Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Kisses Don't Count As Candy ❯ Prologue

She slept through third period, again. It was the bell that woke her up and it was the loathing of the idea that the teacher would rat on her again that pushed her quickly out the door with her fellow students. Lunch would wake her up again.

After making a stop at her locker and getting a slice of pizza, she felt her eyes willing to stay open. She went outside to grab a breath of fresh air and stayed outside until the bell rang to tell her to get to her next class. The rest of her school day was boring and normal, except for her test in math sixth period, and she went home feeling the same humdrum until she hit the front door.

She remembered that she had forgotten to do her chores. Her mother would be upset that she not only forgot to fold the clothes in the dryer before she went to school but she also forgot to walk the family dog: James, clean her room, and take care of the dishes she used to eat breakfast that morning. On second though, her mother was going to flip and ground her for a month.

She opened the door to her home. “I'm home!” she yelled but she received no answer back other than James, who first barked loudly before running to greet her. She bent down and scratched his back lovingly before sitting down to take off her shoes.

“So boy,” she said to James, “Where is everybody? Mom and Dad should be here or they could have at least put you outside.” She turned around on the floor to pet him by the head, “Well, don't worry; Andrea's here now.”

With that, she got to her feet and went to the kitchen to clean her dishes, James following like he was trotting around in the park without a care in the world. As Andrea turned on the water and started to scrub the first dish in the sink, James put his paws up on the counter to look at what she was doing. She almost batted his paws down but stopped herself, knowing he would take it as her not wanting his company when all she wanted at the moment was someone to talk to, even if they wouldn't understand.

“Well, I had an interesting day at school today,” Andrea began, “I fell asleep in my English class and for the rest of the day, that was all I wished I was doing. Spanish was gibberish, math was complicated, biology is almost never boring but today it was, and art history might as well have been called `telling the difference between purple and purple' class because that's what we did today: discuss the color purple and all the various names it possess for just one shade.” She smiled brightly, yet sarcastically, at James, “And how was your day?”

James barked.

“Glad to hear it.”

Andrea went through the dishes quickly, running them under the water after giving them a hurried scrub. If she was going to get all her chores done before her mom came back, she couldn't waste time. She would have to make sure the dishes were clean, of course, but that wouldn't take long if she did them right the first time.

After the dishes were cleaned, wiped off, and put away, Andrea headed to the dryer to fold up her clothes. It took her all but five minutes to gather her clothes and fold half of them before she decided that it would be better if she just threw them in her dresser and folded them later, since she had no idea how much time she had left.

Straightening her room didn't take very long either. All she had to do was put all the books back on her bookshelf, throw her school papers into a drawer of her desk, dust off all her furniture, and make her bed. She made her bed every morning to an extent so she didn't have to deal with her mother's nagging but when it came to dusting, she was about as patient as a three-year-old, which didn't help the fact that she would be punished if her mom noticed anything wrong.

So she dusted over everything twice. After she was done with the second time, she went to throw her dust cloth in the laundry room and grabbed James' leach. He had been following her around as she did her chores but once he saw his leach in her hand, he ran to the door, excited like a kid at Christmas. He nudged her legs while she was getting her shoes on to tell her to go faster.

“James,” she told him, “How am I supposed to get my shoes on if I'm afraid to kick you?”

He heard the hint of anger in her voice and immediately stopped as if he had had his food taken away. He gave her “the pout.”

“Now now, James. I'm not going to take you out for a walk if you look at me like that.”

With her shoes completely on, she placed her hands on her hips and stared into James' begging eyes. He continued to whimper at her for sympathy but he had been the family dog for five years now, giving Andrea enough practice to resist “the pout,” though her parents were still susceptible to it.

They stared at each other for a couple of minutes, Andrea winning in the end. When James looked away as if the battle wasn't a big deal, Andrea cheered triumphantly.

“Yes!” she said with her arms in the air. “Now we have,” she looked at her watch, “Oh, wait here James,” she got to her feet and turned to go back up to her room, “I have to get ready.”

It was close to the time Andrea had to leave for swim team practice. It was the sixth week and the team still had meets so going to practice everyday was a must. She could still walk James and bring him to the pool, for he actually didn't like water and therefore sat in front of the bleachers like a good dog, and all the lifeguards were part of the swim team except for one and they all knew James won't get into trouble or be a distraction to practice. In fact, the old ladies that would come to the pool commented to her once that if all dogs behaved like James did, they wouldn't mind having a bunch of dogs coming to the pool.

She pulled a swimsuit out of her closet and grabbed her swim bag before running out into the hall to the linen closet to grab a towel. Shoving both the swimsuit and the towel in her bag, she ran back down the stairs, put the leash on James, and opened the door.

“Come on, boy. You're coming to the pool with me.”

She made sure she had her keys in her pocket before she shut the door and locked it and she and James ran out to the street, James almost pulling her to the ground. They almost hit a neighbor and their visiting relative with a baby stroller but after a quick apology over her shoulder, Andrea and James concentrated all their energy into getting to the pool on time. The pool was at least fifteen minutes away by car but if Andrea and James ran, they could make it in half an hour.

Sure enough, they made it just as the other girl were getting ready to hop in the pool. They shouted at Andrea as she leached her dog to the bleachers and headed to the locker room.

“You're late!”

“Hurry up, we're starting without you.”

“You brought your dog again?”

Andrea chuckled and shouted back, “I'm coming! Warm up without me!” as she headed through the girl's locker room door.

Stripping, changing, and stuffing her blonde hair into a cap took her about three minutes. She almost left without grabbing her goggles but she remembered she had left them on a hook when she fished out her cap and grabbed them with her bag before fast-walking out to the pool, for she would be yelled at if she ran. Some, but not all, of the girls were in the pool already so she was okay, especially since her coach hadn't yelled at her yet. She put her bag next to James and grabbed a kickboard before joining the girls in her lane. One girl, Gina, was left and getting ready to hop in the pool. She talked to her while she pulled her goggles on her head, postponing her jump in the water.

“Are you sure your dog is okay in here? The building keeps the chlorine in.”

Andrea smirked. “Don't worry about him. He likes the smell. If I don't keep him away from my suits when they are drying, he'll lap up the water and if I don't keep my suits in my closet, he will steal them and tear them up.”

“Really? Weird. So this is his favorite time of the year, huh?”

“Oh yeah. On the first day of practice, he is so excited to go that he wakes me up himself.”

By then, Gina had to go or they would be yelled at so she jumped in and left Andrea to wait her turn. The girls tried to keep about five seconds apart in the water but sometimes that was not the case and Andrea was too excited to wait that long and jumped in early. The cool water felt good against her skin and she sped ahead so she could feel warmer.