Going Nowhere Fast

A slight drizzle of rain tapped on the bedroom window. A gray forecast, the whole day. “There goes my day,” Annie said with her faced pressed against the window pane. She looked around her room, “what will I do today?” she thought to herself. “How about cleaning your room,” her mother said almost reading her thoughts. Annie jumped, startled. She hated it when her mother did that, it freaked her out at the thought of her mom being a mind reader. Annie poked her lip out, cleaning her room wasn’t on the top of her to-do list, but the tone of her mother’s voice said otherwise. 

Buzz, buzz. Annie could hear a cell phone vibrating in the chaos of what was meant to be her room. “Now where did I put my phone?” she asked under her breath. She had a week’s worth of laundry thrown across her bed; her book shelf was bare of its books while the books lay scattered around the four corners of her room. Last week she had started to rearrange her closet space according to color, season and days of the week. So naturally, those items were laid out across what little space was left in her room. Buzz, buzz her phone vibrated again. “I got to remember to put the ringer back on,” she muttered annoyingly to herself. 

Thirty minutes later, after turning her already hurricane struck room upside down; she found her phone underneath a pillow and an empty bag of marshmallows. There were three text messages, one seemed very urgent. “Are you still coming to the park?” It was from Jessie. “We have a lot to discuss about Melissa birthday party, bring your skates with you.” Melissa was very lucky; her parents were able to rent The Roller Rink for the day! Annie frowned touching a bruise on her knee; she was not very good at skating and needed all the practice she could get. “Clean your room Annie, then you can have the rest of the day to do what you want,” her mother called across the hall. She sighed, and put her skates back under her bed. 

She looked around her room, “where do I begin?” She picked up a sock, then another. Slowly, she made her way around the room, moving steady, like the patter of rain on her window. By the time the rain stopped, she had filled her dirty clothes hamper, put all her books back onto the barren bookshelf, cleared off her dresser, arranged her closet according to season, and found her missing homework. She was just starting to put her clothes in order of color when she got another text. “Everything is cancelled. Melissa’s got the measles!”