Episode 3: Jennifer Hudstone and The Paper Prison

Episode 3

Jennifer Hudstone and The Paper Prison

"The sun has set. The entire world is dark and all sane people are watching TV, losing brain cells by the second, all while Jennifer is securely locked up in prison. There is no escape, her only choice is to serve her sentence and re-join society as a reformed citizen." Jennifer tells. "Yes, Dear reader, we have reached the dramatic peak where it is necessary for me to narrate my own story in third person. How did this happen? Great question! It all started with me having to stay at home because of my fall down the stairs."

***

Earlier that day.

Jennifer is lying in bed. She'd woken up ready for school but wasn't allowed to go and now it's been half an hour since her family abandoned her at home and went on with their day. She's already bored with her forced bed rest. According to the medics, she should stay in bed for a day or two, just until she feels well enough to go to school again, but what do they know? In Jennifer's opinion, they're just being overprotective, she's fine. The world does still, slightly, spin when she sits up and it does sort of feel like her head was used as a punching bag, but other than that she's fine. What is she supposed to do for an entire day at home?

Jennifer gets up, she has to do something, maybe she can find one of her mother's magazines in the kitchen. The entire world topples beneath her bare feet, but she's too stubborn to let a little shift in gravity stop her. Jennifer leans against the wall and slowly makes her way out of her room, down the flight of stairs and into the kitchen.

Once there, she's completely out of breath and can barely see past her headache. Jennifer flops down onto one of the chairs around the small, square, breakfast table to the one side of their kitchen. Jennifer lays her head down on the wooden tabletop and closes her eyes, but before long enough she remembers her mission. She slowly sits up and starts searching for a magazine, but, to her dismay, finds none. Accepting the failed mission Jennifer decides to move to the sitting room, not wanting to climb a flight of stairs to get to bed, and lay down of the couch until her head stops spinning.

Once there she spots the large cupboard, with all their board games inside, next to the bookshelf and suddenly wonders when their last family games night was.

She takes out her phone and, rather innocently, texts her father. Telling him that they really should have another family games night sometime.

She places her phone on the coffee table and lays down on the couch. Somewhere as her consciousness dwindles, she remembers receiving a text back – Great idea, Pip! – and then falling asleep. All this without registering the consequences to her actions. Until her father arrived home, woke her up from her deep sleep on the couch and announced that it was family games night!

***

"And that's how Jennifer had ended up in Jail. Through her own doing," Jennifer dramatically looks across the Monopoly board, at her little figure – the shoe – in jail at the other end. Her mother roles the dice and click-clack-click-click moves the hat, loudly across the cardboard surface and lands on one of Jennifer's properties, one with a hotel on top.

She, being the only rule-abiding player, doesn't even bargain or hesitate before handing Jennifer the money. At the gesture, Jennifer is suddenly pulled out of her head.

"Stop giving me money!" She bursts. All Jennifer wants is to lose and be excused to bed. Her mother lifts an eyebrow and gives her the money anyway.

So far, they've played every game imaginable and this is the last one. She was fine with playing Twister, UNO and all the rest, but this game is pushing her patience too far.

Her father smiles his mischievous smile at his daughter and winks at her... her signal to detract her mum and brother, so that he can quickly reach for an extra hundred, from his secret stash, under his chair's pillow.

Despite the fact that Jennifer is the only girl out of her father's three children, she is the only one he can truly trust with helping him cheat at games nights...

"Oh! Watch me roll my eyes!" Jennifer suddenly says. "We have a cheater in our midst! I've had my eye on you, Shaun Hudstone! Did you really think you could fool us?" She looks directly at him and her mother, being the person that she is, immediately gasps and asks her son if Jennifer's accusation is true. Shaun's face turns stop-sign red, as he looks directly at his mother, providing Jennifer's father with the distraction to quickly add to his money pile.

"Of course not!" Shaun says and looks at Jennifer angrily.

"Shaun Robert Hudstone..." Their mother starts to say but doesn't even have to finish. Everyone knows that once she starts reciting all their names, it's time to come clean and beg for their life.

"Fine!" And he pulls out his entire stash from underneath his cushion and dramatically throws it onto the board, some of the pieces move and their mother quickly fixes them again. Jennifer tries to hold her laugh in, but quickly manages to suppress it once her mother throws her an angry glare.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Her mother asks her signature question. She directed it at Shaun, but Jennifer's father answers – he's usually the one who the question is directed to.

"Cheating is wrong, son," he quickly says.

"Look who's talking!" Jennifer's mother snaps and Jennifer explodes with laughter, only to calm down rather quickly at the sight of her mother again.

"Can we really not have one civil game of Monopoly?" She asks seriously, as though it's the most important thing in the entire world at the moment.

"Oh, Darling, and you wonder where Jennifer gets her dramatic flair! Of course, we can have a civil game of Monopoly," her father says and half-hugs her mother. She smiles but still looks at him with a warning behind her eyes.

"I think, I'll go put the kettle on and makes some tea," Mary Hudstone announces, walks to the other side of the room and puts the kettle on the stove.

"Snack time!" Her father says as he gets up and grabs a packet of chips out of the cupboard.

"She held out longer this time, though," Jennifer says.

"I heard that..." Her mother says over her shoulder.

"Speaking of heard, what's the story about the new people in town, Darling?" John Hudstone asks his wife.

Mecha Falls is a beautiful little town, hidden in the dip of a valley, surrounded by mountains. It may be prone to floods, wildfires and animal attacks, but it's the best place for hiking trips and makes most of its money from tourism. Jennifer's mother herself works for the town’s Historic Society. They take tourists around the town, to museums, arrange hiking trails, and teach survival skills on a daily basis. Jennifer's mother is a skilled hiker and likes to arrange camping trips, for her clientele, every so often as well.

"The Reillys," Her mother says and nods to herself. "A Husband and Wife, with their son, from what Lacy's told me..." Mary says as she takes out mugs for the beverages. Lacy Ripley is one of Mary's best friends and works at the Realtor's office, as the secretary.

As much foot traffic as Mecha Falls gets, the only people that stay there permanently are the descendants of the town's founding families... with a few exceptions here and there. And, as with most small towns, the second someone new wants to lay down roots, everyone is abuzz.

"Why'd they want to come here?" Shaun asks as he pops a chip into his mouth and crunches it loudly.

"I haven't the foggiest," their mother says, folding her arms as she waits for the kettle to boil. "I hear Mr Reilly is some sort of entrepreneur... an inventor, I've heard some say, but..." she sighs. "Not all the stories floating about are accurate. Best we just invite them for tea some time and get the story straight from the source."

For a second Mary goes into her head and her eyes gloss over, but she's pulled back to reality quick enough. "Jennifer, someone left a letter for you today... I found it this afternoon." Her mother says and Mary takes the kettle off prematurely.

"Is there a name on it?" Jennifer asks.

"No name, but I'm assuming that it's from Tessa. You girls did loved writing to each other when you were little..." Mary takes out a few biscuits and pours the drinks.

"We haven't done that in years, mum," Jennifer says and feels her cheeks growing redder by the second.

"Who, knows? Maybe she missed you today," Mary says and Jennifer tries to hide her smile at the thought of someone missing her – no one ever misses her.

"I put the letter in your room, Darling," Mary says and places the drinks and snacks on the table and before long the entire Hudstone family is back at their game once again.

***

The night ended with Jennifer faking a nauseous spell and being excused to bed. And now, ironically, she can't seem to fall asleep. Jennifer's lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about her life. To be more specific, she's thinking about the people in her life and their purposes...

"See, dear reader, my author has put everyone in my life for a reason. My parents have played their parts, obviously, and that's not mentioning what they've done to care for me over the years. Tessa has been my best supporter, I don't know what my life would've been like without her... come to think of it, I wouldn't have gotten in trouble nearly as much. Angus, my best friend, I would've been completely lost without him. At one point, he was my only friend and the only one that understood me. I wouldn't mind someday falling in love with him, but I don't know about right now. Patrick is just a baby, can't say why he's here yet, but Shaun... I can't figure out why I would need a Shaun." Jennifer sighs.

Everyone else has a purpose, but Jennifer can't figure out what her purpose is. Is it to help her father cheat and play pranks? Is she even really the main character? What if she's just another supporting character? What if the purpose of her existence is to be nothing more than a nothing? All her life consists out of is going to school, cringe-worthy family games nights and hanging out with friends... what could her purpose possibly be?

In an attempt to get out of her head, Jennifer decides to look for the letter her mother had mentioned.

She climbs out of bed and scans the dark room, finding the pure white envelope on her desk. She takes a seat behind her desk, clicks on the lamp on the table and examines the white letter. It is rather strange that Tessa wouldn't sign it, she's never done that before.

Jennifer opens the letter and finds two blank sheets of paper in it. She frowns and turns both pieces of paper from front to back, but finds nothing. She looks at it more closely under the light but finds nothing either. Why would someone go through all the trouble to deliver it to their house, not to write anything on it? What made her mother believe that the letter was for Jennifer, if it can even be called a letter?

Tessa wouldn't do this, it's probably a prank... which means the very last thing she should do is react to it, that's exactly what the prankster would want.

For a second Jennifer considers throwing the letter away, but then rather decides to place everything back in the envelope and leave it on her desk.

"It was probably Shaun and when I don't react, he'll come snooping and find his letter out in the open and it'll bother him so much that he'll confess," Jennifer muses. "Yes, dear reader, this is a suspiciously specific situation I'm describing. It's happened all before and it'll play out exactly the same once again."

Jennifer climbs back in bed only half satisfied, but can't understand why she still feels a little uneasy. Her day was oddly quiet. She picks up her phone, from her nightstand, and opens the messenger – no new messages.

She frowns, other than the message from her father, she hasn't received a single message all day. So much for Tessa missing her.