Friday, March 28, 2014

Out Of the Garden, Part 9

Read the story from the beginning here
Part 9 by Kathleen Popa
I shoved the shoe box under the bed, and hurried out, grabbing a tissue from the box on the dresser and shutting the bedroom door firmly behind me.

"My new shoes," I said. "The green  pumps. I meant to wear them, but the heel is broken. I'll have to take them back."

"Pumps?" Margaret seemed ready to take my temperature. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Granny? New shoes?” Bree seemed impressed. “Can I see?"

"No! No no no." I said it at least one time too many, because of course I hadn't bought new shoes. "I wanted to run out for a few things, some dessert, some artificial sweetener."

Margaret frowned, so I kept going. "Of course, there's no need to dress up to go to the store. Not at my age."

"When did you ever?" Margaret mumbled, and her eyes met Bree's.

"Why don't we all go?" I asked.

"I'll stay here,” said Bree. “Settle in." For just a moment, her eyes wandered toward my closed bedroom door.

I wished for a lock on the bedroom door. "Come along," I coaxed, "and pick out the ice cream." When I returned, I could find a better place to hide The Her.

But when we walked back through the front door, we found Peta and Klaus sitting so stiffly in the living room, she in the chair and he on the couch, their smiles so tight, that I keenly sensed that they had halted a conversation mid-sentence when they heard the car in the drive. The tension between them was so palpable, I hesitated to enter the room.

Margaret slipped in around me. “’Scuse, Mom. Don’t want the ice cream to…” she began, but then, she stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

Peta glanced at me, then at Klaus, and then she chuckled. A pair of diaphanous wings popped out from behind Peta. Just like the Her's, only much, much larger.

4 comments:

Megan Sayer said...

!!!!!!!
...
!!!!!!!

Cherry Odelberg said...

Ha Ha Ha. Oh. He He He. Who is writing next? What are you ever going to do with that?

Henrietta Frankensee said...

Now everyone knows about Peta. And that all fairies are not sweet fluttery ninnies. There are so many directions this could take! Fridays can't come fast enough.

Josey Bozzo said...

This is so exciting and yet so frightening at the same time (for the writers that is)
My oh my what is going to come next?