“Vestavia Dunn! Pick up that pencil right now and start your schoolwork!” My mother yelled in my face. I could feel her spit splatter all over my face and turn from warm to cool on my skin. She leans back from my desk, tears streaming from her face. “Please. I.. shouldn’t have yelled.”

 

I lift up my arm and wipe my face. Then I pick up my pencil and hold it tight. “Forgive me, Mother.” I said in an almost robotic tone. “I do not mean to wander away from my schoolwork.”

 

Mother picks her hands up from my desk and places them in front of her heart, one folded one over the other. “You shan’t be forgiven quite so soon.” With that, my heart drops. “You have been off in a world of dreams while you sit there, the task not finished.”

 

“Yes.” I say. “I shall start my school work right now.”

 

“Good.” She sighs deeply. I start with the wretched assignment, but I can still see Mother in my peripheral vision.

 

“Mother, is something worrying you?” I ask. I don’t dare look her in the eye, as much as I want to.

 

Something in her eyes change. I know something is wrong. Our town has been going through some issues, and with all the other stress at home, it seems to be building up. Mother says I am as cool as ice cream in the summer heat.

 

“But ice cream melts in the summer heat.” I had explained. Mother had touched my lips and smiled sweetly.

 

“It means you can be calm at times, but then melt in the very next instance. Does that make any sense? You have wild energy that likes to burst. That burts can cause trouble.”

 

I saw about five years old when she had told me that. I had learn to control my outburst and I wondered how kids survived in the early years.Those years... the pilgrims they were called. They had to wait for their parents to talk before they could say something. I am happy things have changed in the few hundred years. If not, I would be as dead as a tumbleweed blowing through the prairie.

 

“Complete your schoolwork, my dear Via.” There she goes, using that sweet tone on me to try to feel better. “Your father will be arriving home tonight. He has requested your cream cake.”

 

I looked at mother, shocked. “My cream cake? Why, I haven’t made that in ages. Oh, Mother, did he really request that?”

 

“Yes,” She confirms. “As does your sister and brother.”

 

“I will finish my schoolwork right now, Mother!” My voice has risen three octaves. “Thank you!""

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading this installment of I Sought The Stories! Feel free to Owl me some story prompts!!

 

This blog post has been written by:

Kilikani Ebbets