Magpie

The finger

Written for the 'Summer Mishaps' contest held by FoodKart

Prompt: Someone left the freezer open.

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"Can you get more ice?"

Emily sported a hopeful grin on her face. Her small frame was perched primly on the edge of her foldable chair, legs dangling. A handwritten card on our table read—Emily's lemonade stand. Lemonade $1, water 50c.

"Don't we have enough ice?" I countered. The sweltering heat of the mid-morning sun was making me lethargic.

A jogger turned the corner and into our street. He was heading right in our direction.

"We don't have enough ice for him," she said, her lips folding into a cute pout. "Pleeeease?"

I sighed. Who could say no to that face?

I pushed myself off my chair and stretched. My soul was seventeen, but my back was thirty. I stepped into our house and quickly closed the door. Oh, sweet shade!

I was just about to head to the fridge, when I spotted it: a small red drop, perfectly circular and sitting innocently on our wooden floor. I found another one not far from the first. And then another. And another. A trail of them led to the kitchen... where somebody had left the freezer wide open. A stream of water found its way to the bottom of the fridge, where a puddle grew ever larger.

"Oh, man," I muttered, being careful not to step into it. I peeked into what was left of the freezer. All our frozen vegetables were now just regular vegetables, and amongst them sat a pack of half melted ice cubes. I grabbed it right away.

The tip of a finger, wrapped in a ziplock bag, surfaced from underneath it.

I let out a yelp, dropping my bag of ice in the process. It thumped wetly as it landed on the floor.

My phone rang just then, snapping me out of my shock and disgust. Caller ID read Mom.

"Why is there a finger in our freezer?!" I yelled, waiting for no pleasantries. I involuntarily glanced up at it. A bead of water glistened from the nail.

"Yeah, so about that," she began sheepishly. "Your dad cut his finger off when he was making lemonade for Emily. We had to rush to the hospital and didn't have time to tell you. I didn't realize we left the cut off bit at home..."

"And now you want me to get it for you?"

"Please, Carly? I can't leave your father here,"

"Mom, you left the freezer wide open. Everything's melted. I don't think you can even use the finger anymore,"

Silence at the other end.

"Well," she said finally. "Then can you tell your dad that he'll have to live with nine and a half fingers for the rest of his life?"