Flash Fiction Friday #4

It was raining the day I met Jaime, I remember because he was the old kid on the playground who was still swinging from the monkey bars, the only kid whose parents hadn’t picked him up.

“Who’s that?” I remember pointing to Jaime in his bright orange hoodie and mismatched rain boots. He looked like a rainbow had gotten sick all over him.

“Don’t know, but he looks like an odd one yea?” Rubin, my older brother replied. Jaime looked up from the monkey bars, right at me mind you, and smiled. No one had ever smiled at me and looked like they meant it. It was just Jaime, even then he knew how to make people feel important, and I smiled back.

Okay so fast forward a good chunk of years, Jamie and I have been inseparable. We were the two musketeers because there was no one worthy of joining our group, our trail mix bunch (as Jaime would call). It didn’t matter what would happen at school from long boring classes, to theatre auditions gone scrambled (a story for a different time.. Not likely though), we were always together.

That was until today of course, when Jaime came to school in blue jeans and a grey shirt.

“What happened to you? Is everything alright?” 

Before he can reply I go on “did you spill milk on your top and had to borrow some from the lost and found” I started gaggging, “or..”

“Lili! No breathe” he grabs my face in his hands and waits for me to take a deep breath before he lets go. Jaime is still fidgeting and starts cracking his knuckles.

“What is it? Out with it Jaime!”

“I’m moving”

Wow. of all the mean jokes to play this was the cruelest.

“I’m not joking” he holds up a file folder and I grab it” it basically says mum has given my aunt custody and I’m to move with her” “don’t look at me like that, I’m not joking”

“But how could they do that to you? Do you even know your aunt?”

Jaime shrugged “I’ve met her a couple times, she’s apparently been sending my mom money to help with bills and stuff” 

“Well that’s nice right”

“It would have been had my mom not used it all on beer” Jaime shrugged and put the folder back in his book back.”

“So what are we going to do?” I finally say, ready to find a solution.

“There’s nothing we can do, they already got a ticket for me and I leave in two weeks”

“We will see about that” and I start walking away. There is no way I was going to lose my best friend, heck my brother. He couldn’t just get shipped off like a parcel especially when his home was with me and we were family. The two musketeers were not going to be broken up.

-- So my dad said no to adopting Jaime, no matter how much I loved him and how much my family loved him and were his extra family. My mum and dad couldn’t argue with the court order especially since his aunt already had full custody. So on the last day of Jaime being in town we all went out for dinner at Jaime’s favorite pizza place. Dad and mom shared sweet stories and even cried remembering all the birthday parties and sleepovers, and Rubin even had a couple. I didn’t eat any pizza, and I couldn’t bring myself to share a heartfelt story, because I couldn’t say bye. When everyone went to play games it left Jaime and I at the table together.

It was awkward, which made it worse because neither of us believed in awkward moments. 

“I can’t say goodbye” I finally said 

‘Same”

“So maybe we don’t say it, we decide to never say that horrible word” he squeezes my hand

“And maybe we decide that this isn’t an end for us”

Jaime laughs loudly “of course not! Me and you Ophelia Laine Godot are the two musketeers no matter how far either of us go we will always find our way back to each other”

I wipe the tears that are already forming in his eyes

“Your aunt will be magical, and you’ll have the best stories to write me” and Jaime nods already stuffed up with tears to speak. 

And like the universe had sensed the tension, Crocodile Rock blasted through the speakers of the pizza place. Jaime, in a bright orange blazer stood up and extended his hand, and we walked into the middle of the restaurant. I tried to stop Jaime from beginning to dance along, but he moved more and jumped higher. Even though he had tear stains on his face and shirt he looked just like he had on the monkey bars, so just magical and beautiful. 

“ Come on LiLi!” He twirled around me “Dance with me and pretend the world doesn’t exist” He pleaded. And after that there was no going back and we would always be the two musketeers.

Check out Kate's Flash Fiction here: http://katesnovelidea.blogspot.com/
and of course feel free to make your own flash fiction as well. Happy Writing!!

Flash Fiction Friday #3

Bellatrix was not suppose to wander beyond the gates of her village, but she did and good things to otherwise this would be a short, boring story. She, Bellatrix, had just turned twelve and decided that she absolutely would not ever, and she meant never ever, get married or wear frilly fancy dresses no matter how loudly her mother and auntie crooned. So I suppose I’ll hand the story to her, well because it is one only she can say…

I know mother always told me to be weary of strangers, but this creature, this goblin looked soo pathetic that I couldn't leave her panhandling under a bridge. Melba, for she told me that was her name, was eighty hundreds and twenty three thousand seven hundreds and twenty days old- though I suspect her math is a bit off. 
“Oh deary me” Melba gurgled “I am just soo tired I can’t walk another step”
“Well, I can’t take you into the village, they will surely hang you, and then cook you in a stew” I shivered at the thought of goblin bog stew.
As we stumbled through the woods there was an abandoned, though slightly shabby cottage.
“Why not here bell?” I pointed “It looks like its been left to rot.”
Melba gurgled and began shuffling toward the run down cottage. It truly did look as though someone had left it to rot. Maybe once upon a time a lovely family lived there, I could imagine four happy children and a scruffy dog who would play in what was now a rotted wood floor. The dusty and spider infested cabinets would have housed the richest of tea leaves and and most darling tea sets fit for the queen herself. 
Melba, for she was after all quite old and tired and of course sore, did not care for the imaginative beauties, but being a very observant goblin (if she should say so herself) noticed peculiar claw markings on the floor.

“Look here girl” she said crouching to the ground. I was all too lost in my imagination to pay her mind, but now looking back I wish I had. Melba continued looking at the most peculiar details from the etches on the walls. When I was about to tell her of a strange portrait I discovered I heard Melba snarl and so I ran to her.
“Alkjdalkjgklad” she guffled speaking in a mix of her goblin dialect and her own confusion. We were in what had been the main bedroom, and it was hard to see in the dark, but Melba quickly found a wax candle and lit it shining into the room… jars filled with eyes, fingers, and hair all labeled with different creatures. The nails of the last female griffin, the tail of a harpie…
“What is this place..?” I held onto Melba’s hand and she gave it a squeeze and we started to back out of the room, when the jars started to shake.

The jars and the floorboards shaking and thank all of the gods for goblins having great balance or we would have been thrown across the room from all the movement.
When the shaking stopped there were loud footsteps, coming toward the room. Melba urged me to hide, but there was no where for either of us. 
“We are in this together” I whispered “you are my friend, albeit new, but I would never leave you to face whatever this is alone”
Melba snarled at me,but she positioned herself in front to greet the owner of the footsteps.
The door came open and there were three women, all dressed in puffed sleeves and what looked to be party dresses.
“Why hello dearies, what took you so long to say hello?” the first lady cooed
“We’ve been expecting you” said the second peeking from behind the first lady
“Yes, do come the fates have told us much, though by the look on your face they never relayed the message” giggled the third lady.
Melba, still standing in front of my snarled and her claws started to grow,
“Now, don’t you get fresh with us! This is partly your fault you know” the first lady said swatting Melba with the back of her fan. “Now, we don’t have much time so come and talk”

Reluctantly Melba and I sat with the three ladies and as they went into the kitchen things began to change, well shine I suppose. They all started singing and as they did everything they touched started turning new. Spider webs vanished, and the rotted wood became new and crisp, and I would love to add I was right the cabinets were filled with the most darling tea sets.

“One lump or two?”
I wanted no sugar. I didn’t even want her tea. I sat in the musty room trying to come up with any excuse to escape.

“I’ll add three” so concludes from Melba’s snarls, and my silence. 

“Now this,” the three ladies say in unison “is a message from the fates, and not to be scoffed or taken lightly”

“Bellatrix Audriella Ruskin” The first lady begins “you are not who you have been raised to think you are.. You see” 

By the wide eye look I gave she continued “ look closely” she pointed to the peculiar portrait and when I walked over (Melba beside me) I saw a girl, sort of , she had on a dress similar to the three ladies, but  her eyes seemed a bit different, a little non human

“Yes, dearie, what you see isn’t deceiving you” the second lady said “ this here is the first of her kind..”
“Gargoyle” Melba hissed
“Yess you plucky thing you” the first woman tried to pet Melba and nearly lost her fingers
“She was the first made creature, gifted the eyes of a gargoyle, and she grew up with a peculiar and slightly boring life until--”

“Until you were born!” the second and third woman chimed.  I would have deemed these women senile, if it hadn’t been for my own eyes shaking, and changing colors.

“Now you must give back what has been stolen”
“You want my eyes?!” 

Prompt for this post :“One lump or two?”
I wanted no sugar. I didn’t even want her tea. I sat in the musty room trying to come up with any excuse to escape.