51. Intermission: Lila's Diary Part 1

THE OFFICIAL DIARY OF MISS LILA ROSSI. ANYONE READING THIS WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE WRITER (WHICH YOU'LL NEVER GET) WILL... HAVE REALLY BAD STUFF HAPPEN TO THEM. LIKE, I DUNNO... A WORM DOWN THE BACK OF THEIR TOP, OR SOMETHING. WHATEVER. JUST DON'T READ IT, 'KAY?

Day 200 Part 1

Can you believe, until yesterday's little unsolicited visitation from Squeaky, Buzzy and Cheeky, I thought ghosts didn't exist? Even in Scooby Doo cartoons, it's always the janitor with a grudge. Man, was I wrong. TV lied to me... who'd have thunk it?

They weren't exactly wailing bedsheets with badly poked-out holes for noses or eyes, either. More like whispers on the wind, with the ability to move stuff around. Oh, and they argued a lot too.

Listening to their pathetic little sub-par Three Stooges comedy routine was fun for a while, but when they started turning off the gravity in my room, that's when s**t totally got real. My plans for 'Operation: Better Life' were put on ice, all because that damn snob can apparently afford to get the denizens of the underworld on her side. It's just not fair, she could go into the President of France's office, take a crap on his desk and still end up smelling of roses. Literally, and figuratively.

I never really thought about Heaven and Hell before... Heaven sounded like a boring slog where you just sat around on a cloud all day playing on a harp, and Hell couldn't be much worse than the s**t that goes on around on this estate night after night. (Side note: my turn to clean off the blood inside the elevator again. Ggrreeaatt).

Now I suppose, I'll have to review my entire outlook on life. Pray every morning, take an apple to school for the teacher, put my hand up for all the questions, wear little pink ribbons in my hair... hee hee, yeah right. I crack myself up sometimes. Better than crying 24/7 tho, so don't knock it.

Squeaky though... she was different from the other two goofballs. When I cracked under the intense boredom of hearing them bicker and revealed my entire life story (when I shoulda just called the new, improved, all-female Ghostbusters), she actually stayed behind to give me some much-needed comfort.

Said that even though she felt very sorry for my situation, that lying to others is never the answer. Told me I could use my imagination for better purposes, like becoming a published author, or something. She even bought me a tissue to parp my nose on... and is it just my imagination, or did I see a flash of a giant red bug when I took it off her? Nah, it couldn't be... Old Man McCleary had this entire floor steamed for roaches last week. It's one of the few perks we get around here... aside from the free mold, of course.

Anyway, while it was nice 'n' all to have a high-pitched entity from the other side care about my well-being (because no-one else on this planet other than my father gives a hoot) the supernatural world obviously doesn't understand much about the pressures of living in the real one, so I didn't exactly feel like a million euros afterwards. Nice try though, Squeaky. Now, work on your falsetto.

I'm still going to wake up every morning in this cesspit, dodge the various syringes and drug-related paraphernalia around the floor and brave the obnoxious jeers and catcalls of the sex-crazed losers on my route to school. I doubt this place would show up in the Michelin guide, that's for sure. Our old house wasn't exactly a palace, but by gosh, it was a million times better than this sleazy dump.

As that corny song that plays on next door's radio every morning through the static goes: 'You don't what you've got 'til it's gone...' I wish I could put a size 7 boot through that damn wireless, but it's owner is a total nutjob who smears feces on his wall so... best not.

Now I think about it, maybe I could have asked Squeaky and her mates to pay Mother Dearest a little visit, back in Naples. Perhaps scare some of the thousands she owes us back into our pockets, as well as frighten the bejeebers out of that alleged priest she's seeing now.

A man of the cloth... who preaches integrity and piety all day long at the pulpit... yet was more than happy to help break up a family and see his new lady embezzle tons of cash from our bank account, when they didn't even need it. The hypocrisy is so off the scale, even I'm offended. And that's no mean feat, dude.

Still, no wonder Mr holier-than-thou and the Megab***h got away with it, who would even suspect a paragon of the community such as him to be complicant in such brazen skulduggery? That might explain some of the other atrocious acts I've read about of late, all perpetuated by so-called upstanding preachers. Ugh. If you ask me, the world would be a much better place without any religion. Thank God (pun not intended) I was never christened.

As soon as I learn to drive I'm getting a bumper sticker... ATHEIST, AND PROUD OF IT. As well as putting my foot on the gas and getting the heck outta the slum. I'm circling the days on my calendar as we speak.

DAY 200 PART 2

My Dad's cough is getting worse. He tells me everything is just fine, that he loves to trudge through the beautiful streets of Paris every day in his endless quest for underpaid work, and that other people should be jealous of him not being stuck behind an office desk all day. 'The big score is just round the corner' he insists, while secretly shoving his last (and only) pancake onto my plate.

I'm not taken in by his false optimism for a single second. You can't kid a kidder, pops. I've seen the thousands of explicit 'FINAL DEMAND' letters you line your bottom desk drawer with. Don't you know how easy it is for me to pick the lock? It's amazing what you can do with a bent hairclip.

I've also perused the numerous amount of correspondence between you and the Megab**ch's lawyer, where you've shamelessly begged her for a few measly crusts of bread in maintenance, but in legal mumbo-jumbo translation, you were told to 'get stuffed'. Personally, I wouldn't take a penny from that worthless slut. Pride is something you should never sell out for.

Seeing such a selfless man as you starve yourself to death and pace around town until nightfall to be mocked and ridiculed for my sake is much more than I deserve. If only you knew about all the shoplifting and pick-pocketing I've done since getting stuck here, just to avoid fainting in class from intense hunger.

Sorry Dad, even your constant sacrifices aren't enough to sustain a growing girl like me, and in order to keep up our little pretense of coping, I must break the law with growing regularity.

If I didn't, my almost anorexic form would most definitely arouse suspicion, and when they came to investigate where I lived, I'd bet my skinny a** they'd take one cursory look around this pigsty and the swine that inhabit it, before packing my bags for me and spiriting me away to some home for poor kids.

And pops, I just couldn't bear that. I don't care how many time I have to run from store detectives down the high street or lie about where I got all the extra food (did you really think it was all for a 'class project'? Geez, I can't believe you fell for that one), no-one is going to take me away from you. You're my entire galaxy and cosmos, Dad, and if you weren't floating around it, I don't know what I'd do...

Oops, sorry for all that smudged ink there. I spilt some water on that page, honest. Back to depressing current events, and it's time for me to take on the hazardous road to school once more. Stepping over all the motionless bodies of the drunken sops and wasted deadbeats along the way, at least I have a new nemesis to take my mind off my wretched existence... Miss Chloe-freakin'-Bourgeois.

I despise her now more than ever... okay, I'm jealous of her now 'more than ever', to be more accurate. Why is it the only place I can tell the truth these days is in my private journal, lol. It's a good job no-one other than me is ever going to read this s**t. Or, in the unlikely event that you're not me, step away from the glossy handwritten print right now. Unless you want that worm to be extra wriggly, of course. Oh, and you owe me for a new diary padlock, too. Get saving.

I watch my father stumble off into the distance, still wheezing away like a man thirty years his senior. He'll be dead in less than twelve months if he carries on, and I don't want to sound like a softie, but I'd miss the old geezer... okay, it would completely destroy me inside and out, but let's not get too melodramatic, hmm?

It's at this crucial juncture, that I make a life-changing decision. They'd be no turning back from this point... no easy way out. It's all or nothing time, sister. The chips are on the table, the cards are down, let's play the game. Or... something. It was time for a new plan.

To put it bluntly, I'm going to be Chloe Bourgeois's shadow from now on. I will monitor her every action, observe her every move, follow her wherever she leads me... yep, even into the girl's bathroom. I know what you're thinking, how daring of me. It's just what I do, I guess.

I'm going to find out exactly what makes her tick, how her privileged little mind works and how the heck she managed to conjure up half of The Spirit Kingdom that to invade my beauty sleep last night (were any pentagrams involved, or dead animals? Yuck).

Rather than deter me from 'persecuting' her, that little incident has made the spoiled little madam even more of a curiosity to me, and I won't stop stalking her until I find out all her secrets. Which somehow, I'll use to dig myself out of the hole I'm in, instead of digging an early grave for pops.

Apologies Squeaky. I guess you and your ghostly chums will have to haunt me forever. In a choice between enduring a few restless nights of chain-rustling, and my beloved father joining you lot on a permanent visa, I know which option I'd pick.

Get the van and caffeinated coffee ready, boys... we're having a good ol'-fashioned stakeout.

...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In deciding to graphically depict the sad reality of Lila's life in this chapter, I've raised the rating to a 'T'. So yeah, there's that.

Oh, and at this stage I must enact the standard 'views expressed here are not necessarily that of the writer' disclaimer clause. Got it?

Although, having a worm squirming around your back is pretty gross. Yuck. Darn boys at primary school...