Paint Disaster

• Emma Stanley, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2008

As I walked into my bedroom I spotted my little brother getting into my paint gear. Red, white, blue and yellow who knows what else? Boy, am I gonna be in trouble. There was paint on the brand new carpet, mum had just bought me, and it was also on the wall.

Oh no, I’ve got 5 whole minutes to clean up the mess that my annoying brother had just made, if my mum sees this Ill be grounded for the rest of my life, even know I’m all ready grounded for a week.

The house had just been painted and my room is now going to have to painted again and I’m going to have to pay for it myself out of my pocket money if doesn’t get cleaned up quick smart. Though I guess it could be a good thing to get my room repainted as I hate the colour of it at the moment, I’d really like a nice pale blue.

Then again I don’t really want to have to spend my pocket money on the new paint for my room cause I really want to go on a major shopping spree with all my best friends. I can just imagine how absolutely awful it would be if I couldn’t spend my 60 dollars a week on new shoes and clothes.

I so don’t want to loose my reputation at school I’m already on thin ice as it is. So I don’t want to be in the least popular group at school as I know I am already in the coolest group in my high school and I totally love it.

I’ll start on my wall that is the most see-able this is going to take forever to do! Why bother? I’m gonna be grounded anyway. Oh sugar, Mums’ home! I might as well tell her now. I don’t have much choice, either I tell her or my little brother tells her and then I’ll get into more trouble.

Mum walks inside and I race out to meet her trying to get to her before my cheeky little brother who will try to blame me for sure for his disgraceful mess. As I’m racing out I see my brother running out too. We are both in such a hurry to get to mum that we don’t notice the cat sleeping in the hallway and we both trip over it and crash into each other bumping heads.

I start screaming at my brother who is crying as I can feel an egg forming on my forehead. I’m thinking of how ridiculous I’ll look with a huge red lump in the middle of my forehead. At least a zit you can cover up with make up. Aargh how embarrassing!!!!
Of course my little brother has no marks on his face. He gets away with everything.

Mum comes in, to see what all the fuss is about, we both start talking at once blaming each other for running inside and we blame the cat as well. Mum tells us to stop and that it was quite obvious that we were both running and it served us right that we hurt ourselves we might learn next time not to run inside.

Mum starts to walk away and I yell out. Mum wait, Jack got into my room and into my paints and has got them everywhere. WHAT!!!!! Mum booms. I cringe thinking here it comes the lifetime grounding. To my surprise she says JACK JORDAN JONES you are in BIG TROUBLE.

Still in shock at my brother getting in trouble not me, I barely notice how fast Jack got to his room or that Mum had gone to my room to investigate the damage. I slowly get up still cautious as I can’t believe Mum hasn’t got up me. Carefully I duck my head in the doorway of the room and see mum shaking her head and starting to go red in anger.

I decide to quietly sneak off to hide in the bathroom til she calms down. Before I even get five steps I hear “April, come here please”. I turn around, hang my head and prepare myself for my dose of BIG TROUBLE. I knew it was just not possible for me to escape blame.

I enter my room where my mum is standing and she says It looks like we may need to paint your room again and call the carpet cleaners, come and help me find something to clean this off with and then we’ll see.

I stand there with my mouth wide open and a shocked look on my face and decide that she is definitely not her normal self or I would be spending the next month scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush for punishment, not to mention the lifetime grounding.

Later as we’re cleaning the room together Mum turns to me and says “April I think we need to get a lock for your room or your paintbox cause this isn’t coming off and I’m not repainting your room every week it’s too much hard work and so is this cleaning. Grrr your brother will be lucky to make it to his next birthday at this rate”.