It was a mild autumn day, the darkness of the sky was slowly pierced by the rising of the sun, which set its light upon the Temple Way Estate. The tattered blinds in a particular room on the estate had little resistance against the fiery ball, and, as a result, the room was heavily ‘lit’. A figure yawned and groaned its way into an upright position, and a cute yet glum face emerged, looking as though it was carrying the weight of a 1000 sins. Belly rumbling soon joined the equation of noise, although no attention was paid to it by its owner, as if they were used to the feeling.
“Daniel!” yelled a timely voice from seemingly afar. “When are you gonna come down and eat breakfast?”
Daniel, confused at the sound and tone of this voice, jumped out of bed and made his way down the hall to the door at the end. He entered the tiny room, struggling to be a hybrid between a living room and a kitchen, and was welcomed by a soft, squeaky voice.
“You always sleep for so long, you’re so lazy!” giggled the girl.
“Shut up, Lola,” said Daniel.
“Daniel!” said the same voice that summoned him from his room. “Don’t tell your sister to shut up, she just likes to play around.”
Lola was now sticking her tongue out profusely, or “bares” in Daniel’s opinion.
“Sorry, mum” said Daniel, who’d now taken a seat next to his loveable, huggable, but annoying little sister.
“And you Lola, stop doing that to your brother, you need to le-”
“Why are you out of bed mum, you should be resting,” interrupted Daniel, with a worrying look on his face now.
“No, I feel great! Besides, it’s my job to make sure you kids are taken care of,” said Daniel’s mum, as she set two plates in front of Daniel and Lola. Daniel looked puzzledly at his breakfast, as though he’d never seen food before in his life. There were scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of marmalade toast, hash browns, beans, pan-friend mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, sizzling sausages and bacon.
“Rahhh……mum……where did you get all this food from?!”
“From the supermarket, silly.” Lola and his mum giggled at the confused picture that was Daniel’s face.
“…but, how?” remarked Daniel, still in some shock.
“Don’t you worry son, like I said, it’s my job to look after you lot…and it’s yours to make sure you just stay out of trouble, okay?” she said, as she kissed him on the forehead.
Daniel ate his breakfast cautiously, still sceptical of how the food had got there. After settling the earlier goings-on in his stomach, Daniel got up to go and change into his uniform for school.
“Make sure you hurry up Dan, Lola’s gonna be late at this rate!”
“Yeah, hurry up sleepyhead!”
Daniel sighed, but gave an acknowledging look over to his mum.
“Sure, mum.”
In almost the blink (or non-blink) of an eye, Daniel was outside his sister’s primary school dropping her off.
“Hmm okay…so we’re here already. Laters Lola, be good.”
She barely said bye as she ran off, eager to join her friends playing some game or other in the playground.
Daniel checked the time on his phone.
“Shit, it’s 8:45!”
He dashed for the bus stop and was on the notorious 297 route with not much time to spare. In what seemed like a flash, an intimidating figure appeared in front of Daniel, who was seated at the back of the top deck, with his hood up and scarf around his face so you could only see his eyes.
The figure, intently looking at Daniel, boomed: “Wagwan g, you good yeah…?!”