To Lie and To Love

“Nova, Wake up! We’re late!” and what followed could only be described as a hurricane of loud footsteps threatening to crash through the old creaking wood of the floorboard. I protested loudly at the ceaseless hubbub but inescapably decided to catch a few seconds of extra sleep despite the noise promising a future of raptured ear buds. I was never really a morning person to begin with. Besides, Lilith woke me up every morning and she wasn’t here yet, so what gives? And, she was always the first one up, so what was this entire ruckus about? A character dashed berserk into my room, her footsteps rattling the floor beneath my bed. “Nova”, she yelled into my face, yanking the blinds open and letting in a stream of the unwelcome morning sunburst. “Wake up!!!” ‘Uuurgh’, I groaned again in irritation. What was all the fuss about?? “Leave me alone, Lilith”, I mumbled, half asleep, shielding my eyes from the rays of the sun searing painfully through my eyelids. “Huh?” the figure said in puzzlement. “I’m not Lilith! It’s Jolene. Get your lazy ass up already!” she uttered, wrenching the blanket from my hands with such force that I rolled over and toppled wildly to the ground. The force of my head on impact with the hard flooring both startled me and jerked me awake. Sitting up, all I could make out was a blurry figure looming over me. I rubbed my eyes instinctively and looked up again. The figure remained dark and I still couldn’t tell who exactly it was. “Who’s it??” I mumbled confusedly. “Uurgh, stop squinting; you look stupid. Here are your glasses.” Slowly but soon enough, my eyes adjusted to the light and I could see clearly again. “Jolene!! You didn’t have to shove me so hard! Come on, help me up.”, I chided, reaching out a hand so she could pull me up. “Well sorry”, she replied sarcastically. “It’s not my fault that you sleep like a dead log!” “And why are you the one waking me up today, huh? Where’s Lilith?? And what’s with all the noise?” “Uhh duh!! Lilith’s alarm broke!! And now we’re late. Hurry or we won’t make it.” and handing over my blanket impatiently, she zoomed out again with the same energy she came in with. I plopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for another whole two minutes until my name was hollered repeatedly by Jolene from downstairs. “Nova! I hope you didn’t go back to bed? Do you want me to come up again?” “Come on, give me a break already", I grumbled for the umpteenth time that morning and shuffled towards the bathroom... ..And walked smack into someone in the shower. “Ahhh”, I yelled, stepping back cautiously. “Nova, quit shouting. It’s me", the intruder gasped. “Juliette! What are you doing in my room!!?” “Sorry Nova. Jane is using our bathroom and she’s taking forever so I decided to just...” “When did you even get in here?” I didn’t wait for the remaining explanation. “When you were staring your life away looking at the ceiling, of course. Besides, I’m almost done. And can you please close the shower curtain? I need a bit of privacy here.” “Seriously, Juliette?? You realise that this is my bathroom and that we are all late, right???” “I’ll be done soon. Give me 10 minutes" “Five minutes! That’s all you get!” I snapped. Turning around and I stormed off to my room. 20 minutes later, I was downstairs in the nexus of energy where the entire bustle was emanating. “Took you long enough, Nova.” Jolene remarked in a sarcastic tone , pointing a spoonful of granola in my direction. “And how was that my fault when Juliette was hogging up my bathroom!” I retorted, swiping some toast from her plate. I dodged her swatting hand with a grin and sat next to Lilith who was shovelling bits of cereal in her mouth while tapping away at her phone vigorously. Juliette glared accusingly at Jane, who only smiled apologetically. “So can someone explain all the chaos this morning?” Ethan, our oldest brother, trudged in lazily with a yawn, also reaching for Juliette’s toast at which she sent him off with a murderous look. Ignoring her with a grin, he sat next to me and gave me a slight nod. “Well”, Jane, the only one who bothered to, offered an explanation by saying simply with a shrug; “Lilith’s alarm got broken last night.” I think this is the part where I begin with the introductions. I’m Nova. Nova Caddel. I live in San Francisco with my mum and nine other siblings. Yes, nine. Well, how that came about is a story for another day. Ethan is the eldest, and he’s 23. Lilith and I come next; we’re both 18. Jolene is 17; Juliette and Jane, 16 and 13 respectively. The twins follow 11-year-old Faith and Hope and the last is Maeve, who’s only 7. Yep, that’s the whole gang folks. As you might guess, it’s a boisterous mix of hue and cry but in a more charming sort of way. We moved here a while ago; 4 years at most, from the dreary countryside to the calm but very hectic streets of San Francisco. Of course, living with nine other people in a house definitely has its drawbacks; like sharing bathrooms, endless bickering over whose turn it is to do the chores or maybe even something irrelevant like which show to watch on TV or dealing with sneaky siblings who make it a daily groove of borrowing your personal stuff without permission.. It’s a handful at most times. Lilith is the early riser of the house; always up before anyone else. I am the direct opposite, so automatically, since I’m the victor ludorum of sleepy heads, she’s my human alarm. Despite the fact that she naturally wakes up early, she still holds on to this old alarm clock that sounds like it has Sound Box -3 speakers implanted in it. Well, no one complains though, because it does everyone else the favour of waking up early too; even the neighbours don’t mind, surprisingly. Well, everyone except me, that is; I manage to sleep through its clamorous bleeping and even the pounding of Jolene’s feet when she jumps out of her bed and walks around the house ( earning her the name ‘big foot’ from Ethan because of that). So Lilith and I reached a consensus where she comes to wake me up every morning after her alarm goes off. Once, I got worried about it after sometime and after much over-analyzation of my impediment, I self-diagnosed myself with Dysania. When I told my mum about it, however, she just laughed it off and made me feel silly and so it was never brought up again. I had reached the conclusion that I was just not a morning person. Period. Which, coming back to the current situation, explains how an entire family of ten woke up fairly late on a usual Monday morning. “Who’s driving today”, Jane queried; fixing up the loose ends of her hair with utmost concentration. “Not today guys. I’m beat.” Ethan said, both arms up in the air to show his withdrawal . I quickly grabbed at the chance. ”I’ll drive.” My offer was met with a chortle from Juliette. I shot her a dirty look. “Yeah right!” “Very funny, Nova” “When are you going to quit trying, bro.?” I roll my eyes exasperatedly and argue; “Why can’t I be allowed to drive for once!” “Want me to spell it out for you, sweetie”, Jolene said with mock charm, gesturing exaggeratedly at my glasses. I sneered at her and chose to ignore them. Fine! I’m the only one in the family who wears glasses and, yes, my eyesight is pretty bad. So what? People with worse eye conditions get to drive, so why can’t i? What are my glasses for, anyways? Of all the three of us who have licenses, that is Lilith, Ethan and I, I am definitely the most efficient driver! Why get the licence only to leave it lying in the dust afterwards? “You couldn’t see your own toes if you had to, Nova”, Ethan teased. With a sigh, I looked on longfully as he threw the keys to Lilith. “Where’s mum?” I asked quietly after a while, finally accepting my defeat. “Said she had something to do this morning,” Jane mumbled distractedly. “Don’t expect to see her before we leave” “Well guys“, Lilith stood up from her untouched cereal. “Let’s get going already. With the right speed, we can make it in no time at all”, she added, looking up at last from her phone and flashing us her million dollar smile. With that, all seven of us stridently trooped out of the house, save Ethan, who had no school to go to at the moment, and Mae, who went to the elementary school just around the corner. “Hi Mrs Olive”, Lilith waved to our old neighbour, who was picking up some flowers from her quite fancy garden. “Hello there”, she waved a gloved hand. “I didn’t hear your alarm today.” Lilith replied with a laugh as we filled up our dark green Mahindra Scorpio SUV. “Oh, sorry about that, Mrs Olive. It broke.” With that, she drove off sharply, spraying gravel everywhere and knocking over one of the vases. “Ooops”, She said with a giggle but still drove on. We dropped off Hope, Faith and Jane at their school; and then Lilith, Juliette and I continued further ahead up the street with Lilith hardly hitting the brakes; obviously exceeding the speed limit. I was actually expecting us to be pulled over by some random cop any time soon but we made it without incident, and seconds before the bell too. Juliette was out the door before Lilith could even cut the engine; running out to join her friends, waving with her back to us distractedly. I walked with Lilith to the hallways until she was also met by her friends and there we parted ways. Though Lilith and I are in the same grade, we each prefer to stick to our individual friend groups and only a few people even know that we were siblings. Not that we didn’t want each other’s company or anything; this was just a mutual agreement we made with no hard feelings whatsoever; probably because of our widely different personalities. Lilith is the easy-going type; chatty, popular and easily makes friends at school. I, on the other hand, am a semi-nerd, with just a handful of friends and not as popular as Lilith. I choose to keep to myself too, rather than engage in anything that involves social activities like school clubs but without seeming all too antisocial. Lilith is the captain of the cheerleading squad, the founder of the school’s official dance team and, well, probably every single club in the entire school. Teachers love her and she’s not even that good academically. She has her way around people; that’s just the way she is. I’m not saying this in a jealous way or anything to that effect; I kind of admire Lilith’s open, happy nature though it's really not the life I necessarily wanted for myself; no, thank you. Besides, I see Lilith more than anyone else in this entire school, so it makes sense that we give each other a break once in a while. I make my way calmly to my locker until I hear a familiar voice call out my name.