two right feet and a mouth full of languages! The best I can do is to draw a smiley on a stick,’ I protested.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’re a daughter of a witch. You can do anything. Now. Open your chakras, connect your spirit to the Space and bring it to life!’ She slapped my cheeks and shoulders to bring some of my blood back to life too and was off for her daily shot of terribly artless Poldark.

Dad, I sat there for HOURS, smudging paint by the cracked tiles. I cried, I laughed, I played with my cats and drew a Halloween make up on my face. I honestly tried to paint dolphins too but they suddenly turned into deeply troubled octopuses. And my mermaids have probably lived all their lives in Picasso seas. By the end of the day, all I wanted was to BURN THIS FRIGGED WALL and all the frigged house with it. Then RUN, RUN as fast, RUN as long as I could and only stop when somebody sees a painter’s brush in my hand and asks,
‘What is that for?’

When Ma came to check on my progress, hands on hips, she found it nice, though. ‘Oh, I love it, Carma! So spiritual and symbolic. I expected a sea theme but your pterodactyls look even better.’
‘Ma, they are dolphins.’
‘As you say, darling. Now, clean the mess and let it dry. The paint tube says, for three full days…’

Three days, DAD!!! I haven’t had a shower for THREE! DAYS! I didn’t think I’d ever take it home, though. Those monsters were truly creepy. I even had nightmares about them chasing me all the way to school. When Hecta saw them, she offered to film a horror flick in my bathroom. And when Aidan saw them, I thought he’d crack from laughing that loud.

Anyway, the funniest thing of it all is that I did have a shower there, just today. My usual steamy shower and you know what? That blasted paint just, peeled off.IT PEELED OFF MY GOD! Like drops of wax from a glass. Ma was off her rockers calling the shop and blaming all the dead and alive for selling her “fake snot” of paint. Then she bought me a chocolate cake to eat down the TRAGEDY but blimey, there’s no tragedy. I’m BEAMING! The tiles are clean, and I even have a cake for that. Yay!

Will write to you soon,
                                                                   Yours (so ordinary) Skipper