Ciara Ayala, “The Five Little Things”

THE FIVE LITTLE THINGS

Ciara Ayala

Inspired by the television show Pretty Little Liars, 2010-2017 Once upon a time, there were five girls that were called the Five Little Things in their town called Rosewood. One Friday night after school, the girls decided to have a sleepover in Oliva’s barn. That night all of the girls were hanging out, laughing, and having a good time. They started to drink the drink that Charlotte gave them—all but herself. Then as soon as it hit 2:00 AM, the girls fell asleep and Charlotte woke up because she was meeting up with her sneaky link, AKA Oliva’s brother-in-law. After Charlotte walked out of the barn, Oliva woke up and saw Charlotte leaving, so she went running out to follow Charlotte because she was trying to see if she was okay and why she was leaving. Oliva lost Charlotte in the woods, and she heard a scream, so she ran back to the barn to wake up the rest of the girls to tell them she thought something happened to Charlotte. When she got back to the barn, Emily was up and she said, “What happened, where is Charlotte at?” Then Ari and Mia woke up. Then Oliva told them, “I went looking for Charlotte in the woods, then I heard a loud scream.” The girls started to panic and they were all saying, “What if that was Charlotte? How are we going to say Charlotte died?” Fast forward to the next 2 weeks, when the Duncans, AKA Charlotte’s family, held a funeral for her. The four girls went because Charlotte was their close friend. Right after the service for Charlotte, they took the casket out of the church while the

girls were walking out in front of the people that were carrying Charlotte’s body. When they put Charlotte in the hearse, the girls got a notification about a message from -A, that says, “Now that Charlotte is gone, you all will go down too.” Then, after getting the message, the girls saw Lucy coming out of the church and smiling at the girls. After the funeral, the girls all went to the Duncan’s house just to spend some time with Charlotte’s mom as she was going through such a rough time. For a couple of weeks after Charlotte’s passing, Lucy would always just pop up wherever the girls were, as if she was watching them. Mia was always Lucy’s friend and she had always felt bad for Lucy because no one was ever really her friend. So, on a Tuesday after school, Mia decided to hang out with Lucy and give her a makeover. After Lucy’s makeover, Mia went to Ari’s house because the girls started to get messages from -A that said, “Let’s all play a little game.” So of course they all looked at each other and said out loud, “I don’t want to play.” The girls wanted to respond back to the message because even though Charlotte had passed away already, they still thought maybe there would be some luck and maybe all this time Charlotte was still alive. The girls ended up just splitting up and going their own ways so everyone went back to their homes. The next day, they all went to school and everyone in school was talking about how maybe they were the ones who killed Charlotte, but then they were all still happy Charlotte was gone because everyone had always called Charlotte the bully. In school, Lucy went up to the girls and said, “Good morning ladies.” All the girls except Mia said something. All the girls said, “Wow, you changed. No more loser Lucy.” So, of course, Lucy got in her feelings and walked away aggrieved. Then the bell rang so they went to class.

-A messaged them and said, “If you don’t play my game within the next 38 hours you all will die.” After school, the girls started to talk about it with each other. They were all willing to play the game because they didn’t know if -A would come and kill all of them. At this point, the girls started to feel startled because they figured whoever had killed Charlotte was going to come to get them one by one as he or she, -A, had already done. That day by 5:00 PM, Ari got a message from -A and it said, “If you don’t play my game everyone will find out that your dad has cheated on your mom.” Ari started to have flashbacks. She remembered that she and Charlotte saw her dad cheating with a woman one day after school, and how Charlotte had said, “Hey Ari, you better tell your mom, or I will.” Ari said, “No, nobody’s saying nothing. This is between me and you. This is our secret and nobody is to find out what we just witnessed my dad doing.” Charlotte started to cackle and walk away with Ari. Ari started to think maybe Charlotte was still alive because the only people that had ever seen what her dad had done were only her and Charlotte. When Ari started to think she was frightened about how she was gonna tell her mom because Ari´s mom and dad had been together since high school. Ari started to panic because she wanted to tell her friends, but she didn’t want everyone to know that a couple of years ago, her dad had cheated. The next day for school, the girls knew that Ari was hiding something from them because she was way too quiet. She seemed as though she was just trying to keep to herself that day. The girls started to get very suspicious about what was wrong with her. The girls ended up all finding out that Ari’s dad cheated because one day, after Ari came home from school, her mom called her in the room and said, “So you knew about this the whole time.” Ari was shocked at the note because she wasn’t planning on telling her mom but -A did for her. When Ari´s brother found out, he was very upset and disliked her for a while. He felt like

it was her fault that their parents had divorced and their mom moved out. From the beginning, Ari´s mom knew her husband cheated on her, but she still took him back because she loved him, and she was always so scared just to move on. She was so scared because she knew they had a family together, and she didn’t wanna ruin their family all because of what the father did to her. When the girls found out they told Ari, “Why didn’t you talk to us about it? We are your friends, and we are always here for you no matter what.” Ari started to cry and told them, “Thank you guys, but I didn’t want to tell you because I was so scared. I was just as embarrassed to say anything because you guys know how long my parents have been together, and for them to just separate from each other it really is gonna bother my brother Mike and I.” But Ari´s mom eventually wants to talk to her so they sit down and talk. Her mom told Ari, “Me and your dad have thought about it and we finally made the decision that I will leave and get an apartment and you and Mike will come to see me whenever you guys want, but for now, you and your dad will be staying here at the house together.” Ari suddenly started to cry because she didn’t want her mom to leave, she wished that she could just tell her mom about -A and everything would be fine again. Two months later, Mia started to get messages from -A telling her that if she doesn’t give back the money, she will pay for it. -A was telling her this because during those two months, Mia had started to get a lot of messages from -A to play the game with her, and she didn’t want to. Two weeks before the messages started with -A, Mia found out that her mom may lose her house because they were so many months behind on their mortgage that if they were to keep on, their house would end up under foreclosure. So Mia did everything she could. She went to her mom’s job, which her mom works at the bank, so she felt as it was kinda very hard for her to steal any money from there because if she was to do anything wrong, her mom can lose her job. The day that Mia went to her mom’s job, her mom had a customer come in to deposit fifteen thousand dollars. When

Mia heard that, her eyes opened wide. She got very scared because she was thinking, If this is a old lady that has all of this money here in Rosewood, what is she doing with all of it? When the old lady left the bank, Mia’s mom got called into a meeting and she left the lady’s keys for her safety box on the table so, of course, Mia thought it was a great idea to finally get the money to be able to pay their bill at home. At this point, Mia wasn’t even thinking about how she would get the lady back all of her money. She was just thinking, If I don’t help my mom with the mortgage, we won’t have a home to live in. So she took the keys from the desk and hurried up and went into the lady’s safety box and she took ten thousand dollars and put the keys back on the desk. When her mom came back into the room, Mia said, “Ok mom, I love you, but I gotta go.” She stormed out of the bank. Then when her mom got home she told Mia, “How come you stormed out of the office today?” Mia tried to just pass the question and asked her mom how work was. Then mom said, “Alright.” Mom went upstairs to take a shower and Mia ran to the mailbox to see what mail came in, and if they had received mail from the home mortgage. To be continued . . .