Lifting the almost empty half-gallon carton of milk from the fridge, Amanda looked at the date printed on the front like her mother always did. It didn’t tell her anything since she had no idea what it meant, but it made her feel grown up to do so. She unscrewed the lid, not knowing if she would be able to know from a smell if it was bad or good, but the aroma that arose from the open container told her all she needed to know. She placed the carton back in the refrigerator so that her mother would notice they needed new milk when the food money stamps came in the mail. She knew better than to wake her mother for something else for breakfast, so she ate her cereal dry.

            Washing the last of the dry cereal out of her mouth with tap water in a dirty glass, she returned to the bedroom she shared with her mother. Most of the time Amanda had to sleep on the couch because her mother had sleepovers, but last night she had gotten drunk alone and fell asleep on the couch, leaving Amanda the queen sized bed. She had stretched out in the middle of the bed and pretended she was all grown up. When she was grown up for real and had her own daughter, she would definitely let her have her very own bed.

Amanda pulled her favorite yellow sundress from her dresser and pulled it over her head. She looked for a clean pair of undies as well, but the other four pair she owned were still in the dirty clothes piled up in the corner. Now that Amanda was six and could read, she knew the laundry would be her job soon too. That would mean the only thing she didn’t do was the cooking, not that her mother did very much of that either. She had no clean socks either, so she pulled on her little white tennis shoes with no socks. She quickly made the bed and left the room to begin her other chores before her mother woke up.

With her mother still asleep on the couch, she knew she could skip vacuuming, but went and got a bucket of Lysol water and a sponge to clean up the pile of vomit her mother had left on the floor next to the couch. Working just inches from her mother’s face hanging over the edge of the couch, Amanda scraped up the vomit pieces with the McDonald’s napkins that were on the coffee table before she sponged the area, not that the carpet would ever be clean again. She had just blotted up the excess water when the Lysol fumes roused her mother.

“****, Amanda. Do you have to do that **** now?” Mother slowly sat up on the couch, but started moaning and placed her hands on either side of her head. “****! Go outside until I am ready to get up! ****. You would think you could be quiet for an hour or so while I slept, you selfish little bitch”. She got up and slowly made her way to the bedroom where she would sleep until the afternoon. Amanda wished she really could go outside, but she knew her mother would forget her orders by the time she woke up and would be angry if the housework wasn’t done.