It was a day like any other, the sun rose on a cool fall morning, the fresh dew dripping off yellow maple leaves, and a 12-year-old girl named Emma ran down the hall of her small house to wake her tired mom up. Just as she did every morning. 

“Mom! Mom! Mom!” Emma yelled as she jumped up and down on her mom’s bed. 

“Good Morning, Em.” Her mom yawned. 

“Morning Mama!” Emma yelled, jumping off the bed and onto the wooden floor. “How was your sleep?” She asked with enthusiasm.

Her mom uncovered herself from a mountain of blankets. “It was good as it always is.” She sat on the side of her bed and stretched, before rubbing her baggy eyes awake. “How was yours?”

“It was great! I had this dream where I was a cheetah and ran around the forest, before turning into a duck and waddling around! It was so fun!” Emma rambled. 

Her mom smiled and patted Emma on the head. “That’s nice, Em. I’ll go make breakfast and you get ready for school, okay?” 

Emma nodded, before cheerfully running off to her room. Once Emma was gone, her mom exhaustly sighed and walked to the kitchen. It was a small kitchen, only barely fitting an oven, sink, fridge, and a few counters and cabinets. With hardly an air gap between them. The kitchen was also the dining area and was only distinguished into the living room with a small three-person couch, just barely in front of a well-used rectangle wooden table with four old chairs sitting in the middle of the kitchen for the dining area. In front of the couch was a small end table and an older flat-screen TV that sat on crumpling cardboard boxes. Emma’s mom prepared two bowls of cereal, before grabbing the milk from the fridge and placing everything on the end table. She turned on the TV to watch the news and sank heavily onto the couch. 

A few minutes passed before Emma came bouncing in. She was wearing her favorite lapis blue skirt with a sky blue T-shirt tucked underneath and white socks that went just above her ankles. The T-shirt had baggy sleeves with lapis blue flower petals from the end up. It was her favorite skirt because it matched the color of her eyes and made her coffee-brown skin and golden-brown freckles look as if she were glowing. It made Emma feel as if she was magical. 

“You forgot your hair.” Her mom laughed, “Here, I let me do it for you. Can you hand me your hairbrush, please?” She held out her hand.

Emma scurried back to her room and quickly came back holding a hairbrush bedazzled with blue and purple plastic gems. “Here you go, mom.” Emma plopped herself down on the floor in front of her mom.

Her mom began to brush Emma’s woolly dark copper brown hair, it was quite tangled and Emma flinched as her mom brushed.

“Try not to move, please.” Her mom asked.

Emma nodded, causing the brush to fly out of her mom’s gentle hands. It landed with a clunk on the end table, just barely missing the two bowls and milk carton.

“Sorry,” Emma looked back at her mom with an awkward smile. Her mom just smiled and sighed, before Emma handed her the brush back. 

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Then suddenly, without warning the TV blasted a loud alert. “Breaking news!” The TV screamed. Jarred, Emma’s mom quickly turned the sound down and the two watched in anxious anticipation. “This just in, last night a kilometer outside our town, Penantton, a car crash resulted in the escape of a mental hospital patient.” 

The screen showed a mug shot of the pre-teen from just under their shoulders up to their head beside the news anchor. The pre-teen had milk chocolate skin with lighter patches of pale cream on their left cheek and shoulder, dark brown messy hair in a short pixie cut, and big lavender cat-like eyes. They had a kidish face, a square nose, and slightly pointed ears. Their shoulders were sunken and the expression the pre-teen wore looked quite dispirited. The mug shot looked uncanny in some way, though neither Emma nor her mom could place how. It was as if the mug shot had a bad filter or color-corrected wrongly. Although, the two just chalked it up to the screen being old and worn out.

The news anchor continued, “Police say that they are armed and dangerous. Locals are warned to stay indoors. And here’s Jeff on the ground with an interview with the driv-” 

Emma’s mom quickly changed the channel. “Oh, oh, Okay, that is enough of the news for today.” She said anxiously, quickly putting Emma’s hair in pigtails. The pigtails framed her rounded face well.

“But Mom, that was the first interesting thing to happen around here in forever,” Emma whined.

“No buts, young lady!” Her mom scolded, “Aren't you always asking to watch cartoons with breakfast anyway.” She smiled, anxiously, waiting for Emma to answer.

“Okay.” Emma frowned.

Her mom patted her on the head, “Good girl, now I have to make some calls. No changing the channel!” She wagged her finger before getting up and walking to her room. 

Time passed as Emma ate her cereal and fought the desire to change the channel. Staring at the remote, she tried to focus on what was happening on the TV, but as she heard muffled speaking from her mom’s room; the desire grew stronger and stronger. Emma began sweating, her stare intensifying as the sound around her started to dull. As seconds turned to minutes, Emma shoveled spoonful after spoonful of cereal into her mouth, till she went for another scoop and it clunked against the bowl. She slowly looked down, her eyes intense, her bowl was empty. Her eyes rose and it was if everything in the room was blurry except for the remote. 

“M-Maybe just for a s-second…” Sweat dripped off Emma’s face.

Creak.

Emma’s mom opened her bedroom, just as Emma sat up with her hand hovering over the remote. Emma froze her body in a panic. Her mom stared at her before pinching her beautiful bushy eyebrows. 

“Emma, what did I ask you to do?” Her mom gave a disappointed sigh.

Emma sat back down and tapped her index fingers together, “To eat breakfast.” She looked around avoiding her mom’s eyes.

“I told you not to change the channel.”

“And I didn’t.” Emma smiled, still avoiding eye contact.

“Uhg,” She took a deep breath and calmly walked towards Emma, “But you were about to, weren’t you?”

Emma stared, thinking over her response.

Her mom sighed again and sat back down on the couch. “Em, you know I love you, right?”

Emma’s eyes wandered to the ground, “Yeah.”

“And you know I only want the best for you, right?”

Emma fiddled with her skirt, “Yeah.”

“So, you know when I ask you not to change the channel, it’s because I don’t want you to see something scary, right? 

Emma sighed, “Yeah.”

Her mom softly smiled and patted Emma on the head. Emma rose her head to look at her mom's deep brown tired eyes, a little bit confused. 

“I love you, Em.” Her mom said in a tired but kind tone.

“I love you too, mama.” Emma sat up off the ground and hugged her mom.

They both just stayed there for a moment, letting their familial love for each other sink in.  

When they let go of each other Emma’s mom clapped her hands, “Okie dokie, here is the plan for today. I called the school, Ms Chocan, and work. There is no school today because no one wants their kids out with this crazy person running around.”

“Yay!” Emma cheered. 

“Wait, wait, wait!” She held her hands in a pause motion. “And Ms Chocan is busy till later.”

“Fairy Hunt!” Emma cheered louder.

“No! No, Emma! No fairy hunt today!” She sternly wagged her finger. “I have to help work with the search and can not have you running around town today.” She stared into Emma’s round eyes while raising her eyebrows and tilting her heart-shaped head.

Emma sighed and looked away, “Fine.” She said dejected.

“Promise?” Her mom leaned her face closer.

“I promise.” Emma puffed up her cheeks and crossed her arms.

Her mom rustled Emma’s head, “That’s my girl.” She smiled. “Now let’s eat before I have to get ready for work.”

Their morning routine went on, Emma grumpily sat watching cartoons and her mom quickly ate her cereal while keeping a close eye on Emma. Then when the two were done eating Emma’s mom got up and rinsed the dishes before going to her room to get dressed for work, this time taking the remote with her. When she was done, she came out in her usual RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) uniform, the navy blue of her uniform going well with her dark coffee-brown skin. 

She began putting her woolly dark brown hair in a bun before telling Emma, “Okie, I’m off to work and I’m taking the remote with me, so you’re not tempted.” She awkwardly laughed. “Oh, and Ms Chocan will be over later to babysit. Bye, love you.” 

Her mom waved, waiting for Emma to respond, but Emma just waved. Not even bothering to turn to look at her mom. This caused her mom to frown.

“I love you.” Her mom said again before exiting out the front door. 

Emma listened intently as her mom’s feet crunched and crinkled the fallen leaves covering the driveway, the metallic click of a car door unlocking, the rumble and revving of a starting engine, the slow splashing of a puddle as her mom backed the car out of the driveway, and then the vroom as the tires drove out of the cul-de-sac. She waited a few more minutes, still listening carefully. Waiting to see if her mom would come back. Emma waited, completely tuning out the cartoons playing on the TV. Then when she knew the coast was clear, she smiled. A mischievous smile.

“I promised not to go into town.” Emma whispered to herself, “But the forest’s fair game!”