It All Started In A McDonald's...

me, the multitasking queen

Scanning the sparse shelves in the kitchen cupboard, I grabbed some biscuits and poured myself a glass of apple squash (I was fed up with apple juice, but the only other option was orange juice and I was bored of that too) then flopped down onto the other armchair.

My apartment wasn't too shitty, to be fair. That was because Dad wouldn't dare let it get in bad condition. Our furniture wasn't great quality, with the two mismatched armchairs, coffee table/TV stand that was reupholstered in duct tape, then the kitchen at the back of the room had chipped worktops older than me but they were polished, and the fridge and microwave were the only electronic things that worked (the kettle and toaster were both broken). Our floor was wooden, but in an attempt to make it more comfortable, Dad had found an old, threadbare but massive rug that covered the living room area in the charity shop, and it was definitely more comfortable than getting splinters in our socks. We had horrible brown curtains that were here back when Mom still lived with us, which matched the old brown paint on the walls.

I sighed. Lucky me, getting to spend the next two weeks confined to this place, listening to the hip hop party music and putting up with next door's weed obsession, going to the local Walmart and buying air freshener for Dad (he had a thing with air freshener), trying to do my online work on my old mobile and not starving in the process. Maybe I could convince Mrs Brewster to let me borrow Cookie for some company.

Reaching over to the coffee table, I felt around for the TV remote and flicked through the channels without really knowing what I wanted to watch. To be fair, most of the stuff on TV was rubbish, and we didn't have Netflix or even YouTube. I left it on the news for about ten minutes, but there was nothing more exciting than a poodle learning to sky dive in Australia (which, in my opinion, is what the news should be about).

I flashbacked to when I was twelve years old, and on the news was all about the "Battle of New York," as it had been called. I had been standing at the window, staring in awe.

It was more than I could've dreamed of back then. Aliens flying through the sky, a portal over Avengers Tower (back then, Stark Tower, which we couldn't quite see through our window) and having no clue what was happening. Somehow, our apartment block stayed completely unharmed, which was probably our entire life's supply of luck used up in one day.

But, as a twelve year old, that didn't bother me. I watched amazed as aliens flew straight past, shooting each other. At the time I pretended I was in a movie, that I was that kid in The Incredibles in the background that shouted, "That was totally wicked!"

And I remember the craziest thing... someone, I didn't know who, sent a missile at Manhattan, and Iron Man himself – one of my best friends' apparent mentor – had to intercept it, then sent it into the portal above Avengers Tower, and only just got back in time.

He had flown straight past our open window on the single second I had looked away.

My phone started ringing, snapping my attention back to the present. I switched off the TV and pulled my phone out my jeans pocket. The caller was some random number so I left it, listening to my AC/DC ring tone until it went silent.

Now I'd finished my biscuits, I had a slight rush of energy and hauled myself out my chair. There must be something I could do before Dad came home that wasn't mind-numbingly boring. Or, at the very least, not too mind-numbingly boring, or even mind-numbingly boring but needed doing.

So I grabbed my school bag and opened the door to my bedroom and dumped the bag on the bed. I was the one with the window out of Dad and me, mostly because there was only a thin wall between our rooms and the neighbours drug-growing room, and he insisted I be the one with a chance of breathing clean air. So I flung open the fire exit window and let the cold February wind infiltrate what had just been a relatively warm room.