Am I For Real?

"Marley, get out!"
"Kid, don't do this to yourself."
"Please, come out. Marley!"
"Dear, what does your sister know? She's just a kid! Ignore her."
"Marley, kid, Grandpa is not eating. Please come out. He'll die otherwise."
"Enough! You're coming out in five minutes or we'll break the door."
"Okay, see Marley, we're going now. Get out here in the next five minutes. Don't create a scene."
"Dear, what will the neighbours say? That she's shouting? You're a good girl, right?"
"See(edit: change it to"Look"), your sister was saying it just like that. What does she know? She's asleep now. Oh God, she's only five, dear!"

All the shrill, angry and frustrated voices faded into oblivion as the brunette pulled at her hair, roughly pushing it away from her face as she searched for it.

She searched all the drawers and cupboard shelves, banging them open and shut with a loud noise. Outside the room, the yells of the assembled people were increasing in proportion.

The girl searched more urgently.

Ten minutes passed and she could still not find it. By now, her hair resembled that of a rag-picker's and her clothes were so wrinkled that it looked like she'd just woken up from a deep night's slumber.

She was growing impatient and frustrated, her entire form trembling as she looked for it.

Tears streamed down her face as she yanked the bedsheets. Her school report card, a few novels, her guitar and a collection of childhood photographs fell to the floor. The girl turned around to switch off the ceiling fan and wiped furiously at her eyes, ceasing the flow of tears.

Sniffing, she collected the photographs that had flown to different corners of the room. Her blurry vision prevented her from reliving the moments captured on the glossy papers, the moments when her life had been happy and blissful.

It was when she bent down to grab a photo that had landed under the bed that she found it. There, under her old sweatshirt and blue track pants, lay a brown book, its torn edges peeping out at her.

She smiled for the first time that day, a grateful smile, as she pulled it out. It was a hardcover, fat book which she had won at the local music competition last year. On the outside there was nothing special about it, it even looked old and discarded. For the brunette, it was anything but.

It was her journal. It was not a normal book, it was her escape from reality. It was where she found solace and momentarily forgot all the trouble brewing in the pot of her life.

She shouted, "I'm coming!"

The noise outside the room died down with the shuffling of footsteps. Once her family was gone, she sighed audibly. She pressed a palm to her forehead, stretching(edit: change it to "Smoothing") the crease of her eyebrows. Sitting up on her knees, she pulled down her t-shirt, adjusted the hem of her pyjamas and tied up her curly hair into a loose ponytail. The cupboard was opened, her lucky red pen taken out, and the door shut with a bang.

Slumped on the floor with her back against the cupboard, the girl opened the first page of her journal, running her fingers over the writing in red ink that read:

Private Property!
Do not open further.

She turned onto the second page and filled in the details , her hands trembling as she scrawled only the most necessary information. Then she closed the book shut, hid it under a pile of laundry and stepped out of the room.

Angry faces turned to look at her as she shouted, "Dinner!"

Her aunt stepped out of the kitchen and placed a plate of food in front of her, with a loud bang. She looked up at the woman, then turned her gaze onto all the people present in the room, one by one. As the bad feelings started coming back, she ducked her head.

Her aunt returned to her previous position at the kitchen's entrance and various other people adjusted themselves in their seats on the sofa and chairs. The living room buzzed with the noise of the rotating fan and shifting butts. A minute layer, everyone was perched comfortably on their seats, their legs folded under them. Hesitant faces turned to look at each other, the sides of their faces glowing from the moonlight and the tubelight.

There was a second's pause before the shouting began, different people shouting at her for different reasons, all of them together. However, her thoughts were still tuned into the diary that lay hidden under the pile of dirty clothes. They didn't wait for her to answer as they kept up with the yelling and she didn't bother to look up from her plate as she kept thinking.

In the next room, the brown book lay hidden under the pile of clothes, behind the closed door. The corners were turned, the cover dusty, but the ink on the second page was still fresh. The girl's hurried handwriting read:

My Journal

Basic Information
Name: Marley Linton
Age: 15
City: New Jersey
Address: 32, Phoenix Street, Near Kengy Pharmaceuticals
Phone number: --