Everyone annoys me. My mom. My dad. My maid. My teachers at my private school. Even my friends. If they only did what I, Rose Mary Petal, wanted, life would be so much easier. I never get the clothes that I want, and for my sweet sixteen birthday party, my dad got me the wrong car!
	The person that annoys me the most is Daisy Lee Johnson. She’s always lingering around me and my friends. Her parents aren’t even rich; she only got into my private school with a full scholarship. She makes her own clothes with fabric from second hand stores! Her blonde hair is short and strait, unlike my long, dark brown, curly hair. 
	I woke up this morning in a great mood, and then I saw her face. She’s the exact opposite of me. While I have a soft face, hers is sharp and angular. She’s into motorcycles and video games, and I love shopping and make-up. 
	The only things we have in common are our age, 17, and our math class.
	I walked into my last class, math, and there she was, sucking up to the teacher, trying to get a better grade. I just ignored her and went to my seat. My best friend, Lilly Miles, is waiting for me. 
	“Hey what’s up?” she greats me with a smile.
	Glaring towards Daisy I reply, “Gosh, I can’t believe her! She doesn’t belong here!”
	“Who?” Lilly asks, looking for who I could possibly be talking about.
	Annoyed I say, “Daisy, duh. Anyone who isn’t rich shouldn’t be allowed to step foot in this school. Even the janitors should be rich.”
	Then, the teacher told everyone to take their seat so we could start our math. Daisy sat in the front seat while Lilly and I moved to the very last row. 
	Math went by pretty fast. When it ended Lilly and I departed our own ways, me to the bathrooms to reapply make-up and Lilly to her own car. The school normally empties out pretty fast but today was unusually quick. By the time I got to the bathrooms no one was in the hallways. As I approached my destination I heard unfamiliar voices coming from behind the door. I slowly descended upon the bathrooms and cautiously opened up the door to reveal a bunch of flowers. I thought I was imagining things, but after blinking several times and pinching myself, I realized that they were real. They had human-like bodies with flower heads. They wore leather jackets with a lot of buckles and straps. They were rough-housing with each other, but as soon as they noticed me, they stopped and lined up as if they were geese flying trough the sky. 
	The front flower, who seemed to be the leader, said in his deep voice, “Do you know why we are here, Rose?”
	“Wh-who are you?” I stuttered, stunned that they knew who I was. 
	“That is of no importance,” he replied. “We are here to teach you a lesson!” His other friends nodded in agreement.
	I shrank against the wall, afraid of what they were going to do to me. Of all the people in the school, why me? I never did anything wrong. Why couldn’t they take Daisy and teach her a lesson. No one would care if anything happened to her.
	“That’s why we’re taking you,” one of the flowers said, “because of how you treat her.” It was like he was reading my mind. “I am reading your mind.” I shrank farther against the wall.
	“Don’t worry we won’t hurt you,” the nicest looking flower said. For some reason, I believed her. “We all have special powers. Thorn can read minds, and Bud, the leader of the group, can see into the future. I, Ms. Tulip, can take people to any place and time as long as they are touching me. Bob, George, and Fred have super strength, so don’t even try to run away.”
	I figured that hiding in the corner wasn’t going to help my situation, so I regained my confidence and confronted the enemy. “I don’t know where you came from, and frankly I don’t care, but if you don’t leave me alone, I will call the police and have you arrested.” 
	“Silly girl, we can’t be arrested,” Ms. Tulip said with a girlish giggle. Bob, George, and Fred all half-heartedly laughed then immediately stopped when Bud gave them the death stare.
	“We will not hurt you unless we have to, Rose,” Bud repeated. “As Ms. Tulip said, I can see the future, and the way you’re going it doesn’t look too bright. If you keep being mean then no one will like you, and you’ll be alone when you need friends the most.”
	“What are you going to do to me?” I asked. 
	Bud opened his mouth to answer but Ms. Tulip beat him to it, “We’re just going to show you how hard of a life Daisy has.”
	“If I say yes will you leave me alone?” I questioned the strange flower creatures.
	“As soon as you stop bashing on Daisy, we will leave you alone,” Bud said in his deep, booming voice. 
	“Fine, I’ll go with you,” I said after a moment of thinking it over. 
	“Great!” Ms. Tulip exclaimed enthusiastically. She gracefully walked over to me. “Just hold onto my arm and we’ll get this show on the road!”
	I quickly grabbed her stem-like arm so I wouldn’t change my mind. There was a soft spinning feeling like when you stand up too fast and get light-headed. It didn’t stop there though; the spinning got faster and faster. The light started to fade. Then complete darkness. The spinning kept going though. Just when I thought my lunch was going to launch its self out of my system, the spinning suddenly stopped. My eyes were clamped shut from the spinning, so I had no idea where we were. 
	I slowly opened my eyes, terrified of what I would see, and I was terrified. It was the poor area of my town. There was trash everywhere. I didn’t touch anything in fear of getting some kind of disease. 
	Ms. Tulip saw the look of disgust on my face and asked, “What? Is something wrong with this place?” 
	“Well yeah. No rich people live here and none ever will!” I practically yelled at her.
	“Do you realizes that Daisy lives her?” she asked in her calm, slightly annoying voice. 
	“That makes it worse,” I muttered under my breath.
	“What?” Ms. Tulip asked sternly. 
	“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”
	“Then we’ll be on our way.”
	As if on cue Daisy came sulking down the street, her jacket clutched tightly to herself, keeping the freezing cold wind away. She briskly entered one of the run-down apartment buildings. Ms. Tulip began to follow her through the door. 
	“We’re not seriously going in there are we?” I asked
	“Well yeah,” she said mocking my tone from earlier. “If you want to get rid of us you have to be nice, and this is how we will teach you. You have to learn more about Daisy and why she is the way she is. Like why she goes to your school on a scholarship.” 
	“Okay, fine! Just shut-up!” 
	We hurried to catch up with Daisy. “Won’t they see us?”
	“Nope. No one can see us,” she said, wiggling her vine-like fingers, trying to be scary, which was not working. 
	“You’re not funny,” I glared at her, as we approached Daisy. She lived on the third floor of her five-story building. The halls were plain and simple. She entered her apartment with confidence, something she doesn’t have at school. She was grinning like someone who just found out that they got rid of cancer. 
	The first glimpse of her apartment was pretty amazing. It was small compared to my big house that I get to myself most of the time. There were family pictures on almost every surface. The only pictures in my house are painted by famous people. My parents are never home, let alone in the state. However, Daisy’s parents were there when she got home. They were in the kitchen cooking a home-made dinner. 
	“Mmm, smells good in here,” Daisy said as she walked in the door. “What are we having?” 
	“Mac & Cheese,” replied Daisy’s mom as Daisy’s little brother, sister, and dog ran up to her. Daisy shut the front door…and then everything changed. She lost that confidence from earlier. Her siblings ran faster to Daisy while her parents quickly descended upon her. “Do you know what time it is?!?” they screamed at her.	
	Daisy stood protectively in front of her siblings. “It’s not even dark yet,” she said in a gentle, shy voice. 
	“You were suppose to be home two minutes ago!” her dad screamed at her. His body language said that he wanted to hit her for being late, which made Daisy shrink against her siblings.
	“Can’t you stop them?” I asked scared that her dad was going too far.
	From right behind me Bud said, “Of course we can’t. Just like people can’t see us, they can’t touch us either. In a situation like this, we are completely useless.”
	Meanwhile, Daisy was telling her brother and sister to go to their rooms. Her dad pulled his arm back, preparing to let it fly, but before he could, Ms. Tulip grabbed my arm and that spinning came back. The light faded. I felt I was going to puke again, but this time for a different reason. What kind of terrible person would hit their children? How long has this been going on? Why doesn’t she leave? Does anyone else know about this?
	“Of course not. Didn’t you see the excellent show they put on?” Thorn said, reading my mind again. The spinning slowly came to a stop and we were back at school in the girls’ bathroom. 
	“Shouldn’t we tell someone? Like the police or something?”
	“We can’t, we don’t have any proof,” Ms. Tulip said. “What she really needs is a friend.”
	“But why does it have to be me? Why couldn’t you have shown someone else?”
	“Because you both need true friends throughout life. Both of you need someone to whom you can tell your secrets.”
	“But I don’t want to tell my secrets to her!” I protested. “I tell Lilly my secrets,” I tried to make it seem like I was telling the truth but I wasn’t fooling anyone. 
	“How many secrets have you actually told her?” Ms. Tulip asked. 
	“Ok fine, I don’t tell her any of my secrets!” 
	“That’s why you need Daisy. You know she can keep a secret, and if anyone tries to pry it out of her than she can easily make up a cover story.”
	I thought about it long and hard. What’s the worst that could happen? She would just move up in popularity and feel better about herself, and I would have someone to talk freely to, like a therapist that I don’t have to pay. “Alright, I’ll try to be her friend,” I finally decided.
	“Great!” Ms. Tulip clapped in excitement. The rest of her “crew” smiled at finally getting their job down done. “Do you want a ride home?”
	“Nah, I drove here.” I finally realized we were at my school and my car was here. Besides, I didn’t want to go through that awful transportation feeling again. 
	“If you insist,” Bud said, slightly more relaxed now that his job was done. They slowly started to go out of focus. I realized that now their job was done all six of them had to leave. I was going to miss them all. Bud and Thorn. Bob, George, and Fred. And most of all, Ms. Tulip.
	“Remember, be nice,” Ms. Tulip said before she disappeared completely.
	“I will,” I whispered to the empty school. It was time to start an adventure of my own.



1
Flowers in the Bathroom, 6-8