13) A Lucky Number For a Not So Lucky Day

Monday is definitely not my favourite day.

I'm pretty much a human version of Garfield. Mondays are my enemy, I'm lazy and I don't understand why I can't eat lasagne for every meal.

I sleep through all 7 alarms that I had set the night before.

Luckily I have a super alarm which comes in the form of my best friend.

I'm shaken vigorously out of my deep sleep "Rise and shine sleeping panda you've got 420 seconds to be ready before I leave without you!"

It's too early for math right now.

Charlie flops onto my bed beside me "That's seven minutes for the people who are still half asleep."

I spring out of bed "What! Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" I yell, throwing a pillow in his direction.

"Oh, your mum was making chocolate chip pancakes and I had to help her eat them as you weren't awake yet." he shrugs like he made the most obvious choice.

Pushing him up and out of my bedroom, I clear my head to get ready for what I've been preparing for my whole school life.

Getting ready in less than 5 minutes.

Let's do this!

***

Sprinting across the school grounds to class is not my ideal way to reach homeroom before the bell rings. See, I made it out of my house in record time with 45 seconds to spare but sadly speed wasn't Charlie's thing this morning as he drove like a grandma. I'm fairly sure I might have even seen some older ladies jogging past us.

I pause when I hear my name being called across the courtyard.

"Mac, wait up!" Aaron easily maneuvers his way through the stream of teenagers with his height advantage.

He furrows his eyebrows and lays a hand on my shoulder taking me by surprise. "I didn't hear back from you yesterday and I got worried that something had happened to you," I still have no idea what we are supposed to be at the moment.

Also, I technically did receive all 3 of his messages yesterday; I just chose to ignore them as I had more important things to do like watching Supernatural in bed.

"I wanted to say sorry for the whole burger ordeal yesterday, I didn't know you were so passionate about food," he says scratching the back of his neck "So I went to the shops and bought you some chocolate, " He starts to shuffle through the bag that is slung over his shoulder.

Did he say chocolate? Now he's learning to speak my kind of language.

"I didn't know which one you liked so I got you the plain stuff."

He awkwardly hands me a giant block of milk chocolate. I guess I could overlook the food incident from yesterday.

I could get used to this.

"Oh, that's so sweet of you to think of me. I'm sorry about yesterday as well, when I get hangry it never turns out well for the person on the receiving end." I stare at my shoes, not wanting him to see the blush that has started to creep onto my cheeks.

"Hey, " he lifts my chin so he's staring contently "I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a real burger with me tomorrow. To you know, make up for yesterday. I'll even make sure to add extra bacon" he says with a cute smile spreading across his face.

Nodding, I agree happily, who wouldn't want someone else to pay for your extra bacon? "That sounds like a fantastic idea. Will I see you at lunch today?" I ask hopefully tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Maybe. I have a couple of people I need to see but I'll make sure you're one of them" he winks as he strolls away "Also I think your shirt is inside out."

Quickly looking down to my shirt in shock as I realise that I accidentally put my shirt on the wrong way this morning, in my rush to get ready.

Well, at least you can't see my bra...

***

My day has not started to improve in any way by lunch time. I sit at our normal table with Charlie and Jess having a nice make out session in front of me. I don't really care about PDA but when it is my best friend I can automatically feel the food coming back up from.

Being left to third wheel the two love birds is not my favourite way to spend lunch.

Zoe has left me to do her final art project and who knows where Aaron is right now.

"Ugh, get a room you guys. The birds and I are trying to enjoy our 30 minutes of freedom in peace and your little pucker up sesh is ruining it, " I say as civilly as possible.

Surprisingly enough they slowly pull away from each other with a guilty look on their faces.

I'm such a great third wheel that I make things extremely awkward (I guess you could say it's my speciality.)

"Yeah remember me," I give them a small wave "best friend. Loner. Person that wants to eat and talk to her friends that preferably don't have their lips attached to each other, " I smile as I watch the two of them squirm in their spots.

Jess whispers something into Charlie's ear before he kisses her on the cheek and leaves "How could I forget about you Mace? You're like a cat that never leaves because I gave you food once. What about you come around to my house this afternoon and we can watch a movie and eat loads of junk food?" he says with a grin knowing my weakness.

I nod in agreement "It seems impolite to reject an offer for food."

The bell for the end of lunch rings, come on, I didn't even get to eat my Nutella sandwich.

"I won't be home straight after school because I'm taking Corey to the dentist but there should be a spare key in the pot plant. Text me if you can't get in okay, " he pats me on the back as he leaves.

Please, it's a key. How hard can it be to find?

***

Dang it.

Where is this stupid key hiding? Why isn't it in this pot plant?

So it has come to my attention that it is in actual fact, harder than I thought to find a key in a pot of soil. No matter how much dirt I had sifted through there is no sign of a key.

I look around to find another way into the house. What would MacGyver do?
The back gate catches my eye. Bingo. I guess there's another way to get inside, I'll just be going through the back door that they usually keep open for the dog.

Then I realise there's a slightly small problem.

Me.

The gate is at least half a metre taller than me and I have absolutely no upper body strength to pull myself up. Well if I do try I'll probably die but at least it will be a great story to tell.

Looking at the gate I visualise different scenarios I might go through to get to the other side, some include:

Attempting to climb than falling.
Finding a ladder than falling off that as well.
Using bins as steps.
Running then trying to jump the fence.
Ramming it down with a car seems like my best possible option that won't leave me with an injury. The only problem is that I don't currently have a car.

I guess the bins will have to do.

Laying the bins on the ground, I use them as a booster step to help me jump over the tall gate.

As I pull myself up, I awkwardly flip my leg over the other side to balance in the middle. I can feel muscles that I never knew existed being stretched. I then try to swing my other leg over so I can lower myself down. This ends up with me putting too much momentum into the swing and pretty much throwing myself over the flimsy gate.

Landing on my back was thankfully less painful than expected; I seriously thought breaking a bone was a very high possibility.

I don't understand how James Bond can do this on a daily basis.

After dusting off the dirt and grass from my uniform I approach the back door praying to God that it is open.

I pull the handle of the sliding door and watch as it glides open. I sigh in relief as I don't know what I would have done if it was locked. There was no way I was climbing over that fence again; I've done enough physical activity for the day.

Leaving my bag in the kitchen I go to the lounge room to find the fluffy cat chewing a roll of duct tape. This cat is weirder than me, and that's saying something.

I freeze when I hear a rattling sound coming from the front door.

That can't be Charlie and Corey ,they're not supposed to be back for another half an hour.

I can't believe it.

They're about to be robbed, while I'm in the house. This won't look good on my permanent record. I don't want to die young. I didn't even get to eat my burger with extra bacon.

Just think calm and rational thoughts. What would Kim Possible do?

Scratch that I have no ninja skills to take down a criminal.

My only option is to tackle them head on. It's not like I've got any hidden weapons.

Wait. Do I?

Where do they keep the fry pans?

Before I can go grab a kitchen utensil to protect myself the door swings open.

I flatten myself against the wall and really hope my karate skills improve in the next 3 seconds.

I jump out at the intruder screaming and jump at their legs. Sadly I miss and just flop onto the wooden floor instead.

At the sight of me, the robber who seems to be a teenage boy jumps backwards and trips over his own feet. When his head hit the ground with a thud I quickly scramble to my feet running towards the kitchen to grab something I can use to protect myself.

Looking behind me, I realise the boy is rolling around on the ground making weird noises like a manatee.

Slowly and carefully I start to approach the intruder hoping that he won't want to kill me.

For a second he actually looks dead. Oh no. Did I just kill someone?

His eyes seem to be tightly shut and his body in a fetal position. Thankfully I see his mouth moving, it looks like he's whispering some kind of curse on the house.

I look at the weapon in my hand which seems to be a ladle. Well, this isn't going to help me.

Just as I feel like there is no hope for me coming out of this alive and not severely injured.
The role of half chewed duct tape ends up at my feet.

Meow

I could kiss this cat right now.

Taking a strip of tape I kneel down next to the boy, our eyes connect and before he can scream I cover his mouth with duct tape.

"Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way, personally I don't know the difference I've just always wanted to say that," He lifts an eyebrow in confusion but willingly puts out his hand and feet out for me to tape up.

I never knew burglars cooperated so well.

The boy winces as I tape up his feet, so I might not have hurt myself during this little fiasco but I think I broke the robber.

After what feels like a lifetime of struggling to move the teenage boy that doesn't look over the age of 15 but weighs as much as a baby elephant, I sit us both down on the couch.

I hear Charlie's car pull up to the driveway "They're home, " the boy sighs.

"Honey I'm-What in the world happened here?" He scans around the front room observing the slight mess I may have made. His eyes stop on the boy taped up on the chair.

"You see, this kid was trying to break into the house and me being the amazing best friend that I am, I attacked him and taped him up with this great stuff called duct tape. Granted I didn't do the best job at knocking him out but I can guarantee that he won't be moving anytime soon." I seem to ramble out with a proud grin plastered on my face.

Both guys' eyes widen when a shout comes from behind

"JAMES! WHAT HAPPENED?" Corey drops her bag that she was holding before running over to the boy that I have expertly taped up.

"mmmeeiiidtowt" the boy struggles to speak with the tape on his mouth

I look at her in confusion "Um Corey, my name is Mackenzie, not James."

"Nonono" she shakes her head kneeling down in front of the boy I have duct taped "James, the idiot buffoon you tied up is my best friend, not an intruder, " she starts ripping the tape off him quickly.

"What?" whispering to myself trying to work out how I have never met James before.

James screams in pain when Corey slowly peels the sticky tape off his mouth "Oww!"

"Suck it up princess; you got taken down by one of the most uncoordinated people in the world today. You lost all your dignity as so as you let her use duct tape on you."

"In my defence, " he rubs his wrists trying to get his blood circulation flowing again "I let myself in and then was attack by this crazy chick. I knew you were going to be home sooner or later so I went along with it. The last time something this interesting happened I almost set the house on fire."

Charlie comes up beside me "Mackenzie meet James, Corey's partner in crime. James meet my slightly insane best friend Macey, " we wave at each other with sorry expressions on our faces. Talk about good first impressions...

"Wait, " I pause recalling the events that just happened "how exactly did you get inside? Did you find the spare keys?"

He runs a hand through his dark hair "Um, I've got a set of house keys," he looks at me curiously "how did you get in?"

"I'm a ninja, " was the only response that seems appropriate

Corey shakes her head and loops James' arm around her neck "Let's get you an ice-pack; oh I totally need to take a picture of this. I never want to forget this moment."

"Remind me why we are still friends, " he grumbles.

"Because I'm the one who's still hanging around with you even though puberty hasn't found you yet. Oh and we have keys to each other's houses in case one of us runs out of food."

I turn to Charlie "I've got something serious to talk to you about, " I cross my arms to stare at my best friend with my best death glare.
"Why don't I have keys to your house?

Cupcake Theory #13
Get a copy of your best friend's house keys. You never know when they'll come in handy (aka you run out of Oreos)

:):):)

G'day mate.
How are you on this fine chilly winter day?
Well I feel sleep deprived
The week has been so busy. All I want to do is sit in bed and watch Kim Possible.

I hope your week has been interesting and that you didn't have to break into someone's house.

I just wanted to say thank you for the person that is reading this right now. I appreciate you reading this book so much!

Love you as much as Emma love Julian (even though they're not supposed to because of the parabtai curse thing)

Theforgottonone 🗝