Ella Bella by Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons

Author:Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coping, outsourcing, domestic fiction, high school fiction, death of a parent
Publisher: Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons

Chapter Ten

“No ma’am, we don’t have the Disney version of The Little Mermaid here,” I said on the phone, studying my nails.

“What do you have?” she asked. Her voice was breathy, almost a sigh.

“I have this version that was done a couple of years ago. The pictures are really beautiful,” I said, flipping through the pages. The little mermaid with long flowing black hair, her tail a dark shade of green.

“But that’s the version where the mermaid dies, right?”

I sighed. “Well, yeah…” I was about to say that was Hans Christian Andersen’s original ending, Breathy Lady. However, I resisted.

“But that’s so depressing! I want to read the Disney version to my daughter! You know the version where Ariel lives! The right ending! Someone gave her the DVD for her birthday and she wants to read the story!”

Oh just get over it. People die. Even mermaids die. Not everyone gets to have a happy ending where they get feet, legs and a prince. “Well, we don’t have that version,” I said, trying to sound patient.

“Well! I’ll have to order it on Amazon then!” Her voice was now indignant.

“Oh. Okay,” I replied. I hung up. Thank God Josephine wasn’t around. She would’ve gone off on how Disney was so bad and they made cutesy stories. “Oh God! Another Princesses book! Like every girl wants to be a princess! What is that telling girls today?” I didn’t say anything; She didn’t know the story how I got my name.

I looked at the poster of Olivia the pig. She was dressed in a red and white sailor dress, black and white tights covered up her porcine feet. “You know what, Olivia?” I said, looking at Olivia’s smiling face, “life is like what Gilda Radner said. You know who Gilda Radner is, right? She was on this show Saturday Night Live and she was so funny. Anyway, she used to say it’s always something. If it’s not Mom still in denial about losing her job, it’s someone wanting the right version of The Little Mermaid.” I shrugged my shoulders, exclaiming: “Oy!” I felt glad that no one was there to hear me rant. Especially to a fictional little girl pig.

I’d been for working for two weeks. I loved it. “You really like the job?” Carey asked one day during lunch.

“I love it; It hasn’t lost the new car smell yet.”

“What’s the new car smell?”

“You know. When new cars have that smell about them for weeks, then suddenly it goes away, and the newness wears off and you kind of love the car less for some reason.”

“Geez,” she said thinking it over, “it makes me want to sniff a new car.”

It was a perfect arrangement. Instead of going home, I took the bus to Azure Creek, walked two blocks to Ole Golly’s, then I would sit in the break room drinking bottled water and read. I worked after school for a couple of hours, until five-thirty. I came home right before Mom did. Sometimes I grabbed a burrito to eat, pretending to be hungry when she fixed dinner.

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