Mily the Millennial

IN DIANA

~ FIRST DRAFT ~ THIS TEXT IS UNDER REVISION!

Mily Junegrass Womack-Yoder was really pretty funny, it's just, hardly anyone ever listened long enough to laugh at what she'd said. She was a middle kid, you see, a shadow-child with a wicked wit gained from watching and listening to everything. Because Mily was plagued by turbers, others' thoughts often drifted off when she was speaking. Mily remembered falling into that wretched turbers' nest with vitriol; reliving every moment was one way she convinced herself (regularly) that her memories were real. That—that they really happened. It was 2001, when Mily's family lived on the moraine...

...we got a good piece 'a land out there, you know Harvest Road? Built a nice house between two, marshy ponds. There's willows and real tall cattails... It's four-and-a-quarter acres, big - treeline separate'n us from the farmer's field—the trees ain't technically ours, but, we let the kids play in the woods anyway...

Oh, right: Mily's thoughts often drifted off when she was thinking, too. Only a few of her friends said that made any sense, but it was enough to help her grin and bear it when fellows frequently forgot they were talking to her and walked off. Mily Junegrass decided early on that she wouldn't let distraction or disinterest dissuade her from finishing a thought. She was often left talking to herself, but that was fine with Mily most of the time.

It was 2001, when Mily's family lived on the moraine. Mily's dad had moved their family there when she was young. Her dad, who was called Dog, got asked to be the project manager for a major restoration milestone: the Great Marsh of Grief was officially solar-powered, which meant all the old gas-electric and steel facilities were going to be renovated. Dog said that meant they'd be made into something new, to serve a new purpose—Dog's job was to grow the grass.

Mily was old for her grade. She was eight the summer she fell into the turbers' nest, but most of her fellow second graders were still seven. Her mother, who was called Bird, always said it never hurt to be a little bit older. Mily agreed with Bird, but she wasn't exactly sure why. She supposed there must be some underlying truth to it that she couldn't put her finger on just yet. When Mily turned eight at the end of July in 2001, she looked forward to starting the next phase of her education at Jackson Elementary School, where Bird served as Principal.

Because of that, Mily Junegrass couldn't get away with much in class. Not that she would have made much trouble anyways, but when the other kids whispered during silent reading, or passed notes when they finished their timed-tables, Mily never participated. Some of her classmates thought she was a goody-two-shoes, but as far as Bird was concerned, that was a pretty good thing to be considered. Luckily for Mily, her two favorite cousins were also in her grade—twins, Eyani and Esa, but Eyani just went by E. The three of them were born exactly a month apart, and Mily had relished standing up on that granite rock, her two tall cousins sitting cross-legged looking up at her, describing the feeling of being eight...

"I don't really feel different, except, I'm not seven anymore. You know?"

Her cousins didn't know because they were still seven, but exactly a month later, they understood too that eight was something they would all grow into that year. On the 20th of August, the three gathered again at the granite rock, which was out in the thin woods behind Mily's house next to a magnificent oak tree.

That was the day she fell into the turbers' nest. Oh yes, Esa and E had witnessed it. And later, when the twins blew out the candles and wished on their birthday cakes, Mily was struck with venomous jealousy—what she would have given to take one of their wishes that night. She often felt badly about that, even years later, but her cousins couldn't comprehend the immediacy of Mily's dread. All she'd done was taken one bad step, and she slipped right on a knobbly root and tumbled forward. Mily fell flat onto a plane of pitcher's thistle that stuck her with what felt like a billion needles.