Being an unemployed 11 year old doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world, but when you are an unemployed, broke 11 year old that lives in a country club with your mean step family, it is the worst. This was Willaby’s problem. She was stuck in a house with too-rich people and a dad that said she had to work hard to get what she wanted, even though he pampered her step-sisters all the time.
Willaby started writing down all the possible jobs she could have, and came up with nothing. The green grass around her seeped into her mind, making every idea turn into a putrid chartreuse that made Willaby sick to her stomach. She fell to her knees, her head heavy, and began rolling down the hill at the back of her house. Grass stained her sneakers, and she fell into the sand pit. She choked on the taste of the coarse sand, her throat almost closing up due to the dryness of it all. She went to push herself up when she heard a voice.
“Willaby, are you OK?!”
She felt a hand on her arm as a familiar face started coming into view.
Christopher, the boy next door — whom both her step-sister and, unfortunately, Willaby had a crush on.
His eyes looked crazed as he looked over her grass stained outfit. Willaby hated everything that was happening right now. She was jobless, covered in grass and sand, and now embarrassed as she looked into the eyes of her crush.
Willaby tried to pop up from the ground but found her ankle was in splitting pain.
“Hey, let me help you,” Christopher said, helping Willaby up to her feet.
He looked like he wanted to carry her up the hill before them, but his 11 year old body was too small to carry her like a knight in all those fairytales.
She shook her head at that thought and hobbled up the hill with help from Christopher.
Willaby stopped when they got to the top of the hill, and Christopher looked at her. The light shone off his eyes, and she tried to say thank you, but no words would come out.
Instead, he said, “You have beautiful eyes. Do you know that, Willaby?”
Before she could reply, a golf ball came flying through the sky, hitting Christopher in the head and sending him plunging down the hill.
God, how Willaby hated living in a country club.
