1 A troublesome little girl

" Up . I said Up ! Now !"

Mia woke with a start. Her platinum blonde hair stuck to her face and the little wetness on the corner of her lips told her that she was drooling in her sleep. Disoriented and confused she looked around her room, well it wasn't a room at all , it was the attic .

Mistreated as she was how could she have a room in this house ?

The sun rose as a canopy of gold, bright amid the darkest blue blue, bidding the stars to take their nightly rest. As darkness surrendered, every colour changed from tinges of charcoal to vibrant shades .

It was the dawn , Mia realised . As the light filtered through the cranny of the faded cotton curtains and lighted up her room with the early rays of the sun.

" I said Up ! You troublesome girl!" screeched her mother as she rapped on the door to the attic .

Now , she wasn't a troublesome little girl. She didn't liked to be called a troubled kid but ofcourse it wasn't her fault that she ended up scraping Professor Garcia's car, she swore that she only lightly touched it but the car ended up getting a dent .Mia said that Professor Garcia must have purchases a second hand car with a poor colour job done on it , it didn't helped her case at all .

Half of the school population thought that she did it because , Professor Garcia's gave her a D in the maths test a week before and the other half of the school population believed that she was a rising delinquent upstart.

Mia was neither of the two . She too wanted to be a normal kid with a normal family but you don't always get what you want, now do you ?

" Are you up yet ? " demanded her mother as she continued rapping on her door .

" Yes " said Mia.

" Well good ! If you're done with your beauty sleep come down! The breakfast isn't gonna cook itself ! You lazy bum !" .

Mia rolled her eyes. This was another thing she wasn't. Maybe she was insomniac because she hardly ever slept , why she didn't know .For many nights she simply sits on her bed gazing outside the window of her attic waiting for the breaking of the dawn .

Mia pulled out her shoes from under her bed and put them on . A loud clang reverberated in the attic and Mia hardly reacted to it . She was used to it now , or maybe she had to get used to it , if she was going to live under the roof down in the attic . And It became worse when it rained .

Mia still remembers how one time Erica came to her room at the middle of the night with a spider that she had caught in the school ; trying to scare Mia but instead of scaring Mia, she ended up getting frigtened herself . By the loud clattering of heavy rain drops in the attic .

Of course her mother told her off for scaring Erica and Mia found herself locked for an entire weekend .

She came down the stairs , through the dining room to the kitchen . The kitchen aisle was squeaky clean except for a small paper lying on top of it , Mia read it and groaned . Her mother liked to leave these small paper on the aisle because she didn't like to waste her breath on someone like Mia who hardly understood normal English .

Now , Many of you will think that her mother might be a step mother or maybe Mia was an adopted daughter but it wasn't the cases .Her mother was her biological mother . Yet for reason unknown to her , Josephine Campbell liked her step daughters more than her real daughter . Maybe it was because Erica and Poppy were just like her mother, no not in terms of beauty but if we were to compare in terms of boasting and haughtiness , yes .

Or maybe Mia made her remember the failure of her first marriage or because she looked a bit too much like her father, a good for nothing as her mother liked to call him .

Her mother entered the dining room connected to the kitchen and sat down at the dining table.That was it .

No ' good morning ', no ' do you want help ?' .

Mia started on the breakfast if she still hoped for her mother to help her then she might as well grow old in there.

" Morning , mother "

She was frying eggs when Erica came inside the kitchen and greeted her mother . Erica looked at her and smirked in a nasty way . But it was all ignored .Instead she got smothered with good morning kisses .

" Morning sweetness " greeted her mother as she patted Erica on her face . Mia simply couldn't understand what made her mother like Erica so much except for the sweet tongue , Erica was nothing like her mother .While Josephine Campbell with her shining blonde hair looked like as if she had just stepped out of a beauty pageant magazine, all thanks to botox of course , while Erica was bony and skinny , her lips pursued over her lips that made her resemblance like that of a horse .

" Morning " Stuart came trudging inside the kitchen rolling his eyes at the mother , daughter antics . In the entire Campbell family he was the only one who didn't treated Mia as if she was a contagious disease .

" Morning Stuart " Mia greeted him with a smile . It wasn't that she hated him but she never got used to calling him dad and as understanding as he was, he gave Mia permission to call him by his name.

Mia placed the eggs and bacon on the plates and the plates on the tray . When Poppy came bustling inside the kitchen.

Unlike Erica who probably looked like her real mother, Poppy looked just like her father . Large pink face, no sight of neck, bead like gray eyes and brown hair that was cleanly parted into two pony tails.

" Mother !" Poppy rushed pass Mia , who nearly toppled along with the tray if not for her timely manner of pulling the tray behind .

" Oh ! morning Poppy , you look beautiful! " Moa heard her mother say , who was being flattened under Poppy's weight .

Mia placed the tray on table and sat down .Her mother liked to call Poppy beautiful and Mia agreed with her ,Poppy was as beautiful as a pig stuffed in a miniature tutu with a brown wig glued to its head.

" Mother " said Erica looking at her mother, her voice sweeter than sweet " We have a piano recital in our school , I will be thankful to you if you can buy us new dresses along with some accessories "

" Of course why not .You both are making me so proud , unlike a certain someone who simply creates ruckus everytime they go to school " said her mother as she threw a spiteful look at Mia's direction .

Erica and Poppy chuckled stupidly .

Mia ignored them and a sudden urge to punch both of them in their ugly faces overpowered her .Just once - just once , it will be well worth to get grounded for it .

Maybe Stuart sensed the rising danger as he quickly said " its just an audition .They haven't been selected yet. Erica, Poppy you're not allowed to bulky your sister " he added sternly.

That wiped the grins off Erica and Poppy's face alright . Both looked as if someone had forced fed them bitter tablets .

" Okay , we won't " said Erica slowly .

" Yes we won't " said Poppy as she sat down heavily and pulled the nearest bowl of porridge to her self.

Stuart sighed heavily .

" and the same goes for you Josephine . Its fine if you want to buy Erica and Poppy dresses but you need to bring Mia along with yourself "

Her mother looked downright angry and worried.

" Stuart don't you know how troublesome she is ?" said her mother as she jerked her head at Mia .

Erica frowned and Poppy's mouth fell open in horror. But Mia's heart soared in excitement.

Every year Erica , poppy and her parents went ,to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies.

And Mia was left behind alone in the house with nothing but silence as company. And Mia hated it!

Poppy screwed up her face and wailed, she wasn't crying in real .Mia knew Erica must have pinched her sister under the table to make her start fake crying .

" Look what you did , Stuart !" said her mother reprovingly.

But Stuart didn't budged this time instead he glared at his daughter who stopped her brawling at once .

" Mia is going with you , she is turning thirteen soon , don't tell me you want to lock her forever ?" asked Stuart looking at her mother incredulously .

And her mother went purple down to her neck.