Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Ugh...” Della dove under her pillow and shoved it over her ears.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Sarah... What time is it?” Della grumbled as she sat up bleary eyed in bed. She rubbed her eyes only to find the noise was coming from below her. She heard some yelling and then more banging, this time from above her.
Groggily Della made the decision to see where the noises were coming from. As she moved out into the hall, Della shook off her sleepy thoughts and scurried down to the fourth floor.
For months she had been having dreams about the different tenants in Dreamwood Terrace. In the dreams her vision was fixed and hidden. It was obvious that whoever she was watching didn’t know she was there. After the dreams started Della began seeing people around her do some of the things she had seen in the dreams when they thought they were alone. It wasn’t until she spotted the lense in the kitchen that she figured it out. She was seeing what the hidden cameras saw around the apartments in Dreamwood Terrace.
The excitement had given her the perfect opportunity to talk to the only person who could have put up the cameras- Magdalene Kitch.
Nervous Della realized at once that she wouldn’t be able to get any information out of Mrs. Kitch, she’d have to work on her. In a split second decision, Della asked for a job. When it looked as if the old woman wouldn’t give her a chance she promised to dust on top of the fan blades. She’d heard a lot of complaining about it in her dreams. Mrs. Kitch gave her a surprised look but she agreed.
After she returned to 503, and the noise subsided, Della was too excited to go to sleep. She milled around her room and the kitchen, getting bundled up to go to the bowling alley. She had heard it was holding its annual tournament, one that her father had always been apart of. Since this was the first year of his passing she decided to enter in his place.
Upon arriving at the bowling alley she talked to a tired man, from whom she rented her bowling shoes.
“Size six please. Can I still enter the bowling tournament... Mr....” His name tag read Tyler. “Mr. Tyler?”
“Aren’t you a little young to enter a bowling tournament?” He replied handing her the shoes. The look he was giving her made her feel as though she still needed bumpers.
“I’m old enough to bowl a strike with no guards,” she said.
Tyler shrugged. “That’ll be forty dollars please.”
As Della grabbed a nine pound bowling ball, she started to reminisce about the days when her father had taken her here to bowl.
“Del, you gotta try harder. I told you a thousand times, you’re twisting your arm when you release,” Six-year-old Della and her father were at one of the bowling lanes and Della had just landed her sixth ball in the gutter. “Here let me show you,” Crash! “See, its all about the release.”
Della sighed. She grabbed her ball and walked determined up to the edge of the lane. “Focus,” she muttered. She positioned herself and... Crash! “Well at least I hit two.”
The memory faded and Della headed to her lane. Bowling had never been her thing but it had always been important to her father. He hadn’t been the best teacher, often he would yell at her, but it was still time only the two of them shared. And over the years she had gotten better.
The tournament started and when it was Della’s turn she tried to put what her father had taught her into practice. “Focus,” She muttered. She lined her self up slightly left of center and let the ball go. Crash! “Well at least I hit two.”
She could almost hear her father reply “There’s still room for improvement.”
