This is more of a reality book, that tells what life is really like for a sixteen year old girl. Life is portrayed from a realistic viewpoint, unlike so many other teenage novels.

Read it here and tell me what you think.

Tell It Like It Is
Chapter 1

Rachel flipped her straight brown hair over her shoulder, sighing as she looked at her reflection in the mirror on her bureau. All she saw staring back at her was a girl who wasn’t pretty, but wasn’t ugly either. Sort of in-between. There were a few pimples on the fair face, and strands of chestnut brown hair straggled down where they had come out of the loose ponytail. Rachel pulled the scrunchie from her hair and watched as her thick hair tumbled down to rest a little lower than her shoulders. Picking up a brush, she began pulling it through her hair and working out all the little snarls that resulted from working outside all day. When it was finally smooth and fell in a straight line in its usual straight-as-a-stick manner, Rachel proceeded to wash her face with the special cleaner she bought to clear up her complexion. “What a  life I lead,” Rachel sighed. She clicked off the light in her bathroom and pulled on her navy blue bathrobe as she left. She climbed the stairs that led to the top room in the house, one where the eaves met the walls halfway up sported a window seat at one end. Rachel glanced around at the meager furnishings and the impressive display of karate trophies on her bookshelf. Shuffling over to her twin bed, the sixteen year old girl sat down on the old blue patchwork quilt. Touching her lamp to turn it on, she reclined on the bed and reached for a book. It was ten thirty PM, but the rest of her family-her mother, father, and brother-were all in bed already. Rachel was the only one left up , and she was sure going to make the best of the silence. All through the day she had to deal with her parents nagging at her to do this or that and her brother making fun of her or harassing her. Now it was all peace and quiet, and Rachel could do whatever she wanted without anyone calling her every two minutes to do some chore or another.

Rachel pulled a Mexican patterned blanket over her legs and settled down to get into her new novel, which she had picked up that day at the library. She wasn’t allowed to buy books, because her parents thought it was a waste of money when you could just get the book at the library. At this thought Rachel’s mood was somewhat ruined. Only several pages into the new book, Rachel shut the cover slowly and set it on the blanket chest she used for a nightstand. Flopping back onto the pillows at the head of the bed, Rachel shut her eyes and thought about how she couldn’t fall asleep. The last thing she remembered was flipping her hand out to turn off her touch lamp. The room plunged into darkness as the teenager drifted into dreamland as her physical body shrugged beneath the covers.

The buzzing of her Eeyore alarm clock jolted her into wakefulness. With a groan Rachel slapped the snooze button and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow and falling right back into a semi-wakeful slumber. Nine minutes later when the obnoxious sound blared again, Rachel blearily sat up to turn it off, then stumbled out of bed. She sighed, stretching like a cat.

Suddenly she flew into action, gathering clothes and her hairbrush, then racing down the stairs for the bathroom. She heard a door slam down the hall as her brother came from his room. The rush for the bathroom became a race. Rachel dashed inside and slammed the door on her brother’s face just as he reached for her to keep her from entering the bathroom. “Come on, you slimeball,” Alex said. “You always get the bathroom first, and then you make it all smelly with your disgusting shampoo and stuff. Can’t you let me get in first for once?”

“If you would actually get up on time,” Rachel answered, “Maybe you could get to the bathroom first. Until then, back off.”

“Fine. But hurry up, would you? I’ve got to use the toilet.”

“You know, we DO have two bathrooms,” Rachel sighed condescendingly. Honestly, her brother could be so thick for all of his seventeen years. It was like a nine year old was trapped in his body, never growing any older. Sometimes she got so sick of his naďveté. Rachel made quick work of washing her face while running the bath water so it got hot. It was only six thirty, so her parents weren’t up yet, which meant she had the hot water first. She grinned with delight and shivered even in the steamy bathroom. Shedding her clothes quickly, Rachel hopped into the shower and let the steamy hot water stream through her hair and down her shoulders and back. Oh, it felt so GOOD!

After her shower was over and her skin was all tingly from being scrubbed so hard, Rachel put on new clothes and brushed out her hair. The bathroom smelled wonderful, with the mingling scents of fruit scented shampoo and conditioner, tropical rainforest shaving gel, and tropical sun body wash. Rachel inhaled with delight and wondered once again why her brother could think these scents stunk. Oh, well. It was probably just Alex being his usual nasty self, with nothing nice to say about anything or anyone. She wouldn’t worry about it.

Rachel carefully applied her makeup, then gathered her things. The second she opened the bathroom door Alex blasted by and all but shoved her from the room. “Why do you always take so stinkin’ long?” he yelled at her, his voice muffled by the thick oak door. Rachel didn’t deign to answer, knowing she’d only been in the room for about fifteen minutes. Her brother always took at least forty minutes.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, a Monday. Rachel and Alex were both homeschooled, had been from way back in preschool. Neither had ever spent even one day in a public school. Both were off school for the week, but they only got that week. All the kids in public school got two weeks of Christmas vacation, but no, not the Masons. They only got one week. Without school, Rachel had no idea what she was going to do until her karate classes that evening. After carrying her things up to her room and putting them away, Rachel went down to the kitchen for breakfast. She was halfway through cooking a pan of scrambled eggs when her mother and father entered the kitchen at seven thirty. “Good morning,” Rachel greeted cheerfully.

“Good morning, Rachel,” her mother said.

Her father immediately started in. “Rachel, eggs are fatty. Should you be eating them? Couldn’t you eat a piece of plain toast or something? You need to watch your weight, you know. You’re already looking a little pudgy, and with the holidays upon us, I don’t want you overeating like you have ever other year.”

Turning away from her father, Rachel’s lips thinned as she struggled to keep from yelling. "Yes, Dad," she replied. She scooped the now-finished eggs onto a plate and set them in front of her mother. “Here, mom, you may have them,” she offered. “I’m not really hungry anyway. Maybe I'll eat something later.” She turned to her father, struggling to keep a neutral face. “Have a good day at work, dad.”

She left the kitchen, and as soon as she was out of sight, ran flat out up the stairs and slammed the door to her room, fuming. Anger emanated from her like fumes. She was so sick of being told she was fat and ate too much! For crying out loud, she was as thin as almost every other girl she knew! She exercised for over an hour every day and hardly ate anything as it was. She had lots of muscles in her arms and legs, and the only thing about her that was maybe too big was her rear end, which she was constantly trying to tone down! Good grief! Couldn’t her father ever look at the big picture and see her for what she really was? Honestly, her family was so blind! They never saw her, at least in the light they should. Everyone thought she ate too much, although she ate hardly anything at all. They somehow managed to notice every time she did something wrong, but never saw the things she did for them, like lots of extra chores and baking. Rachel thought for a moment about how if she suddenly disappeared how everything they took for granted from her would suddenly fall on their shoulders and make things much more difficult for them. Their shoulders would be noticeably more stooped, she thought maliciously.

Rachel went to the hall closet where they kept the cleaning supplies and got out a dust rag and sprayed it with polisher. Then she walked back to her room, closing the door softly this time. She glanced around her room, taking inventory. Her bed was along one wall, with a cedar blanket chest next to it. her dresser was on the wall opposite, and her television was on a wall mount up near the ceiling. There was an exercise bicycle that she had gotten for twenty dollars at a garage sale, and an exercise mat with five, eight, and ten pound weights on top piled in a corner. This was her exercise workout equipment, which she used almost every day. In her closet was a mini trampoline, which she used to run on. Next to the dresser was a bookshelf, crowded with karate trophies and the like. These were an incredible pain to dust. All those little surfaces and nooks and crannies. It took far too long. Her stereo was sitting on a lower shelf, and a CD case sat next to it. The walls around her room were decorated with posters of horses, frogs, and karate themes, plaques, certificates, and countless medals. In the center of it all on one wall hung her black belt certificate. It held a place of honor. Rachel smiled. Karate was her life. She spent three days a week there. It was her haven. The only place she could get away from life.

Rachel shook herself and began dusting. The carpet was light green, almost a mint. The trim around the room was chocolate, so the room took on the essence of an ice cream cone. Rachel whipped the dusting cloth around her blanket chest, covering the clock, lamp, telephone, and bank. Then she got a chair and dusted the television, afterwards going over all the trophies and knickknacks on the bookshelf. When she was finally done, the sun was peeking through the window and filling her room with light. Her father had left for work a half hour earlier, so Rachel was now safe to get something to eat, as long as her brother was locked in his room as usual. She tiptoed down the wooden stairs, avoiding the creaky places, and stepped into the kitchen. Since she always watched what she ate, Rachel carefully chose a grapefruit and a little bit of oatmeal. She took it up to her room to enjoy, since her mother was busy surfing the Internet and didn’t care what she did at the moment.

Flopping down on her bed, Rachel reached for the TV remote control and flipped the television on. She didn’t get cable in her room, and all the local channels were usually fuzzy, so Rachel had gotten into the habit of taping shows from the family television set and watching them in her room while she was exercising. After flipping through the entire selection of channels about five times, Rachel deduced that nothing good was on and turned off the TV. Instead she got out her journal and flipped through to the beginning to read her old entries.

She read all about her crush, and about how she couldn’t figure out if the guy liked her back or not. Then the guy coldly asked Rachel’s best friend to go to his homecoming dance with him. Rachel’s best friend told the guy she wouldn’t go if her friend didn’t want her too, because her friend might be hurt. Rachel told her friend to go anyway, although her heart was broken. Then later Rachel’s friend told her all about what Rachel’s crush had done to her one night when she saw him at the fair. The crummy guy had tried to kiss her, right in front of her boyfriend, numerous times! Then on the way home the guy followed them, trying to run them off the road because he was angry at Rachel’s friend’s rejection. This clinched Rachel’s end of the crush, and she started treating the guy differently, giving him the cold shoulder. But after about three months, the guy was still acting the same way he always did, funny and adorable.  Rachel couldn’t for the life of her figure out how she felt about him. Was she still angry at him, even though he hadn’t really done anything directly to her? Was she starting to have a crush on him again, or had that crush just been dormant for a couple of months?

When she finally looked up from perusing the entries, Rachel was shocked to see that it was after noon. She went downstairs and fixed her lunch, then carried it back upstairs to eat. She played a lot of games of Hangman on her laptop computer, just trying to pass the time.

Finally, finally it was after supper and time to leave for karate. Fortunately Alex had some party with his friends that night, so Rachel would have the karate school all to herself. Throwing her bag in the car and smiling with glee, Rachel fairly danced around the car to the driver’s side door. She had gotten her license to drive only two months before, in October. Rare was the time when Alex wasn’t along to insist on driving. Rachel hardly ever got to drive if Alex was along. That was why it was so great that Alex was elsewhere that night.

At six fifteen Rachel pulled into the parking lot of her karate school and parked her car, yanking hard on the parking brake. After turning off the car and tucking her keychain into her purse, Rachel opened her car door, careful not to hit the car next to her, and got out, dragging her equipment bag with her. She all but skipped over to the door of the school and opened it, sweeping through the doorway with a flourish, the bell above the door announcing her arrival. Her karate instructor, Rick Gerry, waved to her as she walked past his desk on her way to the locker room to change. “Hi, Mr. R,” she greeted him, using the nickname everyone fondly used.

“Hello, Rachel,” the jolly older man acknowledged her back. “Where’s Alex?”

“He’s at some Christmas party with some guys he knows,” Rachel replied. “He was unable to make it tonight.”

She continued to the locker room, then hurried through dressing. She pulled on her black gi pants first, then put on a black t-shirt to have underneath her gi top. After tying the top in place with the strings sewn into the uniform, Rachel got out her black belt and wound it around her waist to tie it. Once her uniform was on and she was ready to go, she dug a hairbrush out of her bag and swiftly wound her hair up on top of her head to get it out of the way. It was a bit messy and would probably come down in ten minutes, but “mess” was “in” these days, so who really cared.

After inspecting herself one more time, Rachel decided she was done. She closed her bag and left the locker room, heading to the basket that held the class cards and collected hers. Every time you took a class you had to have your class card, and for every day you took class you got a box on the back on the card checked off. Rachel was halfway through her second card already, and her second-degree black belt test was still four months away. Tucking the card inside her gi top, Rachel saluted onto the mat and joined the group of students milling around. This was the juniors class that she taught. It was mostly lower ranking students, younger children within the age range on seven to twelve. At promptly six thirty, Rachel clapped her hands loudly and called, “Line up!” This was the signal for the people in class to get in their proper places. Within seconds everyone was ready, and Rachel called for the highest-ranking person in class, in this case a brown belt named Gary, to pick up the class cards. The boy ran down the aisles collecting class cards from the other students as they held them out.

After Gary had handed her the cards, neatly stacked, Rachel led the kids in the school creed, then warmed them up with stretches and jumping jacks, pushups, and sit-ups. Then she saluted off the mat and went to tell Mr. R that the class was ready.

Both of them saluted onto the mat together, and Mr. R called for attention. He partitioned off the class into sections and put one group with Rachel and one group with Gary. Rachel got the higher ranking group and was told to lead them through kata, which was a series of techniques put together to form a pattern. Once they had been doing this for almost twenty minutes, Mr. R called for everyone to get back in line and everyone scampered off. Mr. R then told the class that they were going to play with swords. Everyone’s eyes lit up, because this was a rare treat. Rachel collected an armful of foam rubber “swords”, which were actually tubes of foam with PVC pipe stuck in the ends, and handed them out to the small class. Mr. R led them all through a series of techniques, banging the “swords” as loud as they could on the mat. The school filled with the sound of the batons hitting the floor. When class was finally over and the “swords” were put away, everyone’s ears were ringing with the sound. Mr. R announced any upcoming events, then told everyone to have a Merry Christmas, since it was the eve of Christmas Eve. In conclusion, everyone saluted and left the mat.

Rachel kept on her uniform, because she also planned to take adult class, which was after the juniors class. Only a few of the regulars came in, and by the time class started there were only six people in the class. One by one they straggled through the door. Derek, the seventeen year old guy Rachel used to have a crush on, came in at the last minute as Rachel began warming up the class. Her eyes narrowed instantly at the sight of him, but then she focused her attention back on the class and concentrated on warming them up. It was hard to not look at Derek, though, once her took his place in lineup on the mat. He was incredibly cute, for one thing. With short blond hair and baby blue eyes, he was automatically an eye catcher, but with muscles and a black belt added on, he was even more intriguing, at least to most people. Rachel knew better, one of the few that knew his true character.

When the class had been warmed up, Mr. R took everyone back to the “playroom”, which was his name for the weight room. There were seven different stations. One was bench-pressing, one was the stationary bike, one was the manual treadmill, one was calf stretching, one was situps, and so on. The students did one minute on each station, with two rounds. Rachel was dizzy and had a very bad headache by the time it was all done. She regularly did a weight workout at home, but  that was nothing compared to Mr. R’s workout. The class was over, even though it was still twenty minutes until the end of the regular class time. Mr. R had them go out into a split, then made them hold it for a count of fifty. When Rachel stood up she felt like falling over, but she fought the urge. All through the workout in the weight room, she had fought fatigue and nausea, but as the only female back there, knew she had to make a stand. And besides, there was no way she was going to pass out in front of Derek. Too humiliating, and besides, she had to be strong to stand up to him, and passing out was a sign of weakness. No, she couldn’t let that happen.

Finally class was dismissed and Rachel stumbled into the locker room to gather her wits about her and change. She pulled on her dark indigo size 6 jeans, then over it put a light blue t-shirt and a dark blue fleece vest. As she stood in front of the mirror brushing out her tangled hair, Rachel noted that her face was flushed and she really did look ready to pass out. In a hurry to get out to the water fountain, Rachel stuffed her uniform into her bag and zipped it shut. Then she slung the strap over her shoulder, gathered her purse and coat, and left the locker room.

Although she didn’t want to, as Derek was leaving she wished him a good Christmas. He smiled at her and wished the same back, but she knew he didn’t mean it. One of the greatest disappointments for her back when she had a crush on him was that he never seemed to notice her. It always seemed as if he looked right through her and never even saw her. Rachel knew for a fact that he did not like her. At least in the way of a crush. Although if he did, he was hiding it incredibly well.

Rachel gulped down several cups of water from the fountain, then after bidding Mr. R good bye and Merry Christmas, headed out the door to her car. She drove home in silence, having turned the radio off upon sliding into the driver’s seat. She was too wiped out to concentrate on anything more than driving. Rachel trudged up her driveway from the car and rang the doorbell to announce her arrival. She discarded her shoes at the door and carried her bag up the stairs to her room. The bed looked incredibly inviting, but Rachel forced her eyes away from it and gathered her clothes for a shower.

When she finally fell into bed that night, exhausted, Rachel had spent hardly thirty seconds muttering a prayer than she fell asleep into a dream-filled sleep. Although she hated having them, Rachel could do nothing about Derek invading her dreams. It was never anything romantic, but he was always just – there. It made Rachel angry, but again, there was nothing she could do about it.

The next morning Rachel woke up a little after seven o’clock, very early for her on a day off. She liked to sleep in. She got up and took a shower, made her bed, ate breakfast, cleaned her room a little, then collapsed back on the bed to slumber again. This time it was eight thirty before she woke again, once again plagued with dreams of Derek. To keep from having any more, Rachel rolled off her bed and straightened the covers. She pulled out her laptop computer and set it on its way to booting up while she snagged a cereal bar from the kitchen to munch on. When she came back it wasn’t finished, so she hung a load of laundry for her mother and vacuumed her room. After these minor chores were finished, Rachel went back up the back stairway that led to her room at the top of the house and flopped down on her bed, making the computer jump with the impact.

She wrote for a while in a book she was messing around with. She didn’t think she made much of an author, but she liked writing just the same. Nothing wrong with that, was there? Of course, the rest of her family might disagree. They didn’t think she could do anything of worth. Therefore, she never told them about the book she was writing. They would only insist upon seeing it and thereby make fun of it and make her stop writing it. So she kept the novel a secret.

Just as she finally got into a rhythm and was going quickly and typing accurately, Rachel heard her mother call her from downstairs. Rachel rolled her eyes at the interruption and slammed the top of the computer down so it latched. She didn’t particularly want Alex in here reading this. She knew he often came into her room and snooped around; she knew it for a fact. At one point in time he had actually recited verbatim what she had written in her journal two days before. From that point on she had kept everything as much under lock and key as she could.

Rachel trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen where her mother was. “What do you want,” she sighed. She was having a hard time keeping the Christmas spirit alive when she was being ordered to do something every time she turned around. It was “Rachel, do this” and “Rachel, do that”. It was really starting to get on her nerves.

“I’d like you to help me make this cheesecake,” Judy Mason replied. “And I don’t want any attitude from you!”

Rachel’s mouth dropped open. “Mom, for crying out loud, I didn’t even say anything!”

“You didn’t have to. I can see by the look on your face that you’re none too thrilled to be here right now. Get some Christmas cheer, would you? I’m sick of seeing that torked off look on your face all the time, like you’re asked to pull more than your load around here. You kids don’t realize just how good you’ve got it. You hardly do anything around here, you know. You carry hardly any workload at all. Now get out the eggs and cream cheese and vanilla and the graham crackers.”

Rachel did as she was bid and set all the items on the counter, working to make her face neutral. She wasn’t about to smile, because that would indicate happiness, and she was quite far from that realm at the moment. But if she didn’t frown, maybe her mom would get off her case for a while.

“All right, now I want you to crush eight graham crackers in this bowl,” he mom instructed. She handed Rachel a medium sized bowl and Rachel got to work pulverizing the crackers. It took a long time to get all the crumbs into the minuscule size her mother wanted. Rachel didn’t say anything, because it would come across as disrespectful, but she noted that while she was doing all the work, all her mother did was cut a little chunk of butter from the stick to melt. When Rachel was done with the crumbs, her mom told her to put the butter in the microwave, then check on it periodically. She did so, returning to mix the cream cheese and other ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Her mom stood at the counter until the butter was finished melting, then mixed the graham cracker crumbs with the butter and spread it in the pie pan they were using for the cake. By this time Rachel was finished with the middle layer, so she put the mixer away and wiped down all the counters. Once her mother was finished setting out the crust for the cake, Rachel held the bowl while her mom scraped it out with a spatula. Then the pie went into the oven to bake.
Rachel went into her room again and stopped, looking at her bed. Suddenly the book didn’t seem appetizing anymore. Rachel sighed, shut down the computer, and dragged her exercise mat into the middle of her floor. Then she set the weights around it. Picking up her television remote control, Rachel flipped through the cable channels until she found a Christmas movie. This she watched as she went through her workout.

First there was the upper body workout. Rachel worked her biceps, triceps, shoulders, back, and then went on to the abdominals. She did fifty situps, fifty reverse crunches, fifty leg lifts, and one hundred crunches. Her abdominal muscles were screaming by the time she was finished, but oddly enough, it felt good. Satisfying, even. From there Rachel did her favorite and the most time-consuming part of the workout, the lower body. First she did her thighs with squats, lunges, and numerous other grueling exercises. Then she did the calves, with fifty each of five different exercises. Her calf muscles felt like they were going to split open by the time she was finished, but the movie on television helped take her mind off the pain. She counted in the back of her mind and concentrated on the movie the rest of the time.

Rachel rolled up the exercise mat when she was done and worked the folded up trampoline out of her closet. Taking a quick glance at the clock on her blanket chest, Rachel noted that it was quarter after one and began running. She would run until at least two o’clock, then ride the exercise bicycle until three. Without any schoolwork to do, she might as well fill her time with exercising. And besides, all this working out was creating positive results. When Rachel flexed her leg she could see the muscles standing out. She also now had a bulging muscle on the top of her upper arm, and where the flesh used to be soft and wobbly underneath her upper arm was now firm. Rachel always grinned with delight when she saw herself in the mirror. She was constantly changing. Taking karate further enhanced her exercise program, and horseback riding, her all-time favorite activity, was a great calorie-burner. Halfway through her forty-five minutes of running on the trampoline, Rachel had to hop off and turn on her fan because she was getting so warm. Halfway through the stationary bicycle routine, she had to put on shorts and a tank top because she was getting so overheated.

Finally, finally the workout was finished at three o’clock, and Rachel spent ten minutes cooling down by stretching. She was able to get down into almost a full split, which was quite an accomplishment for her. Just as she finished, her mother called her again. The only reason Rachel had had almost three hours to exercise was because her mother had gone out to help with some social at church. Now she was back, and demanding help once more. And of course, she never called Alex to help. Rachel always thought it was incredible how she was always the one asked to do stuff. She definitely pulled her weight around the house, she thought, but Alex pulled almost none of his. Everyone else was always doing his work for him, especially Rachel. A myriad of times Rachel had done things for her brother, just to avoid a confrontation on whose responsibility the chore was, and because she knew it would never get done if her parents told her brother to do it.

In the good mood now that working out always put her in, Rachel called, “Coming, Mom!” and dashed down the stairs. She passed Alex on his way up.

Her brother wrinkled his nose and declared loudly, “Boy, do you stink! You’ve been exercising, haven’t you? Why do you do that? You know you always stink up the house. Do you think we like that?”

Rachel didn’t answer, merely because she was so sick of his nastiness. Couldn’t he ever be even civil for at least once in his measly life? She entered the kitchen once more to find her mother talking on the telephone. Her mom covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and mouthed to her daughter, “I need you to fix dinner. The recipe is on the counter.”

And the recipe was all that was on the counter. Rachel had to get everything out and prepare everything. Alex was ordered to help, but it took Rachel a while to get him off the computer and into the kitchen to assist. Since she knew he wouldn’t be able to handle anything more, she put him to work stirring the milk, butter, chicken bullion, and parsley flakes together in a pot on the stove. Meanwhile, she greased the casserole dish, measured and laid the dry noodles in the dish, and covered the noodles with the chicken and the broccoli cuts the recipe called for. Then she took the pot from Alex and poured the contents over the mix in the dish. When she turned around to ask Alex to mix the concoction, he was gone, back in the living room playing on his computer game again. She began mixing it herself, and then looked around at the mess she had to clean up and called Alex back out into the kitchen to finished stirring. When he finally reached the kitchen, she began cleaning everything, wiping down counters, loading the dishwasher, and doing this and that here and there. Sometime during that period Alex had finished with the casserole and left once more, leaving Rachel with everything else. She measured out the cheese that was to be stirred into the mix halfway through baking time, then covered the casserole dish with aluminum foil and popped it into the oven.

Going out to the living room where Alex was immersed in his computer game, Rachel gave him instructions to mix the cheese in the casserole when the timer went off and set the timer for fifteen more minutes. Then she went and got into the shower to wash away all the sweat from her workout. Ah, that hot water felt good! She spent a good twenty minutes in the shower, washing and conditioning her hair, shaving her legs, and washing her body twice just because it felt so good. When she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower stall, she breathed in the scents of the washing materials. It was utterly delightful. Unfortunately, the mood was interrupted when Alex pounded on the door of the bathroom and shouted, “Rachel, the timer went off the second time. You realize you’ve been in there for twenty five minutes?”

Rachel replied calmly, “I most certainly do, but I am out of the shower now, so you needn’t worry any longer.”

There was no answer on the other side of the door, but Rachel guessed that he couldn’t find anything to fight in what she said, so he just left. Oh, if only it could always be that way! She dressed quickly and put her clothes away in her room. Then she dashed down the stairs into the kitchen to check on the chicken casserole. She took it out of the oven and placed it on the stovetop to lift the foil and see if it was done. It was, and she put it back in after turning off the oven. Her parents were in their room sleeping, but they got up soon after Rachel put the biscuits into the oven to warm. When their mother asked if Alex had helped a lot, Rachel just said yes to avoid any arguments or fights. Really, he hardly helped at all, but at the moment that just wasn’t all that important. It wasn’t like it would matter tomorrow, anyway.

Her mother seemed pleased, and therefore any confrontation that may have ensued was avoided. Rachel was quite grateful. Dinner went fairly well, mostly because Rachel didn’t say anything most of the time. It seemed like every time she opened her mouth, someone usually challenged her. That someone was usually Alex, and her parents always took his side.

After dinner was over, dishes were washed, and everyone had taken a shower and changed into pajamas, the Masons followed a family tradition and sat down to open all the presents on Christmas Eve.

As usual, Alex took charge, handing out this and that present to everybody. Rachel hardly said a word. It seemed like every time she did she got yelled at. One perfect example was when she was handed Alex’s present. She guessed it was probably a computer game she had been wanting, but if it was, she said, that was incredible. She was implying that Alex was cheap, which he usually was with her. After all, for the last two years he hadn’t gotten her anything at all for her birthday, and hardly spent anything at Christmastime on anybody. However, her father got very angry and she got in such trouble. She had to apologize to Alex and be humiliated for a good while until everyone forgot about it. That one incident ruined the evening for her completely. Earlier on in the year she had gotten the television, which was in her room now, and a book on equitation patterns for horseback riding. Alex had gotten a television, too, but he didn’t want it. Both of these were from her parents, and the only other presents under the tree were the one from Alex and one from her grandmother.

The present from Alex did turn out to be the computer game Rachel wanted, but it was a good ten dollars cheaper than it had been the last time she saw it. And anyway, Alex had probably pulled his trick again and gotten his parents to pay for it. That would be so typical of her brother.

So Rachel sat there and watched everyone else open their gifts. She had spent probably eighty dollars that year on her family. It didn’t seem like Christmas, though. This still didn’t seem like Christmas Eve. There was no joy, no peace, and no love. Definitely no love.

The present from her grandmother turned out to be a beautiful fleece half-zip pullover in a cardinal red, a crystal paperweight with a horse engraved in it, and a CD. Oh, and also fifty dollars. Rachel planned to go to Goodwill and spend it on clothes. Maybe she’d take a friend to help her pick some out. She could use some new jeans for riding, and a good heavy coat.

When all the presents under the tree were opened and her mom, brother, and father had huge piles of presents around them, the stockings were distributed. Rachel had been given an electric warming blanked just like her mom’s, but she talked her parents into taking it back because she didn’t really want or need it. That please her, because it meant they were taking forty dollars of goods back.

In her stocking Rachel found twelve rolls of Spree candy and Sweetarts. Her mom had bought a twenty-four pack of them a discount club and divided them between Alex and Rachel. She also found a pair of sunglasses. Several months back when she lost her sunglasses, she bought another pair. Before she could use them, though, she found the other ones and was going to take the others back. Instead, her mom squirreled them away for a Christmas gift. Rachel was absolutely delighted with the gifts she received from her family, and although she didn’t get as much as everyone else, that was okay. What she got was more than enough and pleased her just the same. She had everything she needed. Plenty of cool stuff, and now she wouldn’t have to wear her old sunglasses around. Now she had a slick new pair.

Her father set to work installing her new computer game, and everyone worked at putting their gifts away. Rachel ate a piece of the cheesecake even though she knew she shouldn’t. It would make her fat. She just wouldn’t eat any tomorrow, she told herself. When the new game was finally working, Jerry Mason, Rachel’s father, told Rachel that she could stay up as late as she wanted playing it, so Alex could get up early to play his new computer game. She had a lot of fun creating a zoo on the game, which was created for just that purpose. She made about eight exhibits, then let all the animals loose and terrorize the park. It was just a test park, so after about an hour and a half, she was cold, hungry and tired, so she quit the game without saving it and went to bed.

It was ten o’clock Christmas morning when she finally got up, and she was almost ravenous. Rachel downed a bowl of Raisin Bran Crunch, then took care of her chores. After finishing with the dishes and helping pick pine needles from the Christmas tree off the floor, Rachel bounded up the stairs into her bedroom and made her bed, folded laundry, and worked some more on her book. It promised to be a very boring Christmas day unless she was able to get on the family computer to play her new game. Rachel was debating on whether or not to exercise, since it was Christmas, but then decided she’d better, because of the big Christmas meal later in the day.

Rachel realized that she hadn’t weighed herself in quite some time. She had sort of been avoiding it, because it seemed like she just couldn’t get off the 135 pounds plateau. At one point she had dropped down to 131 pounds, but that was several months ago. At five feet, seven and a half inches, she was technically supposed to weigh a little over 140 pounds, but there was no way she would ever let herself get that heavy. Hesitantly, Rachel left her room and plodded down the stairs, dreading what the scale would say. Had she lost weight, or, horror of horrors, gained? She pulled out the old bathroom scale and stepped onto it, squeezing her eyes shut tight. She peeked, and was relieved to see that she hadn’t gained. But she was still on the 135 pounds mark. She had on jeans, socks, a t-shirt, and a fleece sweatshirt, but there was still no excuse for weighing as much as she did, Rachel scolded herself.

Couldn’t she control her eating? Then she consoled herself a little by reminding herself that muscle weighed more than fat and took up less room. Rachel was consistently seeing change in the way her clothes fit. Even the pair of jeans that she barely fit into a month ago were now loose and roomy. Her mom had to take in the seams of a number of her other pants, just because they were now so big they looked terrible and were very uncomfortable.

After Christmas dinner Rachel ended up doing most of the cleaning, and then she sat down to play her new computer game. Alex came out after an hour and bugged her to get off for another two hours. She basically ignored him. Finally she got off, though, and did some chores. She cleaned her room and played with the cats, and watched a Christmas movie. She knew she should, but Rachel didn’t exercise that day. It was Christmas. She had earned a day off. Unfortunately, she thought, fat doesn’t take a vacation, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were the case?

Rachel went to bed that night feeling contented and fulfilled, at least. Not loved, but then again that was a bit much to ask for. She had a whole family, plenty of stuff, food, shelter, and two horses. She had riding in the morning and karate started again in a couple of days. What more could she ask for? Maybe love, a little voice whispered in her head as she drifted off to dreamland…

“Rachel, get up! Do you see what time it is?”

Rachel awoke to her mother’s voice and glanced at her alarm clock. Her eyes bugged and she rolled out of bed with a yelp, saying, “Eight forty-five! I’ve got riding in forty-five minutes! Why didn’t you get me up?”

She shooed her mom out of the room so she could get dressed, then rushed through her morning chores and eating and was finally ready to go at nine thirty. She rushed down the hill to the separate garage and got her equipment. Rachel didn’t actually own a horse, but she had everything she needed to own one except for a saddle. Besides, it felt like she had a horse. Darby, a six-year-old chestnut Quarter Horse gelding she rode regularly and was training, felt like her own. Her trainer kept trying to get her to buy the horse since they got along so well together, but Rachel just couldn’t afford the cost of boarding. Besides, she had just gotten an offer to ride another horse in addition to Darby, this one a Quarter horse mare named Aurora.

Rachel hurried back up the hill to the car, a dark green Mazda Protégé. Unlocking the front door, she put her grooming box in and her backpack, which held her journal. She didn’t want Alex reading it, so she always took it with her wherever she went.