Shutout

late night (or early morning) check ups

Ramona stares at the ceiling, watching precisely nothing happen. No phone, no computer, no textbooks - that one had to be the most heinous, banning your kid from reading textbooks! Ramona's mother was perhaps not the most forgiving. Especially after several unanswered calls and Ramona's late night appearance at the Bell household. Now Ramona was serving the first night of her solitary confinement also known as being grounded.

Truly a new experience for Ramona. Sure her mom had always been strict but Ramona had also always been good. And it wasn't even that late. She got home at nine! After a family dinner with Beau's family that was way too nice. A home cooked meal, silly banter, loud laughter. Definitely not the dinner that had been served at Ramona's house. Not that she was there.

Ramona sighs, turning over in her bed so her face is buried in her pillow. What is one to do? Two weeks of her only socialization coming from her 7 hour school days. Then very limited and very monied access to her laptop and textbooks to complete her homework. Then nothing. Surprisingly, Ramona hates it. She hates talking to people and isn't necessarily attached to her phone or anything but there's nothing to do. And Ramona finds that doing things you hate might beat out being bored.

Though there are people that Ramona doesn't hate talking to. She wonders if anyone's texted her. If she had to guess, it's probably reaching eleven-ish and sleep doesn't seem to be coming close to looming over Ramona. Two hours, give or take, without access to the outside world. While Ramona severely doubts anything momentous has occurred in the past three hours, she can't rule it out. What if a rebellious group of pirates overtook the US presidency in a coup d'etat? What if a tsunami was coming to the town of West Etteca? And Ramona's family forgot to mention it as they tiptoed past her door to evacuate? Except realistically the nearest beach is hours away and Ramona knows that the pond at the park doesn't even have normal sized waves, so a fatally devastating one seems unlikely.

In any case Ramona wouldn't know. She pressed her face further down into the pillow. At least she still had a pillow. Ramona groans. She eats dinner at a friend's house once and now she has to be thankful that she has a pillow? A single pillow on a twin sized bed, the new equivalent for winning the lottery.

Ramona doesn't remember falling asleep but it happens eventually. She knows it must have happened because now she's waking up. With no way to check the time, Ramona takes in the darkness of her room. It can't be morning yet. Well maybe like late-at-night-but-technically-morning, like one AM but not morning-morning. Ramona doesn't usually wake up in the middle of the night (or the technically morning part of night) naturally. And she hasn't today. The soft tap from the corner of her room acts like an unconventional alarm clock.

Ramona blinks a long blink, "What the fuck?" She grumbles slowly. At the window in the corner of Ramona's room is a hand, knocking on the clear glass. "Fucking hell, this cannot be real." Ramona doesn't scream but she does sigh, rubbing her eyes before looking up again. And yes, there is a mysterious hand rapping at her bedroom window at one AM (or two or three).

Crawling out from underneath her covers (Ramona supposes she can be greatful for her duvet as well), Ramona groggily stumbles to the window.

"Oh. My. God." Ramona groans. She runs her hand over her face. Maybe this time when she opens her eyes it'll be different. She'll look out to the tree outside her window and there'll be no hand and certainly no body accompanying said hand. Just a tree and the little blue house next door. But life isn't fair and when Ramona opens her eyes nothing has changed.

A familiar and annoyingly comforting face looks back at her from the other side of the glass. He smiles and points wordlessly to the bottom of the window, signaling for Ramona to open it.