Here is your milk money. I gave you too much but don’t use it all today. Use half today and half tomorrow. I will be gone when you get back, so use the key under the rock, and hang your coat up when you get in.

Not acknowledging her mother at all, she left the house and got on her bike. The street looked particularly gray today, As if a storm cloud was coming from the ground instead of the sky. Maybe it will start raining from the ground she thought. Then I will hold my umbrella down instead of up. She continued to ride and as she came to street where she had to turn left to get to school, she kept on riding.

As she rode by rows of government housing there was a loud and noticeable screaming coming from one of the open windows, but she only heard silence. Trapped in a bubble of her own imagination, she finally arrived to a small green house. In the brown grass of the front yard were what seemed to be hundreds of pink plastic flamingos. From the porch hung Christmas lights and beer bottles that were cut in half and had candles in them.

She walked up to the house and took the key from under the rock. The door screeched as it opened, and slammed shut when she walked in. She walked to the back of the house and in the bedroom she found a woman lying lifelessly in the bed, but she was not dead. The woman picked up a children’s book with a pink flamingo on the cover. The girl read the book as if she was picking it up for the first time and when she got to the end she looked up and the woman was still lying lifelessly but this time she was not alive. She placed the book in the arms of the women, and ran out of the house tears running down her face. As she rode her bike down the street once again, the screaming was conspicuous to her, but she wasn’t sure if it was coming from the house of coming from her mouth.