Lord Loss (The Demonata 1)
Dad smiles. Mom smiles. I smile.
Then Gret walks in the back door and she's smiling too — but it's an evil, big-sister-superior smile. “Have we sorted all our little problems out yet?” she asks, voice high and fake-innocent.
And I know instantly — Gret told on me to Mom. She found out that I was smoking and she told. The pig!
As she swishes past, beaming like an angel, I burn fiery holes in the back of her head with my eyes, and a single word echoes through my head like the sound of ungodly thunder …
Revenge!
I love garbage dumps. You can find all sorts of disgusting stuff there. The perfect place to go browsing if you want to get even with your annoying traitor of a sister. I climb over mounds of garbage and root through black bags and soggy cardboard boxes. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to use, or in what fashion, so I wait for inspiration to strike. Then, in a small plastic bag, I find six dead rats, necks broken, just starting to rot. Excellent.
Look out, Gret — here I come!
Eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Radio turned down low. Listening to the noises upstairs. Trying not to chuckle. Waiting for the outburst.
Gret's in her shower. She showers at least twice a day, before she goes to school and when she gets back. Sometimes she has one before going to bed too. I don't know why anybody would bother to keep themselves so clean. I figure it's a form of madness.
Because she's so obsessed with showering, Mom and Dad gave her the en suite bedroom. They figured I wouldn't mind. And I don't. In fact, it's perfect. I wouldn't have been able to pull my trick if Gret didn't have her own shower, with its very own towel rack.
The shower goes off. Splatters, then drips, then silence. I tense with excitement. I know Gret's routines inside out. She always pulls her towel down off its rack after she's showered, not before. I can't hear her footsteps, but I imagine her taking the three or four steps to the towel rack. Reaching up. Pulling it down. Aaaaaaaaannnddd …
On cue — screams galore. A shocked single scream to start. Then a volley of them, one running into another. I push my bowl of soggy cornflakes aside and prepare myself for the biggest laugh of the year.
Mom and Dad are by the sink, discussing the day ahead. They go stiff when they hear the screams, then dash towards the stairs, which I can see from where I'm sitting.
Gret appears before they reach the stairs. Crashes out of her room, screaming, slapping bloody shreds from her arms, tearing them from her hair. She's covered in red. Towel clutched with one hand over her front — even terrified out of her wits, there's no way she's going to come down naked!
“What's wrong?” Mom shouts. “What's happening?”
“Blood!” Gret screams. “I'm covered in blood! I pulled the towel down. I …”
She stops. She's spotted me laughing. I'm doubled over. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Mom turns and looks at me. Dad does too. They're speechless.
Gret picks a sticky pink chunk out of her hair, slowly this time, and studies it. “What did you put on my towel?” she asks quietly.
“Rat guts!” I howl, pounding the table, crying with laughter. “I got … rats at the dump … chopped them up … and …” I almost get sick, I'm laughing so much.
Mom stares at me. Dad stares at me. Gret stares at me.
Then —
“You lousy son of a —!”
I don't catch the rest of the insult — Gret flies down the stairs ahead of it. She drops her towel on the way. I don't have time to react to that before she's on me, slapping and scratching at my face.
“What's wrong, Gretelda?” I giggle, fending her off, calling her by the name she hates. She normally calls me Grubitsch in response, but she's too mad to think of it now.
“Scum!” she shrieks. Then she lunges at me sharply, grabs my jaw, jerks my mouth open, and tries her hardest to stuff a handful of rat guts down my throat.
I stop laughing instantly — a mouthful of rotten rat guts wasn't part of the grand über-joke. “Get off!” I roar, lashing out wildly. Mom and Dad suddenly recover and shout at exactly the same time.
“Stop that!”
“Don't hit your sister!”
“She's a lunatic,” I gasp, pushing myself away from the steaming Gret, falling off my chair.