Untiled Life by Lacey Overbaugh (top 100 books to read TXT) 📖

back into bed.
I loved my mother. She was the prime example of what a woman should be and what I was going to be someday. A beautiful singer who wore pretty silk dresses and knew how to heal just about any wound.
We had our differences though. Somedays she would make me upset and I would ask her if I could run away. She told me that I needed to ask my father. That was good enough for me, and exactly what I did as soon as he came home from work that evening. I was surprised by his anger and disregard. I never asked him again if I could run away.
Instead the next day I picked myself up and walked right out the front door. My mother called to me from the steps asking me exactly where I thought I was going.
"I am running away," I told her with a grumpy face on.
"Ok, well come home when you get hungry." she said and let go of the screen door.
I made it down the street. I realized then that I had no idea what I was doing or where I would go. I guessed I would have to go back inside and watch The Price is Right.
Sometimes on the weekend my dad and I would go ride our bicycles together. He would keep me occupied as my sister and my mother cleaned the house. My dad and I would go all over the neighborhood together and maybe even to the playground. We would cut through the cement storm drain that ran inbetween the streets on the sides of people's houses. Sometimes we would find box turtles and bring them home with us. I was so happy that my parents would let me keep them as a pet for a few days.
We would make the turtle a little home in a box. I would put a bowl of water in there and sticks. We would feed it the June bugs we found outside or if we couldn't find those we would feed it a piece of lettuce. I will never forget the smell of carboard, old hot lettuce, and a box turtle. After two or three days my parents would decide it was time for Turtle to be on his way. We would watch him waddle off under the barbed wire fence toward his destiny.
In Oklahoma its always a good idea to have a storm antenna attached to your house. Next door they had a really big one. The metal pole was right beside our carport. I found out somehow that I could climb up that pole with ease and that it was a bunch of fun to do so. My mother didn't think it was a very good idea and I would get in a heap of trouble if she caught me doing it. I made it to the roof a few times, but never had the courage to actually get on top.
Across the street there was a boy named Austin. I had no idea what a crush was but if I did, I would have had a crush on him. We would only speak to each other from across the street. "What are you doing over there?" he would call to me.
"I am playing with my trucks," I might say as I picked up some dirt with my yellow metal dump truck and my yellow metal truck with a claw.
"I have some trucks like that!" Austin would say and we would go about our merry business.
Austin invited my sister and I to his birthday party. As the party was about to start my mother put my sister and I in the bathtub together. We sat for what seemed like 30 minutes "letting the conditioner sink into our hair." I still have no idea what my mother was doing for so long, but my sister and I waited impatiently as we watched our mother walk back and forth passed the doorway.
This was often the case, when it was time to bathe my mother would put both my sister and I in the tub together. My sister is 7 years older than I am, so she has 7 more years of experience. When I was three she was ten. At ten years old my sister was curious about boys. One time we were taking a bath and she decided that she really needed to practice kissing someone the way that they do on TV. She told me what to do, and I did it. My sister was the first person who ever gave me a "french" kiss. I think that she made herself forget that experience as she aged. Me, being the type of person that I am, never forgot. I always felt like I had commited some sort of crime. It always disgusted me. I will never forget the sandpaper feeling on my tongue as my sister's caressed it for that breif moment of weirdness.
When we finally did get dressed and cross the street to the birthday party, it was already well on the way. Austin had a batman themed party and I couldn't have thought any worse of the idea. The cake was a dirty gray and blue color and everything just had a glow of boring ugly boy stuff to it. I felt as though a nice princess theme or maybe even just a plain white cake would have done nicely. Austin lost brownie points for that party.
We had about 3 days left until the move when Austin called to me again. "Are you moving?"
"Yeah. We are leaving in 3 days," I yelled back across the street.
"Where are you going?" he questioned.
"To North Carolina! It's very far away." I said excitedly
"Oh. I will miss you." and he left his window.
I stood there for a minute on my driveway contemplating this whole moving thing after all. Why were we going so far away? I did not have an answer for that, but it soon didn't matter because I forgot all about it in a few moments.
Later that day Austin brought out his dog. It was the biggest dog I had ever seen, towering over us. It was a bulky rotweiler who had already birthed a few litters of puppies. I was a big fan of furry and cute animals so I immediatly went right over to her.
"This is my dog Lucy. Don't pet her, she will bite you." He said with pride.
"Why isn't she biting you then?" I asked smugly.
"She knows me. She will bite you though." but he stayed motionless where he was as I walked right up to her face with my had outstretched.
Lucy did bite me. She bit me right in the face. I didn't feel it, really, but I started to cry at once. As I gropped at my eye walking in a circle back to find my Mommy, Austin bolted back and hid inside of his house with his mean dog.
I told my mother everything, hiccuping and unable to open my eye. The next thing I knew I was shuffled off to the little town's police department where I waited in the lobby staring at the men in uniform for what seemed like forever. They told me how sorry they were, and how tragic the situation was. I was finally able to open my eye but the color was a bit off and things were still a bit blurry. A young police officer gave me a small light brown teddy bear with a royal blue t-shirt that said police on it. I loved that bear and kept it for a long time.
Soon after we got home from the department the police arrived at Austin's house. There was at least two cars. The men got out of their vehicles and crouched behind the hoods with their guns drawn towards the fence where Lucy was stationed. They were yelling for Austin's parents to come outside. I wasn't allowed to look after that. I was amazed at the events that had taken place, and that currently were being undergone. I didn't understand why there was such a fuss over this. I wasn't that mad at Lucy after all.
Austin and I weren't allowed to be friends after that incident. It really didn't matter, because we moved a couple days later. I was a bit saddened though, I really didn't want Austin to get in trouble. I felt like the whole thing was my fault. I really should have listened to Austin when he told me not to pet his dog.
The last evening at the house in Oklahoma my parents started to wheel away our belongings. A stranger came and got my mini piano that I cherished but was told I was too big for now. Someone else came to pick up our candy-striped swing set.
My father had a huge wooden thing that looked like a spindle that was used for wrapping electric wire around. He had crafted it into a coffee table in his youth and decorated the top with patches from the army and random things that he liked. He put a see through coating on the top. I found that i could sit on it when it was on its side and roll it around kind of like a wheel chair. I had so much fun, because I pretended that I had a wheel chair just like the one my grandmother used. My grandmother lived just a street over from us and I always thought her wheelchair was really neat. He carted that away into a truck and told me I wouldn't be allowed to play with it thusly after this evening.
I was excited about the move, but all of this change left me feeling quite strange indeed. I was confused but I continued to go with the flow. I had no true idea of how far exactly North Carolina was from my grandmother, Ivy, Austin, or my cousins. I was just told we would have a new house and that our life would be better than it was now. So, one day, we moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Publication Date: 01-19-2013

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