CHAPTER 17
After Jenny and Clayton left Tuesday night, I spent a few hours pacing in my room, trying to figure out the best way to get back at Stephen and company. At about five-thirty in the morning, I remembered that I didn’t keep curtains on my windows because I’d always loved waking up to the sun streaming in.
This morning, though, I was thinking that maybe wasn’t such a great idea. Unless I wanted the worst sunburn of my life. Hahahaha. Um, no.
Fortunately, my mom was still at the office (I mean, it was after five a.m.! Why on earth should she be home with her kid?) so I didn’t have to be quiet. I grabbed a roll of foil from the cabinet above the stove and a box of green Hefty garbage bags from under the sink. It took longer to find duct tape, but I finally found a roll in the laundry room. (I have no idea why it was there, but my mom can’t sew. So maybe she figured she’d just tape any ripped seams back together?)
At any rate, I schlepped all of these tools back to my room, then realized that the favor my parents did by giving me a well-lit room was going to end up being very inconvenient.
There are six windows in my room, three facing east and three facing north. I had no idea what time the sun started coming up, but I figured it couldn’t be too long now. So I spent a hectic few minutes trying to rip pieces of duct tape, tape foil onto the window, then cover the foil with a plastic bag. I wished I’d thought of this before Jenny and Clayton left, but I managed to get it done. In fact, I was just putting the last piece of tape in place when I started feeling incredibly sleepy. This room-darkening thing was exhausting!
I lay down on my bed and stared at my now-ugly walls. What they needed, I thought, was some color. Maybe if I went to Hancock Fabrics and bought some nice pink muslin, I could staple it up and over the . . .