Outsmarted by a Smart House

I watched them as they flew to Hervaii. I watched Mom and Dad change into snorkeling gear while George hopped onto a surfboard.

The sun was bright and shining, and it warmed up the sand on the beach.

Meanwhile, my corpse was still lying on the cold, hard floor.

Dad looked into the sky in the general direction of home and gripped his phone tightly.

"I bet that little brat is crying from hunger right now."

The corners of Mom's lips tugged downward. "Serves her right if she dies from starvation! I won't forgive her unless she copies out every question on the sheet she tore up a hundred times over! That little brat!"

But Mom, dead children couldn't copy math questions anymore.

"I'm sorry," I said.

George just clicked his tongue impatiently as always. "Please! Have you forgotten how stupid she really is? She's dumber than a rock! What if the hunger gets to her brain and she starts acting up? She's such a bother! You should still check on her."

Dad probably thought I was dumb, too. He quickly took out his phone to check. Mom came closer with a frown on her face, looking like she was about to spew angry curses at any moment.

I rushed up and tried to hide the screen from them. If not, they would realize that something had gone wrong with the surveillance cameras, and they'd see that I was dead!

And I had made a huge mess right before I'd died. Mom and Dad would hate me even more for that!

I cried so hard that my body couldn't stop trembling.

Dad stared at the surveillance footage and exclaimed, "What the-?"

I never thought that his phone would somehow connect to the camera facing the living room. There was trash all over the floor, and it was a huge mess.

It was all my fault for not studying well and lying on the ground, getting in the way of Orbi, the robot butler. Even Orbi called me "trash" and wanted to throw my body out.

Orbi turned on his vacuum cleaning mode and ran all over the house. He used such brute force that the other flower vases fell to the ground, and even the table was overturned.

Dad was fuming with rage. "Gianna Johnston! How dare you destroy the house! You stupid brat, why don't you just die already!"

Mom screamed. "We won't forgive you even if you wreak havoc in the house! If three days won't cure you, how about ten? We'll keep you locked up until you finally admit defeat, you stupid girl!"

"What a killjoy. Orbi! Clean up the mess in the room!" Dad said before throwing the phone aside.

He would never see Orbi slamming itself against the wall repeatedly and going haywire. Orbi's outer casing broke after several more slams, with sharp, jagged hard plastic protruding from its sides.

Then, it ran over the broken ceramic vases on the floor, dragging hundreds of sharp ceramic pieces into its wheels before ramming into my body.

The sharp edges of ceramic and hard plastic were like butcher knives, slicing up my body and turning it into a bloody carnage.

I fell to my knees next to Mom and Dad, crying hysterically as I begged them to stop Orbi.

I was already dead. I just wanted to preserve my body so I could properly say goodbye to them again. But why did Mom and Dad have to ruin the chance with their own hands?

Desperate, I then glanced at George for help. However, he just scoffed angrily and said, "That stupid idiot actually dared to touch my things!"

I suddenly recalled seeing broken pieces of Lego on the floor in the video just now. That had been part of a huge Lego model George spent a whole month putting together!

I shook my head in fright. "George, you have to believe me!"

No matter how stupid I was, I still knew that I had to be very protective of George's belongings! I would hug the math sheets he wrote for me to sleep if I could!

I would wait for George to come home.

Maybe he would forgive me if he saw me… Wouldn't he?

Suddenly, someone called out to him. "George? You're vacationing here too?"

I immediately recognized Fiona Dickson. She was my deskmate and my neighbor, and Mom and Dad always compared me to her. They thought that she was the perfect student and a very well-behaved person.

But they didn't know that she would stick gum in my hair and tell the boys to put dead rats in my bag.

Since I could never do well in school and was thus considered a "bad student", she said that the teachers would never believe me even if I tattled on her.

Fiona pretended to look around and asked, "I don't see Gianna."

George huffed angrily at once. "What's the point of bringing a moron along? I really wish you were my little sister instead, Fiona!"

I shuddered.

My heart had already stopped. I was supposed to be dead. And yet, I could somehow still feel the pain spreading in my chest and making it hard to breathe.

I didn't mind if they hit me or yelled at me. But I couldn't let them abandon me!

However, Mom and Dad smiled at Fiona and said, "You always get such good grades at school, Fiona. I really wish I could throw ours in the trash and have you as our daughter instead."

"Exactly! At least Fiona looks a lot prettier than that brat at home!"

I widened my eyes and watched as Mom and Dad continued praising my school bully.

George also said that I should be learning from a school bully too.