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Written and copyright © 2011 by Thomas N. Bulkowski. All rights reserved.
When I read this story to my critique group, I read it too fast, and that was the start of my trouble. They were lost from the very first line. The critique went downhill from there. Sigh.
But I think you'll love this story and the ending. I do.
Written: November 2009
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
What Does Bequeath Mean?
Sally said to her mom, "My bestest friend Missy says my real mom is a princess! I was adapted. I hate you!"
She ran off, pounded up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door. She stomped both feet. Twice.
Then jumped. Twice.
Mom likes my hair like this. I HATE it! She folded her arms across her chest, thrust out her bottom lip, and then blew upward. Her hair bounced, but still covered
her eyes. She blew again and then tucked the darn curls out of the way.
"No TV. Eat your vegetables. Go play outside." She faced the bedroom door, put thumbs in her ears, and made finger antlers while sticking out her tongue.
On the shelf was a framed photograph of the family taken during Thanksgiving. Both Mom and Dad had rounded faces but hers was skinny, like a fashion model who
fed the dog her Cheerios. Mom and Dad were dark haired, but she was blond. They were tall, but she was short. "They don't look like me. No way. I must be adapted!"
She grabbed a crayon, a black one, and gave Mom a moustache then scribbled out her face. With a red crayon, she drew two hearts above Dad and colored them in.
Sitting on her bed, she flopped onto her back, hands clasped behind her head. "Go to your room! Get off the phone! I'm counting to three. One! Two!" She took a deep
breath, exhaled, and tossed hair curls that hid blue eyes. "I'm a princess. A rich princess."
She imagined herself in a long frilly dress with hair coiled into a bun and topped by a tiara packed with jewels. The most handsome man in the country,
Prince Charming, stood beside her, hand held out, asking for the next dance. And not a curl in sight.
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She sat up and opened a cigar box filled with knickknacks, pulled out a pair of scissors, and went to work on those curls. "Shoot!" Those blasted scissors hardly cut
paper, and they weren't any good on hair. She threw the scissors into the box and slammed it shut.
In two days, it's Christmas. I got all day tomorrow to be good. She hopped up and down on the bed and then jumped off, crashing to the floor.
Mom hates that. A smile lit up her face. She climbed up on her bed and jumped off again.
"Knock it off, Sally!" Mom yelled from downstairs.
"Wash your hands! Brush your teeth! Don't pick your nose!"
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Sally pushed aside her anger and slipped her hands between the mattresses, sliding in and out, right and left until her fingers hit pay dirt. "Bingo!"
She pulled out a sheaf of papers from her secret hiding place and flipped to the good stuff, her pointy finger tracing words, back and forth, down the page.
"Here it is." Her index finger marked the spot. With her other hand, she reached up and yanked the big, fat dictionary off the shelf.
It crashed onto the bed and bounced open. "Darn it!" She found her place on the papers again and then looked in the dictionary. "Bequeath... bequeath... bequeath.
What does bequeath mean? It must be in here, somewhere."
She thumbed through the pages, but soon gave up. "I don't know how to use this blasted thing." She slammed it shut and then hoisted it back onto the shelf, grunting
from the effort.
The document caught her eyes again. She scanned down the page and found where Missy had drawn a green dot.
"Be quiet. Clean your room. You're grounded!" She pulled out a red crayon and went to work.
Ten minutes later, she heard the kitchen door slam. She raced out of her bedroom and down the stairs, holding onto the handrail. I don't want to fall like last time!
"Dad! Dad!"
"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas."
She banged into him, coiling her body around his leg. She could feel the winter chill clinging to his pants.
He reached down and lifted her up so that their eyes leveled, and then he kissed her on the forehead. "How's my little girl today? Were you good?"
She glanced over at Mom and then nodded.
Dad's eyebrow went up. "Uh, oh. Santa doesn't give presents to naughty girls, you know that."
"I was sorta good," she said in a quiet voice and then sucked in her cheek, forming a dimple because Dad loved that.
He set her down on the kitchen stool and then looked over at his wife. She looked frazzled.
He felt a tug on his pants and looked down.
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"What does bequeath mean?"
"Bequeath?"
She nodded.
"I'm surprised you can pronounce it."
"My bestest friend Missy taught me."
"What's for dinner, Hon?"
He felt a tug again.
"Dad? What's it mean?"
"It's hard to explain."
"Missy says my real mom was a princess. Was I adapted?"
"Were you adapted?"
She nodded. "Missy says I was adapted. Says you're not my real dad. Is Mom my real mom?"
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"You mean adopted, not adapted." He parked on a stool beside her, picked her up, and sat her down on his lap, facing him. "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away,
lived a beautiful woman called Princess Tatiana. One day, Princess Tatiana met a handsome man and they fell madly in love. Years went by and they had a baby girl that they named Sally.
"Me?"
He nodded. "Then Princess Tatiana got really really sick. Her husband stayed with her day and night at the hospital, but that left poor Sally all alone. A giant stork...
Do you know what a stork is?"
She rolled her eyes. "Duh!"
"A silver stork with wings bigger than this house picked up Sally and carried her away. Princess Tatiana's cold got worse and worse and when she found out that
Sally was missing -- well, that just killed her.
"Her husband went looking for Sally and searched everywhere, from the highest mountain peak to the lowest valley floor, but he couldn't find her. Until one day,
word spread that Sally was found!"
"Where?"
"In your bed." He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. "Now go get ready for dinner." He set her down and she paddled from the room, her slippers sounding
like sandpaper rubbing across tile.
Karen waited until she was gone. "I thought you said your first wife was a bankrupt alcoholic who died during childbirth?" She studied him for a moment and then added,
"Sally will tell her bestest friend Missy about your pack of lies, and then you'll be in big trouble with Santa."
# # #
Sally climbed onto her bed. She reached into her secret hiding place, pulled out the document, and flipped to her favorite page. I, Princess Tatiana, bequeath
to my daughter, Sally, the sum of 10 million dollars, payable when she turns 18.
"What does bequeath mean?"
The End
If you liked this story, please vote for it by clicking
Thanks!
-- Thomas Bulkowski
See Also
- Green Soap. Reading time: 1 minute. This story is about getting a kid to wash his hands.
- Red Truck. Reading time: 1 minute. This story is about what happens to a kid's toy truck.
- Soul Ambulance. Reading time: 5 minutes. This is a Christmas story about something that happens at the airport.
- That which cannot be said. Reading time: 7 minutes. Lovers discover a common connection between them.
- Twenty at a Time. Reading time: 5 minutes. A CEO steals money and has to repay it in an unusual way.
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Written and copyright © 2011 by Thomas N. Bulkowski. All rights reserved. There are two kinds of adhesive tape, the kind that won't go on and the kind that won't come off.
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