The Enchanted Ruby

The Ball

Then the rest of the day continued until lunch recess. That was when things went wrong. All the balls were taken except for one red ball that seemed to be made out of polished rubies. But the weirdest thing was that nobody seemed to notice it, and none of us remembered it being there before. But Carter just shrugged and picked it up as if nothing was weird about it.

"Come on slowpokes! The last one on the baseball diamond is a rotten tomato!"

He was grinning I realized with a jolt. Carter hadn't even joked or smiled since our parents had died.

"Coming!" I called. I couldn't help wondering why he would be so happy though. Suddenly I got this feeling that something bad was going to happen. Everything just seemed too similar to my dream. We're wearing the same clothes we were in my dream and now we're playing with this mysterious red ball that looked like it was made of rubies. But that's crazy, right? There's no way that I could have dreamed about the future for months. Carter just seemed too eager to follow his dream. It was almost like he wanted the dream to happen. But despite my doubts, I couldn't help wanting to try to keep Carter happy. I mean if Carter was happy wasn't that all that mattered? Besides, I told myself Kendra, Dexter, and Zoe aren't so bothered otherwise they wouldn't be so easygoing and playing catch with carter already.

"Come on Levi!" Kendra said laughing at something that Dexter had whispered in her ear.

"Coming!" I shouted back at her.

Soon we had a game of catch going and I couldn't help but relax. It had been months since we'd had so much fun together. So what if I'd had a dream about this? Everything was fine.

I had no idea how wrong I was.