Prick

I wrote this a few weeks ago, maybe the end of June, beggining of July. im not sure... hope u like it :-)


CHAPTER ONE:

Stella sat by her windowsill. It was late July, yet it seemed like autumn. The air had a slight chill to it, and the sky was gloomy. It appeared as if was about to rain any minute, but it won’t. It had been like that for a few days now and there had been no precipitation. The wind made the tree branches sway back and forth and the leaves drifted slowly to the ground. Soon, it would be autumn, time to rake the leaves up. Stella was sure she could earn some extra money doing her neighbor’s leave raking. Most of the people that resided in her neighborhood were frail and elderly, so they needed all the help they could get. Stella’s Mom said that it wasn’t too nice to take advantage of the old people, and that Stella should offer to do the work for free. The old people didn’t have the money to just give away, considering the rise in prices lately. They barely had enough money to afford the basic necessities. But, Stella also needed some cash; she was a teenager after all. She had friends and places to go. So, as she stared out of her window, she wondered how long until she could head out with the rake and start looking for work.

Stella was a 15 year old girl, who lived with her mom and brother in a small house in the northwestern part of the city. She was good at sports and had played volleyball since she had been in middle school. Even before that she had done gymnastics and swimming, to stay active. She won many awards for her accomplishments in sports and when she was older she wanted to be a professional volleyball player; maybe she would even go to compete at the Olympics! Her mom and most everyone else said she was good enough, and she had the awards and prizes to prove it. Other than sports, Stella enjoyed listening to music and hanging out with her friends at the mall. She always liked to try on the latest fashions with her friends, but they never seemed to buy much when they went shopping. Stella and her friends weren’t exactly rich, and neither were their parents. But, they had just enough money to spend lavishly every once in a while. Stella also had a few pets, she owned a Jack-Russell Terrier named Jolt and a cat named Sprinkles. She loved her animals wholeheartedly and would do almost anything for them. Stella had a wonderful life, but there was one bad thing; Stella had Type 1 Diabetes.

When Stella had been a little girl, maybe around 6 or 7 years old, she had been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes; an auto-immune disease, where her body can’t make insulin. Her parents and brother had freaked out when they heard the news. It seemed terrible at first, but over the course of those 8 or 9 years, they learned that it isn’t so bad. If you can control it, then you can have an almost normal life. Stella had some trouble at first; she was always having her blood sugar go to high. So, they decided to give her a special diet, and that helped. Now, she was more stable and barely ever had highs, of course there were the lows too. Stella frequently went too low, a condition called Hypoglycemia. She always had to hurry up and eat something before they fell too low, or else she could go into a diabetic coma. That wouldn’t be so good, and then everyone would be worried. She could even die from it, that’s why she had to be careful and make sure she didn’t use her insulin shots too much. Diabetes was a very dangerous disease.

A few minutes later, it began to rain. Stella was very surprised, she thought it would never rain. In fact, it was a thunderstorm. Stella decided she better go make sure her pets were all ok; they got very frightened during these kinds of storms. First, she went searching for Sprinkles; she eventually found her cat huddled in the corner of her living room. She reassured it that everything would be alright, then she went hunting for Jolt. Her dog was whimpering by Stella’s mom’s bed. He took a little longer to calm down, but soon everything was back to normal. All of her pets were safe and sound, even if they were still a little nervous.

Then, Stella’s older brother, Austin came into the bedroom. Austin was 17 years old and had blond hair. He was pretty tall for his age, he might’ve been the tallest boy in his school. Austin liked to play sports too, but he preferred baseball and basketball; instead of volleyball and swimming. Austin had won a few awards as well, it seemed excelling in sports and other athletic things were what their family seemed to do. Austin was a good guy and was always helpful, even if he did become quite annoying sometimes.

“So, you got all your animals under control, miss?” Austin said with a smirk. He always liked making jokes about whatever Stella seemed to be doing at the moment. He knew she was annoyed by it, and that’s what made it even more fun for him.

“Yeah, I did; and did you get your paperwork in the mail yet? You know, you’ve gotta send in that application soon. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t expect to be accepted into that college any time soon,” Stella reminded her brother. He was very keen on going to this certain college, near the state border. It was the most prestigious place in the whole state, and he was very eager to head there. Of course, he needed money and he also had to apply. They were going to check his grades and see if they could hook him up with a scholarship, because they knew he would never be able to afford tuition and all the stuff he needed. But, Austin wasn’t good at doing things on time, he sure liked to procrastinate.

Austin stood still for a moment, as if in deep thought. Then he replied, “ In fact, I did; I put it in the mailbox this morning. So, I got you there Stella. You thought I wouldn’t do it and then I’d be in trouble. But, I did it and I got you this time.” Austin stood very proudly as if he had just done some huge task. Then, when Stella didn’t appear to be impressed, he left.

Stella decided to go see what her mom was doing. She walked into the kitchen and saw her mom talking on her cell-phone, while dicing onions to throw into the stew. Stella wandered over, to see if she could help prepare dinner. Her mom pointed to the tomatoes and a knife. So, Stella and her mom went to work on making tonight’s meal.

Once all of the ingredients were chopped, diced and sliced; her mom threw them into the big stew pot. Stella put the pot on the stove and turned the heat up to medium. Once that was done, Austin came into the kitchen with the pets. It was time for them to get their dinner too. He poured the animal food into the bowls and then he watched the ravenous pets devour their nighttime nourishment.

Soon it was dinner time; Stella had things to do first though. She pricked her finger and got a tiny droplet of blood. The meter read it; her blood sugar was 89 tonight. She took her insulin needle, and got the correct dosage. She hated when she had to put the insulin in, it hurt a little bit. She had to stick it into her arm, or she could use her stomach; but she thought that was disgusting. She injected her medication and wrote down her numbers into her book. Now, she could join her family and eat dinner.

She had to be careful about what she ate and how much she ate of it. Even though she took her insulin, she had to watch what she ate. So, she had a small portion of stew, with some mashed potatoes and a glass of milk. For desert, she would eat some sugar free chocolate cookies. After dinner, she would wait an hour or two and then check her blood.

After everyone had finished eating, they all helped clean up. Stella and Austin washed the dishes in the sink, while their mom put away the leftovers. This is what they did every night, they all helped out. Then, it would go a lot faster and they could move on to other activities.

Once everything was done, Stella went to her bedroom. She decided that she would read a book. She skimmed and scanned her shelves to find something interesting to read. She had just finished her last book a few days ago and now she needed to pick another one. She found one, on the bottom shelf. She gently picked it up and opened the front cover. Then, she hopped on her bed and got comfortable. Stella enjoyed reading; she had since she was a little kid. Her mom and brother had used to read to her and she would sit with them listening intently.
Now, of course she could read independently. She had picked an interesting looking book, it was quite large. From what she could figure out, it seemed to be about a group of village girls, who went to some sort of school to learn proper etiquette, in hopes of one of them being chosen to become the prince’s future wife. It seemed like an entertaining book, and it looked like it would take a while to read.

After an hour or two of reading, Stella decided she would go to bed. She put her bookmark into place and put the book onto a shelf. She then headed to the bathroom, to comb her hair and brush her teeth. Once her mouth smelled minty fresh, she headed to the living room and said goodnight to her family. She then proceeded to her bedroom, but before she could sleep she had to check her blood. It was good and she put a little bit of insulin into her, then Stella went to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO:

The next morning when Stella woke up, her breakfast was already on the table and her clothes had been laid out on her dresser. She wondered why her mom had done that, she hadn’t recalled that they were supposed to be going anywhere today. So, she was curious as to why her mom had done everything already. Stella didn’t mind of course, she liked when other people did things for her, she was lazy sometimes.

As Stella ate her cereal and eggs, she looked out the kitchen window. It was going to be nice outside today, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. It didn’t appear that it would rain today. So, maybe her mom and brother had decided that it would be a perfect day for the beach. Or, that couldn’t be it! Austin had to go to work today and he wouldn’t be home until later. So, Stella wasn’t sure why this was going on.

Minutes later, her mom came into the kitchen. She asked how Stella’s blood had been this morning and Stella told her that it was good and low, but not too low. “Well, you’re probably wondering why I got breakfast out and your clothes too,” Stella’s mom said. “It’s because your friends called this morning and begged me to let you go to the mall with them. I know you haven’t gone in a while, so I decided that you could go and I was being helpful by doing some stuff for you. So, you better hurry up; they’ll be here in about a half hour.”

Stella rushed to finish eating, she was eager to go to the mall. It was one of her favorite places, and she hadn’t been there in a while, after what happened last time. She had bad hyperglycemia after eating a ton of fast food at the food court, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. So, her mom punished her by not letting her go to the mall, but now apparently that punishment was all done. Stella had missed hanging out with her friends, and was always sad when they asked her to come with them and she couldn’t. So, she hurried up and finished eating and then she got dressed.

A little while later, her friends came and got her. Jenna was 16 and had her driver’s license, so she was the main transportation for the girls. Trisha was only 14, but she enjoyed hanging out with the older girls. All three girls loved having fun together, and they were best friends. Soon, they arrived at the downtown mall.

It was quite large and had many different stores. But, the girl’s favorite part of the mall wasn’t the clothes stores or even looking at the cute boy’s, the part they enjoyed the most was the food court. As soon as they got inside and felt the chilly air-conditioned air they headed right down hall and into the McDonald’s area.

Once they had finished buying their food, the girls looked for a good seat. They found a table, right near the exit. Just in case they had to leave quickly, Stella’s friends knew she had problems. Stella checked her blood and took a dose of insulin, before she ate. Then, everyone started enjoying their cheeseburgers. Stella had just finished her milkshake when she saw something amazing.

She nudged Jenna and Trisha, they looked up. There was a large poster advertising the Banana Festival. It would be taking place this weekend, downtown. Stella really wanted to go, and it looked like her friends were just as eager. After they finished their lunch and threw the trash away, the girls headed up to get a closer look at the poster.

They thought Stella’s mom would surely let her go. She would just be careful and take her medicine. It would be a totally fun day, everyone liked bananas. So, the girls decided that they would ask their parents if they could go. It was this weekend, and they didn’t have any plans, so all was good.

Then, right as they were leaving the food court to go shopping; Drew came over. Drew had been Stella’s crush since the 8th grade. She had always liked him and his brown hair and green eyes. She never had the courage to ask him out, though. Drew said, “Stella, did you know about the Banana Festival? Well, I’m wondering if you wanna go out with me; this Saturday?

Jenna and Trisha looked at Stella, expectantly. Stella answered, “Well, I had plans on going there with Trisha and Jenna, but…”

“That’s awesome!”Drew exclaimed. “They can go with us, the more people we have, the more fun we’ll have. Great, I’ll pick you girls up around noon Saturday, at Stella’s house. Ok, bye.” And with that, Drew walked away.

Stella was very euphoric now. She couldn’t believe that it had just happened; her biggest crush actually asked her out on a date! She knew she had to go to the festival now, no matter what. She could see that Jenna and Trisha were happy for her; she bet they wished they were going with their crushes too. Wait, Stella thought, did this mean that Stella and Drew were dating now? Was he, her boyfriend… maybe? Stella was hopeful that they were going to be dating now, that it just wasn’t going to be a onetime thing.

As Jenna drove the girl’s home, they all were chatting about what had happened at the mall. After Drew had left, the girls decided to go shopping. They each bought two shirts and a skirt. Stella also bought a new pair of shorts, since she was going on a date. They had just enough money for everything, which was good. Jenna didn’t want to have to drive everyone back home, just to get maybe another $50. After they had finished buying clothes, they headed to the nearest electronic store. The girls decided to look at all of the new cell-phones, they were cool. Some of them had touch screens, Stella wished she had a cell-phone with a touch screen, that’d be cool. After they figured out they couldn’t afford anything, they decided to leave.

When the silver car pulled into Stella’s driveway, she unbuckled her seatbelt. The two girls said good-bye to Stella and then said they’d call her later. With that, Stella headed to her house. She walked at a quickened pace up the steps and she turned the doorknob so fast, it seemed like it might fall off. Once she was inside, she said “hi” to her family and then she ran to her bedroom.

Stella just had to write what had happened at the mall, into her diary. She had a diary since she was in 7th grade. It helped her remember important and exciting events in her life. Whenever something cool happened she would be sure to jot it into her diary, so she could reminisce later.
After dinner that night, she got a call from her friends. It was all set, her friends both got the OK from their parents. Now, Stella just had to ask her mom, she had forgotten before; but she would remember tomorrow.

Before Stella went to bed, she read more of her book. It was getting very interesting, and slightly frightening. In the part that she had read that night, the girl was locked in a closet as punishment and then a rat was trying to make a nest in her hair! Stella enjoyed the book and thought it was well written. After she read a little bit more after that part with the rat, she went to bed; eager for what surprises might happen tomorrow.

Chapter Three:

At breakfast the next morning, Stella told everyone what had happened at the mall. How Drew had asked her out, to go to the Banana Festival tomorrow. Stella’s mom wasn’t so sure at first, but since Jenna and Trisha were going too, that was ok. She warned Stella to be careful though, and not go overboard eating there. Stella assured her mom that everything would be fine.

Austin was happy that her little sister had finally gotten herself a boyfriend. It seemed like she never would, she just wasn’t right for it. It’s not that Stella was ugly; she was just really shy when she was around guys. So, she would never have the courage to ask anyone out. But, Austin was glad that Drew asked her out. Austin had a girlfriend, for maybe three years now. So, he was an expert at dating, or so he thought.

Later on, after breakfast was done, Stella decided that she would head to the library. They had some fun things to do during the summer. They had computers, story read-aloud and the usual go check out a book. Stella liked walking around the library and finding new books that she never read before. She also enjoyed the read-aloud sessions. She was old enough to read to the little kids now, but she hadn’t signed up for that. She still liked being read to, just like her mom and brother did for her when she was younger.