ROYGIV

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was my window. The sky wasn’t blue anymore. It was a dark, ugly green. It looked like a forest, sticking it’s tongue out at me, saying “Nah-nah-nah boo-boo, all the blue in the world got swallowed up by me.” I glanced at my desk. Were my scissors still blue? Nope. My watch’s alarm was still on, so I lifted my wrist up to turn it off. It wasn’t blue anymore, either. I got up from my bed and walked over to my desk. Was my pencil case still blue? No. Was my mouse pad still blue? Nah. It was like, overnight, the world decides it doesn’t need the color blue anymore.

I checked my watch again. 7:10. I really needed to get going, it was already very late. I started walking towards the door, still half asleep and trying not to notice that my bedspread and comforter were not blue.

During breakfast, I sucked quietly on my yogurt spoon. I had no appetite after spending twenty minutes searching for even the tiniest speck of blue somewhere. I kept my head down and tried to not show anything; none of my siblings cared about my favorite color even the slightest. But it’s not easy when you’re the middle of five kids and have some very nosy twins as your little sisters.

“What’s wrong, Anastacia?” asked Aurelia (she was six) in that annoying little voice of hers.

“What do you mean?” I shot back, firing up at once.

“You look like you just lost your best friend,” Aurelius (he was six) informed me. Having a conversation with the twins is like playing two vs. one ping pong.

“I do? Well, I didn’t lose my best friend.” How could I when it was Monday and we had just had a long weekend? “But if you two keep being idiots, I might.”

That shut them right up (mainly because they had no idea what I’d just called them). But then my older sisters started.

“Then why are you so quiet? We all know that we’re always constantly having to tell you to shut you’re mouth,” Evangeline (she was 12) said.

“Why don’t you shut you’re mouth?” I snapped at her.

Evangeline and Raya (she was 16) smirked.

“Come on Anastacia, spill the beans,” Raya said, leaning forward eagerly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that teenagers love gossip. The juicier, the better.

“Well, let’s put it this way: Have you looked outside today?”