Story #11: THE MEMORY
The Memory
A woman's childhood memory helps her come to a sinister conclusion.
There’s nothing better than stationery shopping. When
you’re in fourth grade, the best part of the year is a new term, when
everything is new. New uniform, new teacher, but best of all, new stationery.
It’s the Friday before first term starts and my mother
is taking us stationery shopping. The holidays have been filled with nothing
but Cartoon Network, junk food for my siblings and me, and watching a group of
builders work on what my parents call a “home extension”—the perfect Christmas
break. But still, nothing beats the excitement of stationery shopping.
My brother, sister and I argue over who gets to sit
shotgun—an argument I always win—while Mom tells us that she’s quickly losing
her patience and that we’re all asking for a hiding. That gets us quiet and my
brother and sister pile into the backseat and we’re off.
The shopping mall is packed with harassed-looking moms
and dads and excited little kids. Colorful banners and posters screaming,
“BACK-TO-SCHOOL DISCOUNTS” are posted in every window of every shop. The
excitement is contagious.
“I need a new backpack!” my sister exclaims.
“I need a new pencil case!” my brother chimes in.
“I need both!” I yell, because I really do.
“And I need you three to be quiet,” our mother
mutters, digging into her huge handbag. She whips a piece of paper out. “I have
a list.”
Mom loves lists. Lists keep things tidy and organized.
First, we go to a clothing store called Edgars where
we all try on black school shoes. I’ve gone up a shoe size. That’s good. Maybe
I’ve grown taller, too. I’ll have to ask Dad to measure me when he gets home.
Shoe shopping done and we’re off to do what really
matters: Stationery.
Spar is brightly lit and filled with kids everywhere.
It’s like Christmas, but with no trees or fat man in red. My mother grabs a
trolley and my siblings and I quickly scatter into different aisles, ignoring
her yells to stick together
.
Lists are boring.
The stationery calls to me. Shelves and shelves of
glitter pens, colored markers, and pens, mathematical sets, pencil crayons, paint…
It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven. There’s even a bag shaped like Blossom
from The PowerPuff Girls, my favorite character. I wonder if Mom will
let me have it.
There’s so much variety, and it’s so hard to choose
what I want. In the end, Mom chooses for me. I’ve got an ugly, navy-blue
briefcase that she insists is “practical”, whatever that means. All I know is
that come Monday, I’ll be teased mercilessly for daring to show up to school
carrying this monstrosity. I sulk for the rest of our shopping trip; which Mom
turns into a boring affair by dragging us along the glassware section.
“Look at this set!” she squeals at a box containing a
glass sugar bowl and stainless-steel coffee container. “I have to have it.”
It’s just a jar. How boring.
After that’s all done, we end up in the KFC
drive-thru. The kids’ meals have toys in them, but I end up giving mine to my
sister. I’m still a little sore about not getting that cute backpack.
When we get home, the builders are on their lunch
break, too. They sit outside in the sun, laughing and joking and eating. Mom
doesn’t come in with us. She gets us to take the shopping inside and then
speeds back to work.
***
The TV is blaring with a new episode of The
Powerpuff Girls but these little idiots are arguing over who stole whose
blue pencil crayon.
“You know it’s mine, you thief!” my sister yells.
“No, maybe yours rolled under the couch. This is mine!”
my brother replies.
“Can you guys shut up? I can’t hear what Mojo Jojo is
saying!”
But they never listen. Instead, they go back and forth
about a stupid pencil crayon and suddenly, my brother gets up to run away like
one of our dogs when the gate is open. My sister chases him, screaming that
he’s a thief. They dart back and forth, up and down the whole house, until
they’re blocking my view of the TV.
Mom’s new glass sugar bowl is kicked by a stray foot and
shatters into a million pieces against a wall. Absently, my sister steps on a
giant piece of the glass. The scream that pierces the air makes all the hairs
stand up on the back of my neck like I’m in a Goosebumps novel.
My sister is on the floor, cradling a foot that’s
spurting so much blood it almost looks like red paint. I’ve never seen that
much blood, unless it’s in the horror movies that we watch late at night after
our father has dozed off on the couch with the remote in his hand.
But now, it’s in front of me. I freeze in shock, my
brother beside me, while my sister continues to scream her head off.
What should I do? Think, big sister, think!
I don’t have to think, though, because my
sister’s lungs have drawn the attention of the men outside.
They bang on the
front door and I jump to action and dash to let them in.
“Towel!” grunts one man, and my brother sprints to a room
to get one.
My little sister has stopped screaming. Instead, she
stares at the cut on her foot and asks me, “Do you think I’ll get to be in a
wheelchair, like Professor X?”
Her voice is calm.
Dr. Brown
nodded at me, writing something down on his little notepad. “And this is when
you started to believe that your sister is the spawn of Satan?”
“Yes,” I told
him, sitting back up on the couch. “She didn’t even cry when they stitched her
up!”
END
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