We don’t really have a kitchen. My mom does all her cooking on a camping stove that runs on propane. We have a toaster oven but not a real oven like in real homes. There are cabinets for our dishes and cups, where I imagine the office “coffee area” once was.

It’s all open space here. There were cubicals that once ran along the opposite wall but those were taken out. Now we have a large living room / kitchen / dining room area. The only thing that seperates the ‘kitchen’ from the entire space is the crescent shaped “front desk” that we use as our kitchen island. The camping stove sits on this front desk and there are stools that run along it.

I really like our place. It could be in one of those home fashion magazines and win an award for design, then get the award taken away due to safety hazards.

There are two washrooms, a guys’ washroom and a girls’ washroom. The girls’ has a shower in it, I can’t imagine why an office building would need a shower, but it sure comes in handy for us.

I’ve imagined many different scenarios for what this space was used for in the past, especially my bedroom, the ‘corner office with a view’. Rich, business men, important managers, powerful CEOs must have once made important decisions in there, while looking down at the common folk on the street below, laughing to themselves at how rich they will become at the expense of these lowly conformists.

“Alanna,” my sister yells at me as I am passing the mashed potatoes during supper. “Malvin said he’d give you the story for our travel column this week!”

“What?” I missed what she said because at the time I was thinking about the yoga videos on youtube I’ve been trying out this Reading Week, since my life has become painfully boring. One of the videos said that I can pick an ‘intention’ for my yoga practice. After much thought I picked ‘having better posture’ as my intention. Its only been a few days but I think its working because I usually slouch during supper and tonight I am sitting like a queen.

“That geeky kid in your CLASS! MELVIN!”

“Morgan?” I feel unconfortable because I’ve been blocking any thought of Morgan from my mind since Friday happened and I don’t know how he ended up in this conversation over supper. He does not exist to me. “Why are you talking about him?”

“Whatever.” Vanessa shakes her head and starts gesturing with her hands. “Do you have it?”

“Have what?”

“The TRAVEL COLUMN!”

“Travel column?”

“I could just strangle you!” This coming from the perfect, straight-A student Vanessa. She is definitely losing it, with exams coming up and all.

“Can you just calmly tell me what you are talking about?” I say, imitating my mom (and sitting with excellent posture I might add). Then I remember Morgan was trying to give me a story on Friday. Which I assumed was directly connected to DC’s dropping hints during our chats that he had to “give me something” and he was going to ‘see me’ tomorrow, etc.

Was Morgan simply trying to give me something to give to Vanessa? A travel article for her newspaper column?… Of course! Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me and I’d done it again, I’d let myself believe something untrue (that Morgan was in fact my online friend DC whom I’ve never met) before getting the facts first. I blame it on the hormones, because that’s what my mom always does.

“I can’t come up with a travel column for Monday. Do you know how much homework I have? I don’t even travel! As you know…” Vanessa glances at Mom briefly but fortunately Mom’s mind is elsewhere. I don’t like it when Vanessa implies we are under-priviledged somehow. Expecting to travel to exotic places is kind of selfish really.

“I’m sorry –” I say to Vanessa, because she’s right. I have quite possibly messed up something important for her column in the school paper (which is really important to her, like it's a real job and a real paper). It's her fault though for agreeing to do the travel column, when she doesn’t travel.

“He promised to give it to you! He was writing it for my column and I had to leave school early for the… [you can fill in the blank here with some after-school activity, because I really wasn't paying too much attention]… remember?” Vanessa was talking really fast here, like a Spanish speaking person, or Italian, or a person from any place other than Canada where people talk slow (it's all the cold weather, it numbs our tongues permanently).

“I thought you had it," Vanessa continues. "Then I totally forgot about it till NOW. Are you listening to me?”

“He did try to give it to me.”

“And, do you have it?”

“Well it’s a long story but he still has it… I hope.” I mumble the last part because I never actually saw what Morgan did after I threw the folder onto the ground.

“A long story? What do you mean? This isn’t one of your stories! It’s calledresponsibility. Seriously Alanna, how can you mess up something as easy as taking some paper and bringing it home?”

“Ask him to e-mail it to you, haven’t you heard of technology?” I know it's a lame thing to say but seriously, how could her whole article depend on getting a ‘paper’ copy of a story? In this day and age! (Although I suppose the only computer in our home is my laptop Viros and I don’t let anyone touch him – or her, I haven’t decided what gender Viros is)

“He’s gone to GREECE!” My sister yells.

“For spring break?” Wow, everyone is travelling but us. Maybe Vanessa is right, maybe we are under-priviledged in comparison to the Jones’s of Canada. And maybe DC really is in Jamaica! Then I remember DC and I feel super relieved. If this was all just a misunderstanding and Morgan is NOT DC (how could I have ever thought so?), then my life isn’t ruined!

I don’t know how I ever thought that Morgan was the one writing to me this whole time. There's no way he’s anything like DC. And people from the same city don't meet each other on line, the odds of that happening must be like 25 million to one.

“This is YOUR fault!” Vanessa just won’t let it drop. She’s angry because I’m not paying attention again. I can’t help it, it's something that happens when anyone starts to lecture me. Vanessa goes on, “Can’t you get your head out of the clouds long enough to do one simple thing? Like pick up a folder?”

“No.” I mumble. “Apparently I can’t.”

Vanessa is too angry to even reply to that one.

“He’ll be back next week Vanessa.” My Mom finally adds to the conversation.

Vanessa ignores my mom and points her finger at me. “I need that story from that brat by Monday, IN the newsroom, got it?” I nod. She turns away from me finally.

I really don’t want this to be my problem! I don’t want to chase Morgan down on Monday or even talk to him at all. I’m going to feel stupid for the way I totally freaked out on Friday and ran for the hills when he gave me the folder. But its only Morgan so I don’t need to care what he thinks about me. But I can’t help but care that I made a total fool of myself.

After supper I find myself contemplating why I dislike Morgan so much. I really don’t know a lot about him except that he has travelled lots with his parents. Maybe in the back of my mind I was starting to get used to the idea that he might be DC. At least the mystery of who DC really is would finally have been resolved, and I wouldn’t have to worry that he’s an old, scary looking guy who’s crazy (because 90% of online users are these type of men, according to my mom). But I really don’t think he is because you can kind of tell when you chat with someone frequently how old they are, if they talk about the same things as you, school, family, friends, music, etc.

Anyway, I guess Morgan being DC wouldn’t have been the worst case scenerio. I don’t feel like I hate Morgan so much now that I know he’s not DC. Maybe I’ll try to be nice to him on Monday. He’s a nice guy and he’s helping out my sister after all. And he writes! That’s cool. I mean if Vanessa thinks his writing is good enough to publish in her school newspaper column he must be a good writer.

But I’m still going to kick his butt in math! AND I will make the first million! I wonder what it’s like to go to GREECE for a week (I hope he's not gone for like 2 weeks, which would make more sense for a trip like that. Morgan better come back by Monday.

So life is okay once again, now that DC is still free to be anyone I dream him to be. Only I wish he was online and not grounded... soon...

So all in all a good supper, despite all the yelling. Now I just wish DC would get himself to an internet cafe, wherever he is this Reading Week. At least I have my blogging to keep me busy till his return :D (and I guess I should do some studying and a bit of homework… on Sunday)