Page 2 of Unspoken Words
Part One
Chapter Two
Ellie
Ten years earlier
So much green.
So much brown.
So. Much. Dirt.
“This place is disgusting,” I grouched, arms crossed, my nose upturned.
Dad wound down his window and drew in a deep breath as he pulled the car to a stop at our summer camping spot. “How can nature be disgusting, Ellie? Look at it. Smell it. Taste it.”Taste it? Yuk!
My body shivered, voluntarily, so I positioned my headphones over my ears in the hope I could block everyone and everything out and was about to press play on my Walkman when Dad pointed to a group of campers who’d already set up their tents and chairs. “There they are.”
“Who?” my brother, Chris, asked, his neck craned.
I, too, stretched for a better look.
“The Bourkes. Their son, Connor, will be starting at my school this year. He’s the same age as you, Ellie.”
I pretended I couldn’t hear what was being said because, honestly, I didn’t care who this Connor kid was. What I cared about was how I was going to survive the next fourteen days in a grotty, insect-ridden dump. There were trees, sticks, and shrubseverywhere,and it was going to be the worst summer holiday in the history of summer holidays.
Pressing fast forward on my Walkman, I mentally calculated it would take roughly fifteen seconds to reach “Holiday.” Ironically, “Holiday” was my favourite Madonna song. I idolised the Queen of Pop. She didn’t take crap from nobody and certainly wouldn’t be caught dead spending her summer holidays without electricity or a proper bed. Madonna wouldn’t doanythingshe didn’t want to do because she wasMadonna.
I wanted to be her.
“Does this Connor guy like footy?” Chris asked, scanning the towering boy with his narrowed eyes. Chris rotated the football in his hands once, twice, before handballing it in the air and catching it again.
“Not sure. Apparently he can play basketball though.” Dad’s smile bounced from the rearview mirror before he nodded in greeting to who I assumed were Connor’s parents.
Chris shrugged. “Basketball is for pussies. Anyone can bounce a round ball and throw it into a hoop.”
“Language!” Mum snapped. “That just earned you dish-duty, young man.”
I scoffed, my smile bold. I’d earned dishes duties earlier in the day and knew, at some point, my stupid brother would earn it from me.
“And that still applies to you, too, Eloise. I haven’t forgotten your outburst this morning. One of you can wash and the other can dry.”
“I’ll dry!” both Chris and I yelled simultaneously.
I glared at him. “I said it first.”
“Who cares? I’m older. Oldest always wins.”
“Does not.”
“Does too!”
“ENOUGH!” Dad swiveled in his seat to face us. “You’re both acting like toddlers.”
“Elliephantisa toddler.”
“I am not. I’m nearly thirteen. And don’t call me Elliephant.”
