Roseanne's Summer Vacation- Chapter 4
Nika Labuda woke up shortly after 1 p.m. The pop-up message on her desktop computer informed her that uTorrent had completed the download of the Scooby Doo, Where Are You! series. She could now add it to her growing collection of Mystery Inc.’s adventures gathered on an external hard drive. Well, one of the few external hard drive, actually. These were used to store all sorts of media, from cartoons to ebooks to music. Nika’s hobby was data hoarding. She didn’t know quite why, but she greatly enjoyed organising the digital library into categories and dedicated subfolders.
However, approaching the computer wasn’t her primary concern at that moment. Her bladder was full, which generated an uncomfortable pressure. Even though she had to use the toilet, she didn’t want to get up. Under the bed sheet, the teenager froze in a single position as her mind was battling the bodily urge. The electronic clock on the desk was ticking away as the pressure got more and more irritable. Before she knew it, Nika began bouncing her leg to withstand the discomfort.
“Holy smokes. The yellow waterfall!” She jumped out of bed.
The bathroom was adjacent to her room, so at least she didn’t have to suffer through the lengthy distance. Nika sat on the toilet and immediately felt a wave of relief. She thought that since she was already there, it might be a good time to smoke. Thus, she grabbed a cigarette from a sweatpants pocket.
It was a traditional cigarette, but Nika didn’t have a personal preference. She gladly smoked e-cigarettes as well. Some could call her an expert in the field or a connoisseur, but she just liked smoking. There was nothing more to it. It was what it was, a ritual for many years. Now that she turned eighteen, she didn’t have to hide it.
Unfortunately, Nika was still too sleepy, so she mistakenly put a cigarette in her mouth the other way round and lit the filter tip. It immediately caught on fire.
“Goddammit!” she winced, brushing the flaming tobacco off her mouth.
It fell on a bathroom tile, and Nika put it out with her flip-flop.
Oh, man, she thought. That would be a newsflash for sure: a gasper sets an innocent high schooler ablaze on a shitter. Smoking kills!
Nika was about to laugh at the humorous vision conjured up by her mind, but she got interrupted by a woosh of the opening door.
“What in the hell are you doing?!” Nika’s mother, Agnes Labuda, asked with outrage, standing over her.
“I’m doing number one…” the girl responded quietly, “with a slight chance of releasing number two soon.”
Nika was a complete contradiction of her mother. The daughter was minuscule, with a chubby belly, the shape of which was driving the girl crazy. Her hands looked like tiny, compressed toy boats, which further lowered her self-esteem. The blonde hair was more white than blonde, so she used to paint it each week with flashy hair dyes. The beginning of summer vacation inspired her to experiment with split dye: yellow on the top of her head and pink at the sides.
The mother, on the other hand, seemed more masculine than feminine. The woman’s stature was more sturdy, nearly Popeye-like. It shouldn’t be a surprise because she worked a manual job at a warehouse from 8 to 4. Even though she never talked about it, or showed it to people, Nika knew her mom had a small tattoo of an anchor on her upper left arm—another Popeye similarity—with an inscription in German: “Mein Mann ist mein Anker,” which basically means “My man is my anchor.”
The problem was that Nika’s parents got divorced two years ago, which jettisoned her mother down the black hole of spite and bitterness. All she could do, at least in Nika’s opinion, was criticise the daughter for her appearance and ignore her crippling depression. In addition, the mother hid the damn tattoo under a T-shirt sleeve because the laser removal procedure was too damn expensive.
“Well, after you are done doing your business, I need you to wipe your butt and start packing. You’re going on a trip,” the mother declared.
“On a trip? Not again!” Nika groaned from the toilet seat. “I’m not going to let myself be dragged through a mud river again while some angry coach yells at me.”
“You’re going on a trip with your homeroom teacher. That lunatic mother, who is the chairman of the parents’ board. What’s her name… Shit! She called me and gave me the info. You’re going, Nika Labuda. I swear to god you’re getting out of that bed!” The mother slammed the bathroom door.
“Shit, donkey-ass!” she groaned. “I need to go somewhere?” The prospect of a trip with unknown people and Mr Orville frightened her.
She took out three cigarettes and lit them simultaneously.
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