No One More, No One Less, No One Else

By: Virginia Allen “Oh Skittle, what will I ever do without you, sweetie?” Katrina inquired the old, orange cat sitting on the gray, ashy chair before her. Skittle’s tail flipped around like a snake as she quietly meowed. Katrina took a look around the crowded, dirty apartment as she sighed. The rooms were packed with boxes of filed photographs and broken objects. The place smelled and looked like a junkyard, it felt like a dank, dark cave where bears lived. The gloomy air fit it all, so did the orange cat hair that coated everything. Katrina blew the dust off French textbooks she rarely studied and dug into a cabinet full of McDonald’s coupons and pictures of Skittle when she was a kitten, she moved onto the next cabinet when what she needed wasn’t found, the teen threw out old clock with faded numbers, little jingo-jangos no one could name, and other things that reeked with age. When he delicate fingertips touched a broken piece of an antique plate, blood gushed out, streaming around aged objects like a river. Katrina raised her finger, jumping over old cereal boxes to the medicine drawer. She pulled it open, and grabbed a Band-Aid box and casted her finger with a navy blue Band-Aid. Her face turned when something caught her eye, she looked at the spilled contents of a small cardboard box in the drawer. Her passport? She grabbed the license to fly, not thinking or caring of how it found a position with the medicine. The periwinkle eyes glowed, it was amazing how her crappy apartment held itself together. It was a mystery. She heard the ring of the microwave and grabbed her breakfast burrito. The girl ushered Skittle into a weak, old kennel, put on a dark green jacket, and slung an also green bag over her shoulder while chomping thoughtlessly on the burrito. Seconds later, there was the beep of Michelle Laffeye’s Grandam honk. The lights in the apartment flickered as Katrina left and rushed to her friend’s car. “Boujour Mademoiselle,” Michelle greeted her, “Jama pelle Michelle.” Katrina let her breath out in a big gust, another French test. She wondered why she had let Michelle convince her to go on this France trip. “Start the car, jama!” She whispered eagerly. Michelle placed the key in the ignition as it purred with Skittle. When the cooler turned on, it was like tons of spiders were crawling up her arms, it blew her locks of hair lightly, as goosebumps covered her body. Michelle smiled evilly, “Chilly, mademo-” “ENOUGH! You know that I know zip about French!” Katrina yelled, she was mad enough she had been persuaded to leave. She didn’t need to be humiliated by the expert going easy on her. Michelle’s smile faded. “Okay,” she said, “change of subject,” Michelle thought a few seconds, “Is that really all the clothing you brought?” Michelle looked at her bag quickly before making a right turn. “Yes.” Katrina returned. “You know you’re fabulous.” Her friend replied randomly, Katrina looked at herself in the window’s light reflection. She looked like a supermodel: butter yellow hair, periwinkle eyes, dark eyelashes, a long and thin neck. “Change of subject.” She muttered. “Do you know who’s in our group?” Michelle asked flipping her chestnut curls, dark brown eyes still fixed on the black road ahead. Katrina answered, her eyes staring into golden potato fields, “Yes. Desiree Burke, April Marble, Connor Shields, Marianna Montez, and the French aid will be Pierre Champs.” Michelle got a mischievous look in her eyes. “Champs isn’t a French name, but I hear he has curly brown hair and dashing, dark eyes.” “Michelle, please, no boys.” Katrina mumbled, feeling her cat’s daycare was getting further and further away, her trip to France was lengthening every second, and Michelle’s smarts were getting more and more annoying. Her determined friend then smiled, “Skittle’s daycare is 5 minutes away, aren’t you excited?” she questioned, “I wish.” Katrina almost sobbed, as potato fields transformed into cats nipping and licking, back to potatoes, then houses, then airplanes taking off. Katrina sat with Michelle, hoping she would turn on her iPod or star texting her boyfriend, but the lectures on French origins continued, they met Desiree, she was social too, but Katrina desperately wished she could be left alone. In the Paris airport, everyone was waiting with what seemed to be Pierre Champs; he kissed Desiree, Michelle, and Katrina’s hands and greeted them in a hush, “Boujour.” Katrina grinned, but still hoped she could close her eyes, then be in her dirty, old apartment full of filed photographs, homework piles, and broken objects. Katrina tried various times to escape conversation, but Michelle and Desiree’s voices gave her a sense of reality, so she gave up and wished to be invisible, or as smart as Michelle, or as sociable as Desiree, or as fluent as Pierre, but she stayed Katrina, the gorgeous girl with no brains and a dull house. That was who she was and always would be, no one more, no one less, no one else.