C h a p t e r 1
S t i n k y S o c k s
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NATASHA'S POV

"For the last time, Natasha, apologise for what you did."

I stood before my aunt and kept up a blank expression. I could practically see the veins throbbing in her throat, giving me the satisfaction of knowing that I had once again stressed her to a point where she was figuratively about to combust at any given moment.

"What did I do exactly, aunt?" I feigned innocence and watched her already red face become a shade darker.

Maybe one of these days I should draw a portrait of her red swollen face that she constantly wore whenever I was around—perhaps on her birthday? Yes. That would make a fine gift. Oh, and I could also cook her up an exploding cake along with it.

"What have you done? Look at my nose!" My aunt's screechy voice loudened this time. "It's swollen because you threw a tennis ball at me! I know you did this on purpose." She screamed in my face, but it didn't make me break my act.

I just shrugged my shoulders and put on a clueless stare. I knew she was not buying it, but I honestly couldn't care less.

Not that I didn't do what she was accusing me of, but, in my defense, I was only educating my little brother on how to use a catapult, and he had small hands; I had to use something big. She wasn't even the target—she just happened to walk in front of us at the worst moment.

So, technically, I didn't do it on purpose as she was suggesting...and so I rest my case. I really was innocent. Who cares if she didn't understand that logic?

"For the love of God, you are a lady! A lady, Natasha. Would it kill you to act like one?" She flailed her arms in the air all dramatically and started pacing back and forth. With the impressive amount of drama she had in her, I'd say she should join theatre.

"Right. I'm so sorry, Aunt, for all the trouble I caused you," I whispered with my head bowed down in shame, showing obedience, but internally, I was twitching with laughter.

For a second, the whole room went quiet. My aunt stilled and just kept her attention on my face. Even my little brother stopped playing with his blue toy car to look at me. They all seemed so shocked by the fact that I apologised, and that I was actually listening and following my aunt's wishes.

Yeah. Not really.

Without another word, I let my body fall on the floor with my tongue sticking out, pretending to be dead.

My uncle, along with my cousins in the room, erupted in fits of laughter, while my aunt's face turned even redder.

"You insolent girl. I have had enough of this! I'm going to call your mom. Do you understand, Natasha? Ugh!" She literally stomped her feet in a classic '90s bitch style and stormed off, mumbling about my insubordination. The rest of my family still laughed on, as I had one eye open.

Then I sat back up on the floor. "Well, damn...acting like a lady can kill me after all." I winked at my little brother. He giggled and resumed playing with his small toy car.

My uncle gave me a hand to help me to my feet and I gladly took it. "Why would you constantly test her patience?" he inquired, clearly curious of my behaviour.

I could understand, though. I did trouble her more than anyone else in the family—but only because it's so easy to piss her off, and pissing her off was highly amusing to me.

"Because she has no patience." I gave him an answer without even blinking, now sitting beside my cousins who were busy playing chess. The game had gotten quite complex with both of them holding equal positions. Bored with having nothing else to do, I reached out to move all the pawns from their original spots and spoiled their game.

"Hey!" Both of my cousins complained in unison.

All I gave them was a wicked smile, my arms crossed over my chest in haughtiness. What can I say? I just loved getting on people's nerves. It was pleasantly entertaining for me to see them get worked up so easily.

"I think you might've gone a little too far, and I don't mean just by the nose thing," said my sweet and Zen cousin Meera, who sat across from me behind the black and white chessboard. "You've been causing her more trouble than ever this year; she won't let you off easily." Meera now had slightly furrowed brows, and she looked genuinely worried for me.

But I just waved her off in reply, and continued troubling them further and bungling their dreary chess game.

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I was positive there was nothing anyone was going to do today besides give me a few more lectures. Like they always did. But how wrong was I...because the next morning, I was surprised by a sudden visit from my parents.

Here's the thing, though: every year, as far as I could remember, I spent my summer vacation with my cousins in my aunt's place, and my parents would only come to either pick me and my brother up or to drop us off.

So, naturally, when I saw them on my aunt's doorstep, I thought they were going to cut my vacation short and drag my ass back home. Little did I know, that the real reason behind their unexpected early arrival was that they had come to help me prepare for my departure to a boarding school.

To say I was angry would be putting it mildly.

"Boarding school? Are you kidding me?" I had shouted at my parents that morning.

My whole family—except my cousins, I presume—had clearly come to the unanimous decision that I needed strict discipline in my life. That I should be taught how to be a damn "lady", or how to just act like a proper girl, really.  As if all the endless hours of torture spent on waxing, dressing up, and the inconveniently monthly bleeding weren't proof enough of me being a girl.

The thought of being shipped off to a fucking boarding school like I lived in 16th century England was enough to leave me fuming, along with the heated words exchanged between my mom and me.

"What is so wrong about boarding school, huh?" My mom propped her freshly manicured hands on her hips and almost glared at my indignant expression.

"I did not agree to this!"

"Well, it's our rightful decision. It's for your own good, Natasha. So walk it off and spare us the attitude. This is your future we're talking about."

"Ugh! I cannot believe you!" I scoffed loudly more than twice as I walked out on them, annoyed and still in disbelief. Within an hour, I started to become desperate to avoid the situation, but even my lame attempts at being apologetic didn't do me any good.

In less than 24 hours, my whole life  had been packed up in suitcases and ready to board the plane. But what really pushed my anger up a notch was when I found out that the 'sending me off to a boarding school' was my lovely pain-in-the-ass aunt's idea.

Oh how I wished to punch her in the throat, but, since I could not do that for obvious reasons, I decided on doing the next best thing. After all, there were no issues in the world a little prank couldn't fix; it's the remedy to all things annoying. And revenge was all that I needed to do right now.

Hence, just a few hours before my flight, I couldn't do anything about my situation besides accepting my dreadful fate—as it was decided that I would be proceeding to boarding school, irrespective of any attempts of mine at throwing a fit. So I became even more resilient in my decision of parting with a goodbye gift to all.

I had stayed up all night yesterday, devising my ultimate plan of giving everyone a piece of my mind—especially my lovely aunt—but I was still waiting on my parents to call it off and chalk it up as a scare to teach me a lesson. Unfortunately for them, though, that was not the case.

I mean, they were making me go away because I was a reckless troublemaker who was unfit of acting like the decent good girl they all wanted me to be. So why not make them feel proud about their so-called rightful decision for my future before leaving this place?

Now here I was...awake like an owl and roaming around the big two-storey house after everyone had fallen asleep. A grin stayed on my face as I put my new plan into action.

The first thing I did was put on some gloves after I clipped my nostrils together. God knows I would need it. Then I went on to collect my eldest cousin Kevin's old rotten socks.
Kevin had a bad case of stinky feet and a far worse case of remembering to wash his socks or throw them out. He instead always kept them in the basket in the furthest corner of the washing house for our maid to stumble upon them and do his work for him.

I gathered the smelly things up in a bag before I tiptoed into my aunt's room. Then I noiselessly went into her bathroom where, by using a thread, I carefully placed the socks in a small bucket on top of the door, so that when my lovely aunt opened it, she would get showered by my cousin's old and stinky socks.

There was, however, one more thing before the socks. Oh no—she was not getting off that easily. I would die before letting her gloat and enjoy my torment. I was going to make sure that she regretted her choice.

I headed into the garden next, and I pulled the long pipe that we used to water plants all the way towards to my aunt and uncle's room, where, through the window, I placed the pipe facing their beds. So glad that their room was on the ground floor overlooking the garden.

Every early morning, the water pump automatically started sprinkling water. I joined the pipe to the tap connected to the sprinklers and left it open. They were about to get a cold and wet wake-up call come first light. A naughty grin got stuck on my face.

So, first, they'd get deranged in ice cold water, and then my aunt would rush to the bathroom, only to get showered by a clump of Kevin's stinky socks. Which, if you ask me, fit my stinky aunt right.

After that, I went on to further elaborate my plan into order for other people, too. I added colouring into one of their shampoo bottles. I also sprayed fart sprays—one of my prized possessions—in their wardrobe.

Using a permanent marker, I even doodled on my uncle's face, who was extra happy at the thought of me gone. Then I rubbed some chili powder in his hands while he was still deep in sleep. By the time he'd try to get the doodles off of his face, he'd feel the burn I felt when he smiled at my demise.

I am a class-A bitch, uncle, and down in hell they even called me karma.

Far from being done with my genius revenge plan, I set the alarm on one of my cousin's phone using a nice and loud Metallica song, and then plugged the audio into the surround system, adjusting the volume on blast, for full effect. I then placed opened wine bottles all over my cousin's bed, knowing very well that the carpet was yet another one of my aunt's favorite, an expensive possession of hers that was about to be ruined, too.

After being done with everyone, I finally went to my parents' room, but only to watch them sleep soundlessly, wondering if I had truly pushed them far enough that they wanted to get rid of me that easily.

When the clock almost struck six o'clock in the morning, I placed a small note near their bed, a note that read "Don't hate me" and as an afterthought, I carefully placed the antique vases decorating the foyer in front of their closed door.

So when they'd rush out to see what the commotion was all about, they would end up breaking this very beautiful set of vases, which not so ironically were yet another of my dear aunt's favourites. She loved flaunting her house filled with classic antique furniture to people, but I bet today's event would make her think about buying more stable furniture.

Nice one, N. Another ten points for your genius-ness. Heh.

I came into this world with a bang, so I'll leave this house with a bang, too. Let it be a warning and a reminder to why my aunt really convinced everyone on sending me off.

When I was done with the vases, I snuck into my little brother's room to leave a bag full of chocolates next to his pillow. I gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. He's the only one I was going to miss.

On my way out, I spotted his marble collection and picked it up with a smile. Hells, yes! This would make a great finale. Closing the door softly to not wake him up, I walked back to my room to get my duffel bag.  On my way down, I first jumbled up all the delicate furniture, and then tilted a thin thread around them in a zigzag manner.

Then I opened the box of marbles and spilled them on the floor. With a wide and triumphant smile, I watched as they rolled across the tidy floor. Now when they tripped, they'd break more of my aunt's favourite furniture.

Sorry not sorry, aunt.  You asked for it.

My luggage was already loaded in the trunk of the car in minutes, and I had convinced our driver, Mr. Das, to drop me off to the airport alone and without telling anyone.

Only my cousin Meera was up to bid me farewell. "Changed your flight to an earlier one. Safe trip." She was leaning by the car, her expression quite pleasant despite my unpleasantness all day.

"Thanks." I ran towards her to hug her tightly. Out of all of my older cousins, she was my most favourite. She was also the one I envied the most—Meera was everything I was not.

After exchanging a few words—well, instructions, really—on how she should go to her room through the back door and to not let my brother go down because of the marbles, my cousin walked back inside the house.

I took several sweet minutes to look at the house and think about the people in it who were about to wake up any second now, before I got in the car to catch my flight, and proceed to my new boarding school life.

As Mr. Das started the car engine, I heard various mortified screams, and then furniture-breaking sounds going off one after the other, like a chain reaction with the backdrop of Suicide Silence's You Only Live Once  blasting throughout the house, until half the house was screaming, cursing and crying my name.

A satisfied smile grew wide on my face as the car pulled past my aunt's doorway.

Through the rear view mirror, I saw my drenched mouse-looking aunt ran out of the house with a red and crying face, a dirty wet sock still stuck on her arms.  She must really hate me now.  But, whatever.  Revenge is a bitch when you are one.

Laughing my ass off, I stuck my hand out the window and flipped her off as the car turned the corner.

Ba-dum-tsss!

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First impressions ?

LOVE N