Mia

Song: I ain’t goin’ By peggy suave

“Choo!”

Brysiese looked up from her book of spells to give me a tissue. “You alright Mia?”

I sniffled into the tissue. “I think someone is talking about me.”

“Or you have water up your nose,” Bry said. “You just got out of the shower after all.”

I sat next to her on my bed as she copied down a spell into her notebook. Her long bangs were pulled back from her face with a banana clip so she could read better and she was wearing one of my shirts and a pair shorts.

“Whatcha doin’?” She continued to work without a word.

“Brysiese~” I sang.

“What?” she mumbled.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“I’m studying.”

I flopped on my bed and gave a dramatic groan. “But you’re always studying at my place! Why can’t you do anything fun with me?”

She looked up from her book just to give me a long bored stare. “I turned you onto a cat last week.” and back down to the book she went.

“But it’s not the same!” I whined. “I wanna get ice cream!”

“Then go get some.”

I rolled over and hugged her hip. “Come with me, I want my best friend!”

“Either go get it yourself or the next thing I turn you into is a cockroach!”

Sighing in defeat, I crawled off and ventured down to the living room to find something to eat. Knowing Bry, she’s gonna be a few hours.

“Hey mom?” I called when I got close to the door. “Do we have anymore ice cream in the freezer?”

“What do you mean he’s back?” I heard a whisper.

“Your sister called me earlier saying she saw a guy lurking around the shop,” I heard Thel say.

“So it could be someone else! It doesn’t mean it’s him!”

“But you need to have it as a possibility Mal!”

Wow, that’s the first time I’ve heard Thel say mom’s name in years. It must be something serious. I started to sneak backwards to the stairs when I heard mom say, “Her father isn’t coming back! It’s his fault with what happened to her brother!”

“Mal, calm down! Freaking out isn’t going to do anything.”

Dad? Why is mom talking about him?

“It’s his fault Eddie is dead!” mom sobbed.

I snuck back to the door and peeked around, trying to get a glimpse of what’s going on. Thel was holding mom in a hug as she sobbed into her chest. Thel had a forlorn look on her face and stroked mom’s head while she herself had a few tears in her eyes.

“It was nothing you could do Mal,” she said. “You didn’t know what he was capable of.” Mom continued to sob.

This might be a good time to go back to my room. I quietly turned around and tiptoed back to my room, lightly closing the door as I went in. I rushed to Brysiese who was still studying and pulled the book away.

“Hey! I was using that!”

“Brysiese, mom is crying.” I whispered.

She raised her eyebrow at me with a frown. “Did she watch another movie about dogs? And why are you whispering?”

I shook my head. “She was talking about my dad and someone named Eddie. I don’t want her to hear me if she comes up.”

“What about your dad?”

“Something about him being back and how he’s responsible for what happened to Eddie. She seems really shaken up about it.” I sunk down onto the floor. “What if he did something to him?”

Brysiese laid down to get closer to me. “Who? You dad?”

I nodded. “What if he killed that kid?”

“Whoa Mia, don’t start putting ideas in your head. That’s my job.” she joked.

I glared at her with a frown. “This is serious Bry! Mom is really scared!”

She shrugged and flopped onto her back. “It can’t be all that important if she never mentioned it to you. I mean, they share everything with you.”

“So you think I shouldn’t ask them about it?”

“I mean if your mom is crying like say she is, then yeah. Just wait until she wants to say something.”

“Yeah, I guess.” We sat in silence for a few seconds before an idea popped into my head. “Hey, Bry are you done studying?”

“For now. Why?”

“You remember when you turned me into a pig?”

She squinted her eyes at me in suspicion. “Yeeeeaaaaahhh….”

I grinned. “Do you think you can make the same thing?”