Journey Through A World

“Shut up!!!” The oldest girl yelled launching a pillow at her sister.
“Mary and Jason, sittin’ in a-“ the younger 13-year-old girl ducked to escape the wrath of the pillow. “Geez! Calm down woman! I wa-“ She ducked again to avoid a stuffed cow. She stood back up and pushed her long brown hair away from her face.
“Get away! I hate you!!! You annoy me everyday!!! Get out of my room!” Mary yelled getting up to shut the door. But the younger one stood in the doorway leaning against the doorframe a look of smug satisfaction across her face. “Why are you looking at me like that!?” She yelled at the girl, who said nothing. The little girl shrugged, her green eyes laughing. “Arian Faye Felicia! What do you want?”
“This is my room too, Mary. As of yesterday, we share a room. Mom said, go ask her.” Arian grinned evilly. Mary’s eyes grew wide. She pushed past Arian and down the stairs yelling for her mother. Arian walked into the spacious room, trying to decide which color would annoy her sister more. Caught up in deciding she didn’t hear her sister stomping up the stairs five minutes later.
“I can’t believe you!!!!” Mary yelled, wagging a finger in Arian’s face. “You offered to share a room with Amrita! You said it would be fun.”
“Yeah well, you go share a small room with a little brat. She never leaves my stuff alone!”
“Brat!? BRAT?! You are calling Amrita a brat?” Mary emphasized the word ‘You’. “Argh! I can’t believe you!!! You are such an annoying little snot!” Mary turned around so quickly her red hair swung around and hit Arain in the face.
Arian was accustomed to these insults; they practically bounced off of her now. She went back to her room and started to pack things up. Amrita was sitting on her bed holding her stuffed kitty. The left eye was missing and its tail was ready to fall off, but Amrita cuddled it more. She grinned as Arian bumped her head when she tried crawling under the bed to reach more of her things. Arian sat up, rubbing her head she glanced over at her younger sister, who smiled even more. Chuckling, Arian walked over to her.
“You think that was funny, do ya?”
“Yes.” Amrita replied giggling.
“Well, you know what else is funny?” Arian said smiling.
Amrita giggled, she knew what was coming.
“This!” Arian said and started to tickle the four year old under the arms and on the stomach. Her sister howled with laughter and squirmed, and kicked trying to escape the clutches of the tickling menace. Arian let go of her little sister who ran down the stairs to escape her sister. Then, Arian turned her attention to the task at hand, packing. Letting out a deep sigh, she finished packing her things.
* * * * * *

Arian sat up in bed on a Saturday morning. She looked to her left as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, expecting to see Mary there. The huge room hasn’t felt the same ever since her sister went to college. It seems empty now. Sure, Arian was happy the first week or so, but after two years it was sad and lonely. She had repainted the room a soft yellow instead of plain old white but the room still didn’t feel any happier. She looked out the window and surveyed the farm she lived on. Off in the distance, you could see glimpses of the clock tower and the police station. She sighed as she swung her warm feet out of bed to touch the iciness of the cherry wood floor. Shivering slightly, she stepped tentatively across the floor to the rug in front of her mirror. She examined her long brown hair and blinked her green eyes. Her hair was sticking up every way imaginable and knots were big as her fist.
“Another wonderful hair day.” She muttered grumpily as she pulled a brush through her hair. She grunted when she hit a particularly big knot, which she had to spend five minutes on. Finally she persevered, and the knots existed no more. She listlessly walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. She yawned and sat down as her mother handed her a plateful of scrambled eggs, hot steaming sausage, and toast drowning in butter. She picked up a fork and ate slowly until her younger sister came into the kitchen. She plopped down on a chair next to Arian. Their mother came over with a plate of breakfast for Amrita, who was starting to fall asleep at the table. Then, their short plump mother sat down to eat her own breakfast, brushing her short, dark hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“The cow needs milked Amy.” Their mother said.
“Aw, mom! Dad milked her yesterday!” Amrita replied through a mouthful of eggs a little butter dribbling down her chin.
“Yes, Amy is right, Catrina” their father said as he strode out of the family room. “I milked her yesterday.” He said with a grin.
“James! I thought you had to work all day today!” Catrina said as she threw her arms around the five foot seven inch man with blonde hair and some stubble.
“I do, but I wanted to spend breakfast with my family this morning.” He replied, smiling as he sat down across from Arian. Arian beamed, they were finally having a proper family meal for once. After breakfast, James left for work and Arian went up stairs to change then came back down to go do her chores. She walked outside sighing as she looked at the list of her chores for the day.
Arian’s Chores:
Milk Cow
Feed Chickens
Collect Eggs
Clean Roy’s Stall
Clean Roy
Bathe Dog
Clean Room
Vacuum House
Milk cow was already marked off the list. Good. She hated that job. So instead, she got started on her next chore, feeding the chickens. She walked over the barn where chicken feed was stored and dipped a small bucket in. Pulling it back out it was filled with chicken feed and a few bugs. Wincing at the sight of the nasty insects Arian flicked a few of them out of the bucket. As soon as she stepped into he chicken pen, the chickens went into a wild frenzy wanting the food. “You guys are so dumb…and you smell bad.” She said to them, no that they could understand her. She spread the feed over the ground and watched the chickens dive into it. Grabbing the basket off the hook by the gate, Arian replaced it with the empty feed bucket. She ducked into the hen house and started gathering eggs and placing them tenderly in to the basket she had looped through her arm. After finishing with the eggs she sauntered out and into the house to give the eggs to her mother. She made completely sure her mother had the eggs and was not going to drop them, then pulled the list of chores out of her pocket and crossed off Feed Chickens and Collect Eggs.
“Two down, five to go. “ She sighed as she trudged to the barn yet again to clean the blood bay gelding’s stall. She grabbed Roy’s halter and buckled it onto his head and attached a lead rope to it. She lead a more than happy Roy into a small paddock designed specifically for his use. As she detached the lead rope from the halter, 8-year-old gelding ran around in the paddock bucking and being a normal, happy horse. Smiling to herself, Arian indolently walked back into the barn and grabbed a shovel and a wheelbarrow from the tack room; she wheeled the wheelbarrow over to Roy’s stall and got to work.
The stall wasn’t as soiled and disorderly as she thought it would be, but she got done in about an hour or so. She dumped the debris from the stall into a small manure pile beside the garden then she went to the paddock to get Roy.
“Hey buddy,” she cooed as Roy immediately came over to her when she hopped onto the fence, “How’s my favorite boy? Huh? How’s my boy?” She scratched his head and rubbed behind his ears. He started to smell her hand and jacket intensely, Arian giggled. “Sorry hun, I’ve no treats today. You’re getting a bath.” She surveyed the muddy smelly horse looking at his tangled mane and the sock on his right hind leg was brown and kind of greenish when it should be white. Arian wrinkled her nose at the sight of his tail, which was almost dragging the ground; it was matted with mud, feces and bits of hay and leaves. Hopping off the fence, Arian attached the lead rope to the gray halter and led Roy out of the paddock and over to a single post in the ground used just for bathing the horse. The steed realized immediately what was happening and whinnied loudly.
“Yeah, yeah, we all know you love baths Roy, now not so loud!” Arian said to the eager bay. She tied him the post and went to get the water hose, horse shampoo and also the conditioner.
Roy nickered again as if to tell Arian to hurry up with the water hose. Arian may have understood this for she quickly brought over the water and started to spray the blood bay, his coat immediately turned shiny from the water. Roy stuck his muzzle right into the nozzle on the hose to try and drink the water. “You’re such a dork.” Arian laughed. She sprayed him down and started to lather him up with the shampoo. He had so much foam on him he looked like he had just come from being in a blizzard. She sprayed the soap off and started to apply conditioner. “You had better be one handsome boy after this Roy, or…somebody is not gonna get anymore sugar cubes.” She left the conditioner on for a couple minutes then sprayed it off. She grabbed a comb and attacked Roy’s mane, after the mane was his tail. She stared at the horrible mess of hair and sighed. “What have you been doing?” She asked, exasperated. She then went to work on his tail.
Arian trudged into the house wet and soapy, “Where’s the dog?” She demanded to her mother.
“Oh, Amy is giving him a bath, I saw how hard you were working on Roy so I had her do it for you. I also cleaned your room and vacuumed the house so you don’t have to do those things.” She smiled. Arian’s face got even grumpier. “What hun? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing besides the fact that as soon as I finished bathing Roy, he rolled…in mud…twice.” Arian grimaced.
“Oh, I’m sorry honey. Did you bathe him again?”
“Yes.” Came the stout reply. “Twice.”
“Where is he now?” Catrina asked peering out the window.
“In the stall, a clean stall.” Arian smiled as she remember the blood bay’s protest to being indoors on a nice day. She trudged upstairs to change into something more comfortable. “I think after I change I’m going outside for a walk.” She yelled down the stairs. She walked into her room and flopped down on the bed. After lying there for a while she then decided to get up and change besides, she was getting her bed all wet. She pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts and grabbed her canteen. Sliding down the banister, she almost fell off. He jumped off the edge and into the kitchen to fill it up and get herself something to eat before she left. As she did so, she kissed her mother goodbye and told her she’d be back in an hour or so. She walked out the door and strolled across the yard, stepping lightly on the green grass and avoiding the dog droppings and gopher holes.