“Imagination, Britain, Coffee, and Reality”

Chapter 1: First Time Meeting Britain

         A shattered mirror lay around my bare feet. My toes were lifted, ever-so-slightly, off the ground. I had just come down from levitating and destroying the mirror of a dragon.

         Or, I have a great imagination and lots of free time.

         My name is Violet. Violet Montgomery. I am just one of the many normal kids you see every day. That is, if you live in another dimension where ‘normal kids’ are actually just a bunch of nerds, freaks, weirdos, geeks, and whatever other names they’ve come up for us by now.

         I live in a condo with my mother, brother, and two other sisters. It’s pretty chaotic sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. My mother works three different jobs and she sells some of her quilts on the side. Who knew you could still sell those things?

The eldest of us four children would be Opel, she’s twenty-three and should be living on her own by now. But, no. She’d rather bum cigarettes off of her lousy boyfriend and peanut butter off Momma. She doesn’t help to pay any of the bills or help with cleaning. Most of the time she isn’t even home unless she’s hungry or needs a shower.

My other sister is Penelope. She’s four with the most gorgeous strawberry-blonde hair I’ve ever seen. She helps with the cleaning as much as she can manage. I can’t blame her for not being able to help with the mortgage and such.

Kyle Montgomery. Practically my twin. Not quite though because he’s actually a year older than me. Kyle is seventeen and doesn’t have a care in the world. He helps with everything though and I’m grateful for that. He’s friends with the neighbor boy but for some reason has never introduced him with the rest of the family.

So, as condos go, we live in one half of a gigantic house with some massive amount of rooms and the other half is rented by another family. The other family is the Pfeifer family. Which is just Kyle’s friend and his father. His father is ‘business’ man.

I go to a small school where pretty much everyone knows everyone, and nobody talks to nobody. We kind of stick to ourselves or our own little clans. I have two friends, one of them being my best and one of them being that girl you awkwardly talk to way too much.

My best friend is Becky Northern. She’s a bookworm and probably the smartest girl at school. Maybe the smartest girl in the county! She has mouse brown hair that settles just past her shoulders. She wears glasses and dresses like a retired librarian.

Miss Awkward is Jillian Oakley Whitman. Her momma married twice. She’s a year older than me. She has blonde hair that’s almost white. She’s one of those girls who dresses up for every different day and wears ten pounds of makeup. She says it’s for art, I say it’s for attention. Unnecessary attention, I might add.

Daddy died four years ago in an accident that no one will ever talk to me about. I don’t really know why.

“Broken hearts can lead to broken people,” Momma says at dinner that night. Over the chewing of food and scraping of plates I can barely understand her.

“I know, I know,” I say. “Can’t I at least know what happened to my own father, though? Isn’t it my right as a person?”

“Shut up and leave Mom alone,” Opel says. “No one wans you whining at the table.” She stares at her phone.

“You can’t tell me what to do.” I mutter.

“Please, Violet, just eat your supper.” Momma groans impatiently.

I do as I’m told and finish dinner. Once I’m done Kyle and I do the dishes and we all head our separate ways. Momma to quilt, Opel to party, Kyle to play ball with the neighbor, Penelope to play dolls, and I to sit on the back porch with some literature.

It’s late Spring so the evening is still a little on the chilly side. I breath in the smell of the different flowers from our garden. I weave a blossom of a honeysuckle between my fingertips. I loved it here, by the beach, but not too far from the mountains. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else in the world.

I stand there quietly, enjoying my peace when I hear a swooshing sound. The next minute I know I’m turning to see a fist sized, white object flying towards me. I duck too late and the baseball cracks my square on the forehead. I fall to the ground and begin to rub it softly.

“Dang it, Stanley!” I hear Kyle say. He comes into my vision, blurry at first.

“How’s this my fault?” I hear an unfamiliar voice say. Then there’s two blurs.

“I told you we should’ve hit ball out on the beach.” Kyle grabs my elbow and pulls me up. “You’re lucky we didn’t knock a window out.”

As my head begins to clear I notice something odd about their bickering. I slump to the ground again.

“Just let me sit for a minute, please.” I say, putting my hand out.

Kyle nods.

“You’re alright, right?” The neighbor boy, Stanley, says. “No concussion?”

“No, I think I’m good.” I shake my head.

“Good thing that hit was pretty bloody hard!” Stanley says.

Oh.

He’s British.

Didn’t see that one coming.

“Vi, meet my friend, Stanley.” Kyle says, helping me to my feet once more.

“Nice to meet you.” I say instinctively.

“Yeah, you too.” Stanley says. “Sorry about the circumstances.”

“No biggie,” I say.

 Stanley smiles. He has brown hair and eyes, dimples that appear when he smiles and small teeth. His nose is a little on the large side and has an odd crook to it.

“Let’s go play more ball, Stan.” Kyle says. “See you later, sis.”

“Yeah, see you.” I say almost to myself.

“Nice to meet you again, Violet.” Stanley grins.

The push and shove at each other as they head of towards the beach behind the house.

That was the first time I met Britain. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.