79
The crinkling of Archie going about is the only sound that could be heard in his room. He picks up his shirt from the table and walks back to his bed, he folds the shirt and places it inside the luggage.
He look sad and a bit forlorn when he realise they would be going back home by noon. He like it here and didn’t want to return to the city. He wishes his father would just allow them to remain at the vacation house.
“Then what about school and all the things in the city?” he groans when he remembers all the stuff that he needs to take care of.
“Here can just wait until my school is vacated. I would do anything to come back here.” He smiles as he recalls all the fun he had during their week’s vacation.
It’s been a week already since they got here, which seems like yesterday that the chopper dropped them at the front of the house.
“Never knew here could be that fun. I need to apologise for saying trash.” he chuckle as he remember what he had said to himself on their way to the vacation house.
He thought his father is the boring type and he was only taking them for vacation just to relieve stress from work.
He packs up his drawing materials and places them on one side of the bed, together with the sketchbook.
Staring at the sketchbook, he smiles realising he just received a payment for a sketch from his father. He didn’t know what to do with the money since it doesn’t seem like he has anything to buy with the money.
A knock on the door jotted him out of his thoughts. He walks up to the door and twists it open. “Mom!” he smiles, stepping aside for her to walk in.
Archie close the door behind her when she fully entered the room. She held a glass of fruit juice in her hand and handed over the cup to Archie.
“Thanks, Mom!” he blurts out cheerfully as he retrieves the cup from her. He takes a light sip from the juice before dropping it on the table.
“Banana and milk, I guess?!” He says, trying to ask for the flavour.
Melanie shrugs her shoulder. “Banana, milk, and ice.” she chuckles, falling onto the bed tiredly.
“Need a helping hand?” she yawns loudly, almost bursting Archie’s eardrum.
“Easy.” Archie rolls his eyes at her. “I don’t need help with anything, you seem tired to me, just rest on my bed and watch me do my thing.” he smile and sip on his fruit juice.
Melanie rolls on the bed, her head hitting his drawing materials which makes her to groans in pain. “Why would you carelessly drop things like this on your bed?” she gets up and packs the stuff in her hand, and she takes it to the table.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.
“Never knew you would be coming here, else I would have packed it.” He hastily packs it inside a blue backpack. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to hurt you.” he apologised with a worried frown plastered on his face.
“Yeah. It’s fine, okay!” she smiles and sits her butt back on the bed.
“Do you know that your husband paid for the sketch?” Archie smirk as his mind wanders off to earlier.
A smug grin creeps up Melanie’s smooth face. “Did he do that?” she asks, not believing Mr Gordon would do something so appealing.
“Yeah, I was surprised too when he said he would pay me for it. At first, I shrugged it off and taunt him from my mind, until when I received the alert,” he confesses making Melanie’s face to lit up with a beautiful smile.
“He’s full of surprises.” Melanie nods to herself.
“Remember when I said he was a bad person, I take it back now.” He joke, which makes Melanie burst into a peal of wide laughter.
“You changed your view of him because of money, does that mean money can buy you?” Melanie asks, sneering at Archie, who wouldn’t stop laughing at what she said.
“Money didn’t change my view of him, his character and best behaviour are what made me change my mind.
Archie zips up the luggage and drags it to the ground. He strides back and sits beside Melanie on the bed, his gaze drifting to his back and picking up the sketchbook.
Melanie stretch out her hand to him. “Can I have a look?” she asks, peering at the look on his face which held no resentment at all.
“Sure, you can have a look.” Archie smiles and hands over the sketchbook to her.
Melanie mouthed a ‘thank you’ as she collect the book from him. She flip the first page and smile at what he drew. It was a sketch of a tree with no leave.
She flip to the next page and her eyes widen in shock, it was a drawing of a bird with no eyes. “This is what I called ‘masterpiece’,” she nods at the sketch which sent her to a land of fantasy.
She keeps on flipping through the book till she gets to the middle of the book. Archie cross his arms over his chest as he wanted to see the look on her face in the next sketch.
Melanie smiles as she stretches out her fingers to flip to the next page. Her eyes widen in shock, almost drops the sketchbook to the floor.
Archie smirked in satisfaction as the expression on her face confirmed the hidden puzzle. He steps to her front and point at the sketch.
“Why did you stop flipping, or did you not want to take a look at the rest?” he narrow his brows at her.
“Hmm, hmm,” she clears her throat and moves her finger to flip to the next page.
“What the heck!” Melanie jumps in fright seeing the person in the drawing smiling brightly at him.
“Do you not have anything to say to me?” Archie asks, taking away the sketchbook from her hand. He drops it on the bed and raises his brows at her.
“How… How did… I.. How did you know this?” Melanie stammered as she thinks of how to present it to Archie.
She falls back dejected to the bed, her arms falling in shock, with her gaze dropping to the ground.
“Tell me the truth,” Archie demanded as he steps to her front, towering over her.