Making potions wasn't as easy as I had imagined. My chemistry teacher always made it look like the easiest thing there was, but it really wasn't. I had already spent every afternoon after school on this project, sometimes until late into the night, and had nothing to show for it.
Most things I had created in this room so far had either exploded on me, started bubbling which had made them look suspiciously like acid, or had smelled so bad that I had happily destroyed them. I had spent so many months on this already that it seemed weird to me that I still hadn't come up with anything, but there you have it. Countless hours of work and effort, and absolutely no result.
But what can you do, huh?
I couldn't work on my formulas in school either, 'cause I actually really wanted an A. I wasn't as smart as Mum, but I was smarter than most of the idiots I went to school with. Every day I came home it was homework first, experimenting second. And singing? Yeah, I hardly had time for that. It sucked, but I just couldn't make the time for it during the week.
The worst part? That smell. My parents were many things, but tidy wasn't one of them. There were heaps of clothes lying around the whole house, but the plates with week old food rests were the worst. I couldn't do anything about them 'cause I already had too much to do, Amelia was a little girl and couldn't have cared less, but my parents had all the time in the world. Dad often worked from home, and Mum hardly worked at all.
Some great parenting that was.
How was I supposed to concentrate with the smell of gone-off chicken rests? Have you ever smelled gone off lemon? The house was a trash pile, seriously.
I was nearly more disturbed by my little sister, who was almost a teenager but was still talking to thin air. Sorry, not thin air. Patterns. That was this freaky looking doll's name. Or so she said, anyway. Honestly, if he actually was real, wouldn't he have an actual name? Like, I dunno, Rick or Harry or something normal like that?
It was impossible to ask her about this, though. Of course he wouldn't! She'd say. He's a doll, stupid, he doesn't have human names! See what I had to deal with? And she was calling me stupid, imagine that.
I was ecstatic when I finally had a drinkable potion in front of me. It sure took my mind of my weird sister, and made this all feel like less of a time waster. I wasn't too sure what it was, but it smelled all right. To be on the safe side I did some tests on it, which all showed that it was safe to swallow.
Of course, no one volunteered. I suppose I couldn't really blame them, but I would have loved to know what exactly I had created. Then again, I wasn't too fussed about drinking this myself, so unfortunately I wasn't about to find out.
It only took my mind of things for so long, though. My sister was a teenager by now and had started High School, but guess what? Yeah, she was still going on about Patterns. My obsession with my doll hadn't lasted that long or gone as far as treating her like a real person, so something was obviously off with my sister.
Needless to say, my parents were somewhat worried. How'd you feel if you walked in on your sister having a freaking pillow fight with herself? I hadn't even known it was possible, but I had seen her do it with my own eyes. Honestly, I didn't know what to think. It was a doll, for fuck's sake, but she was convinced it was more than that.
"Hi, Rhys. Have you got a sec?"
"Hmh" I answered, meaning no, I'm doing my homework. Which she didn't understand, so she started talking about Patterns.
"You really can't see him?"
"No, sis, none of us can."
"But he's right here! Next to me!" She looked at me as if she didn't believe me, and sighed when I didn't cave in. "Listen, can I ask you something?"
Maybe I should chat to her about impossible things while she was doing her homework, and see how she likes it. My turn to sigh. "Sure, what's up?"
"You're really good with those potions, huh?"
"I've been working on them for months and created one thing, which no ones wants to drink." If she wanted to interpret that as a yes, let her. No one correct her.
"Listen, erm..." You know that feeling when you know something's coming but you're not sure what it is so it makes you all nervous? Yeah, I was feeling that in this very moment. "Patterns says there's a potion that could turn him visible to you guys. He'd look like you and me, not like a doll." Oh Maker, where had she heard that rubbish?
"Erm, okay?" What was I supposed to say to that? It's not every day your little sister asks you to turn her imaginary friend into a real person. Can't say I was prepared.
"Well, do you think you could make it?"
It was a stupid plan, but she was my sister. "Don't think so, just look what I've created so far. This potion you're on about sounds tricky, I doubt I could just make that." She left after that, but thanked me for trying. Didn't remember saying that I would give it a shot, but apparently it had sounded like that to her. Little sisters, huh?
Talking to my Dad was much easier. He wasn't insane, for one. Or actually, maybe he was, 'cause he was still using that slip-and-slide every day, nearly all day. Wasn't he told old for this? I was worried his bones would just crack one day, and that'd be it! The way he threw himself at this thing couldn't be healthy at his age.
That was partly why I wanted to talk to him. I had always gotten on with both my parents, but never quite as well with Dad as I had with Mum. He was old, and I wanted to make sure that we had a good father-son thing going when his time came. Not that I thought that was any time soon, he was healthy for all I knew, but you could never be sure, right?
Only thing that annoyed me with both of them was that they insisted to teach us how to drive. Couldn't say I was overly interested, but it seemed to mean a lot to them, so I figured it could bring us closer if Dad taught me. Mum was gonna teach Amelia, who was way more thrilled at the prospect than I was.
In all fairness, it wasn't that bad. Dad was a good teacher, it was just scary like things usually were when you did them for the first time. I was scared I was gonna crash us into something or someone, but Dad didn't let me go as far as the city.
He did let me go as far as the bridge, though.
It was a weird feeling driving across myself, especially since I knew how bad traffic usually was on the other side. People in the city were worst drivers than I was in my first lesson, I had no idea how they still had their licences.
I was grateful when he demanded I turn around immediately after the bridge. He was so persistent that I thought I'd have to make a U-turn for him to be happy, but got away with driving within the law.
When the weekend came I made my way down to the karaoke bar. I had done some more experimenting on the Saturday, and really needed some fun after some more disappointing non-results.
It was still early, only just gone one, so no one was really around yet. Just me, the bartender, the proprietor and some desperate wanna-be who couldn't have done a worse job. Since the karaoke machine was occupied, I decided to just wait for her turn to be over and watch. But Maker, she was bad!
It was a good thing no other customers were around, she would have scared them off easily. I wondered, not for the first time, if she was just here for the fun of it, or if she was like me. If she wanted to become a famous singer one day. To be honest, with her lack of talent I hoped for the first option, just to save her the embarrassment.
Painful as it was, I was patient and waited for her to be done. I gave her some polite applause, and made my way over to the machine as she made her way down.
Our eyes met. She looked amused, like she knew that I had only clapped to be polite. She also gave me that look that said You do it better, then!
Oh, she was on!
The moment I started singing I owned that stage! It was fair to say that I sang my heart out, and Maker had I needed it! With school and my experiments, I only really had time for this at the weekends now, which really made me crave graduation.
Once I was done with school there was no way I'd ever be doing anything else every again, but until then I had to take what I could get.
Singing helped me relax, and I sure needed a lot of that.
Creating some potion to turn something imaginary into a solid, real person was going to be stressful enough as it was.
Might as well sing when I had the chance.
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Wishes fulfilled
Earn an A in school
Join an after school activity
Discover a potion
Finish a book
Become best friends with Dad
Sing Karaoke
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