Not really Twi, but need feedback, for Uni...thnx

lmao good! i actually forgot for a couple days, then i was like OMG! wait!

I have another chapter here for you, i had it on the computer...this is where all the twists come into play slowely and it gets strange...

Chapter 7

Dad left for work before dawn Christmas Eve morning. He had a new development contract for a subdivision of low-income housing in the poor, ghostly town of Newtown, a half hours drive from Cutter’s Edge. The ground was frozen solid and no foundation work would begin until the end of March, but her father was a meticulous planner who would take a small crew to new sites months in advance and map out every step a dozen times before spring even arrived. He’d promised his crew an early finish so they could go home for Christmas dinner with their families. Tennille wondered if he felt the same obligation to his own family.
From bed Tennille smelled the burnt coffee wafting up the stairs. Her dad drank mud-like coffee, black, thick, and sugarless, a bitter, but familiar aroma that evoked the comfort of predictable routine. That felt like a lifetime ago to Tennille now.
Dad had confined her to the house for the day, and even though he was gone until tonight, she was pretty much under house arrest. He’d call home every hour or so, making sure she picked up, she’d violated the rules once before and it cost her an entire month of mobile phone, friends and freedom, Even if she snuck out for an hour and made it back the next check in Gerard would snitch on her for sure.
Gerard. He had turned on her last night.
They had fought countless times before; argued, yelled, wrestled, argued, slapped, smacked. Gerard had tattled, baited, blamed, annoyed, meddled, and eavesdropped on her like any little brother. But he’d never lied. Not until last night.
Tennille pulled on a pair of red cords and her favourite black hoodie as she thought through a plan of attack. With dad gone for the day and just her and Gerard in the house, maybe she could get through to him. She’d make Gerard’s favourite breakfast, chocolate chip waffles, and then they could get down to it and really talk. Tomorrow was their first Christmas without mum, and Tennille knew that that was the core of all of this. How couldn’t it be?
Tennille headed to the bathroom to pee and wash her face, but stopped in the hallway. It was still and cold. Something felt different.
She walked toward Gerard’s room. The door was open and she realized why the silence bothered her; there was no incessant scratching of tiny claws, no high pitched wheel twittering or rusty cheeps from that obnoxious spinning wheel. Dawn to late morning was Master Squeaks most active time, when he would run and skitter and scratch about until he curled up and fell asleep around noon. But not this morning.
Tennille pushed the door open and peaked in. Gerard was still asleep, his black hair spread across his pillow. He had a heavy wool blanket over his thick down comforter, even though dad had cranked up the heat this morning. Gerard had to be sweltering, but his covers rose and fell in perfect calm.
The floor of the cage was littered with pine shavings and gnawed corncobs. Clear plastic tubes of various colours and widths sprawled into terrarium compartments that each housed some silly piece of rodent furniture; a truck, a lounge chair and a play tunnel.
Tennille tip toed to the cage and looked for Master Squeak, but the guinea pig was nowhere to be found. The wheel on the bottom level was on it’s side, and the small water dish was knocked over. The door latch was unlocked.
Gerard occasionally left the door unlocked by mistake, and his inquisitive pet has escaped a few times. It’s favourite destination was the bathroom down the hall, and once there it took whatever delight guinea pigs took in chewing toilet seats, snotty tissues, toilet paper and used dental floss. The last time Tennille had found the fugitive guinea pig, it had squirmed into the bathroom cabinet and chewed through a box of her tampons.
She crept back out of Gerard’s room and headed for the bathroom, half expecting to find it on the sink, where it would have left a lovely pile of guinea pig turds on dad’s shaving kit.
No such bad luck; the bathroom was vacant. But the toilet gurgled and choked at her.
‘Damn it, I thought dad was going to fix this’, Tennille muttered. She jiggled the handle and flushed. The water level swelled. Up and up it swirled, threatening to rise above the porcelain rim.
“You have got to be kidding me’. She grabbed the plunger and shoved it in, ‘Merry Christmas Eve, Tennille!’.
The drain opened and sucked in a huge glop of water. The toilet chugged a couple of times but then stopped, the returning water unable to rise more then a few inches above the hole. Tennille cursed silently as the shallow water rippled. Then a small leathery strip slid into view beneath the waters surface. At first Tennille mistook it for a clump of hair. She looked closer and slapped her hand over her mouth.
A tail.
Tennille found rubber gloves under the sink and snapped them on. Now she could see that a hind leg had emerged from the hole.
‘Oh, no’
She plunged her hand in and grabbed the guinea pigs slimy leg. Tennille felt the tiniest crack of bone under her fingers. She pulled. Ribs poked through the skin like broken tooth picks.
The guinea pig was practically shapeless, little more the a drenched pile of hair and flesh. Tennille stood and stroked the guinea pigs fur.
For two years she had watched Gerard nurture the annoying ball of squeaks and peeps, had watched it roll across the living room floor in it’s stupid plastic ball, had come to see the dumb thing whenever it climbed inside a plastic television Gerard had bought with his birthday money.
‘Look, Tennille’ Gerard would giggle. ‘It’s the Master Squeak show’
How do I tell him? Tennille asked herself.
The ringing phone made her start, and Master Squeaks broken body slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor with a splat. She heard Gerard scamper into her fathers bedroom, where he answered the phone. Tennille picked up the crushed guinea pig, pumped two foamy dollops of scented soap onto the rodent’s body and ran it under the faucet.
‘Tennille’ Gerard called. ‘It’s dad! He wants to talk to you’
‘Tell him I will call him back’
Tennille cringed as the soap foamed over the dead guinea pigs open eyes. Strange, she thought, how when the essence of the smallest living thing vanishes, the world feels colder and bigger. She wiped it’s black eyes with her pinky.
‘Now, he said’ Gerard called. ‘He wants to know you are still in the house because you are grounded’
‘GOD GERARD I AM IN THE BATHROOM’ she called back.
She shut the water off and blotted Master Squeak with a washcloth. She wrapped the little corpse with it and stood in the middle of the tiled floor, unsure what to do next. Gerard’s footsteps came closer.
‘What are you doing in there?
‘Parasailing, Gerard!’ she shouted angrily, kicking the door completely shut. ‘What do you think I am doing in here?’
‘Master Squeak was out of his cage, have you seen him?
‘No’ it stunned her that her first impulse was to lie. She heard Gerard start back toward his room. ‘Gerard, wait!’
She opened the bathroom door and stepped out, cradling the wrapped towel to her chest. Gerard stood in the his oversized flannel pj’s, looking every bit the boy she knew and loved.
‘What am I waiting for?’
“Something happened to Master Squeak. Something bad.’ Tennille unwrapped the outer flap of the towel ‘I think he is dead, Gerard’
‘Like Mrs Valo?’ he asked
Tennille chilled. He hadn’t mentioned the babysitter since they had found her body. She had naively hoped that he’d somehow forgotten the ambulance pulling up, the black jacketed coroner’s knock on the door, the woman’s corpse being wheeled away. But he knew what had happened.
‘Mrs Valo died because she was old, and it was her time to go, I guess, but Master Squeak’….She squatted to show Gerard the tiny corpse. ‘I think he climbed up into the sink, dad must have left the water in there after he shaved this morning. He drowned, I’m so sorry’ she couldn’t bear to tell Gerard the even more horrible truth.
The boys mouth opened a little as he leaned toward the guinea pig in Tennille’s hands.
‘Do you think they suffered?’
Tennille had not expected this kind of question, all she could say was ‘No, I don’t think so’
Gerard reached out a hand and stroked the guinea pigs head. ‘He looks so broken and twisted’.
Tennille wasn’t prepared for this reaction and before she could stop herself she was crying. She knelt there in the hallway, a dead rodent in her hands like some kind of sacrifice.
‘You are crying’ Gerard said, wiping a tear from Tennille’s check, and examining it on his finger like he had never seen it before.
‘Of course I am crying, Gerard, first Mrs Valo, and now this. Arent you sad Gerard? Do you want to hold him?’ she asked holding the guinea pig forward.
‘I don’t know what to say, or what to do with it’ Gerard said ‘ Do we just put him in a box in the backyard or do we flush him down the toilet?”
‘No, we will make a nice coffin and bury him in the backyard, you can say a few words, or I can if you are too upset, we can say a prayer and let his spirit move on’
Gerard’s cold blue eye’s pierced through her ‘where does it go’ he said, matter-of-factly ‘the spirit, I mean?’
‘To heaven Gerard’
‘Have you seen a spirit?’
‘You cant see it, you feel it. Inside you’ she pointed to Gerard chest, ‘in your heart, right here’
‘Im going to get a shoebox, you can bury it after I have waffles’ he said flatly, as though he didn’t care.

More of Chapter 7...

‘He didn’t want to come with you to bury it?’ Jacob asked, climbing down off his Kawasaki 2001 E7 Series, and sloshing through the sand to where Tennille was standing with the shoebox. ‘That is harsh, is the rodent messed up that bad?’
‘Well I broke some ribs when I pulled him out of the toilet’
‘No, not the guinea pig dork. I mean Gerard’.
‘He is so messed up Jacob, it was like he thought he had to act tough and not cry when I told him about Master Squeak’
‘I didn’t cry when my cat got hit by a car’ Jacob said, although he had to admit he wanted to. ‘But then again I am –‘

‘A natural tough guy’ Tennille finished for him, both laughing.
Jacob found a patch of grass that wasn’t as frozen and began digging.
From the corner of his eye he noticed a shape in one of the windows of the house. It was Gerard. Standing and staring blankly at Jacob and his sister, it looked to Jacob like he was plotting murder.
‘Doesn’t that creep you out?’ Jacob asked, indicating with his eyes at Gerard.
She followed Jacob’s eyes ‘Yeah, I told you he is acting strange, like some gears aren’t functioning properly up there’
‘Can I see the guinea pig?’ Jacob asked.
Tennille opened the box and handed it over to Jacob, how turned Master Squeak over in his hands. ‘And you said you found him in the toilet?’ he asked, his suspicion seemed confirmed.
‘Yeah, clooged. Really jammed in there’ Tennille answered.
‘its neck it broken’ Jacob said, looking up again at Gerard.
‘Yeah, I told you I broke a few bones when I pulled him out’ Tennille answered.
‘I don’t think that is how it happened’ he indicated to Tennille the thin layer of skin that seemed to be holding the head to the body. He glanced up again in Gerard’s direction, but he was gone.
‘What are you doing here Jacob?’ Gerard asked.
He was standing on the back steps. Wrapped up in several layers of jumpers and with dad’s green parka over the top. Jacob would have laughed if it weren’t for the venom in the boys voice.
‘I cam to pay my respects to Master Squeak, I am sorry about what happened man’ Jacob said.
‘Well Tennille is grounded so you better piss off before dad calls again’
‘GERARD! Back off, he is burying your pet for you’
Jacob held up a finger to silence Tennille and he walked forward toward Gerard, who back away a little, holding his hands up.
Jacob stopped ‘Did, you have an accident with your pet Gerard?’ he asked.
‘JUST LEAVE ME ALONE JACOB’ Gerard screamed, suddenly Jacob felt as though he was glued to the spot, unable to move, the cold creeping in, he was staring in Gerard’s eye’s, there was something in-human about them.
Jacob struggled to look away, but he couldn’t. Drowning in the boys gaze he was underwater, suffocating, paralysed; sunlight faded, and a tunnel closed in until Jacob felt like he was surrounded only by darkness. He could see Gerard’s eyes. He felt like his lungs were filing with water, he couldn’t breath, he couldn’t move…
He coughed and gagged. No water, just Gerard’s blue eyes staring at him, he laughed as Jacob fell into the snow on his knee’s shaking.
‘Go home Jacob, you are not welcome here’
Gerard laughed bitterly and walked away.
Jacob caught his breath, his pulse beating furiously, he picked up a hunk of snow and threw it at the back of Gerard’s head. It hit his target squarely.
‘Jacob’ Tennille yelled. ‘Chill’
Gerard leapt from the porch and on top of Jacob, knocking Jacob to the ground. Gerard screaming, howling, wrapped his hands around Jacob’s throat and the drowning feeling began again.
‘STOP! GERARD’ Tennille screamed.
Jacob kicked and gasped for air, writhing under Gerard’s hands and kicking legs.
Tennille grabbed Gerard by the shoulders and threw him to the floor.
During the struggle Gerard flung elbow into Tennille’s face, smacking her in the right eye. Before he could react Jacob had grabbed a fistful of snow and smashed it into Gerard’s face.
Tennille tried to hold her brother down, but he flung his head at her nose, breaking it, Tennille fell like a sack of potatos.
Jacob’s looked at Gerard, his vision slightly impaired with yellow spots saw that where he smacked Gerard with the snow the skin was seared. It looked like it was badly burnt.
‘Oh my’ was all Jacob could get out.
Gerard turned and ran into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Tennille lay motionless on the snow, the warm blood gushing around her and turning the white around her blood red.