That day when Michael got home, he realized how happy he was that there was only a week and a day of school until summer vacation. He pulled the large stack of textbooks out of his bag and decided to get started on his homework, but before he could get far, he heard Grace's school bus pull up outside the open window. He rushed to the front door, knowing Grace wouldn't be allowed off the bus if the driver couldn't see a guardian was there to take care of her.
"Hi Mikey." Grace skipped up the path, her usual jovial smile covering her face.
"Hi." Michael smiled as Grace wrapped her arms around his legs. Grace was rather small for her age and Michael, at over six feet tall, was easily three times her size. He always wondered how the pair looked to others. Quite a comical duo, he assumed.
"Guess what I'm becoming when I grow up?" Grace asked as they entered the house. She was something of a child prodigy. She had a larger vocabulary than most people three times her age, could count almost to one hundred and read fluently.
"What?" Michael found that he was almost excited to hear what Grace had come up with now.
"A seismologist." She stated proudly.
"What's that?" Michael sat back down at the kitchen table and reopened his chemistry textbook.
"A scientist who studies earthquakes and similar phenomena." Grace began digging through her Dora backpack.
"Where'd you learn phenomena?" Michael smiled.
"The dictionary. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get my homework done." Grace pulled out a butterfly colouring book and a box of crayons and flipped to a random page.
"Did your teacher tell you to do that?" Michael asked.
"No. I assigned it to myself. I'm going to need practice for when I'm your age and I have to do all that." Grace gestured to Michael's textbooks and stacks of paper.
Michael nodded and looked back down at his homework. In a few minutes, Grace's four year old attention span expired and she jumped down from her chair, walking to the kitchen.
"Mikey," Her little voice called once she had arrived. "Can you cut me an apple?"
"You can't cut it yourself?" Michael looked over to see her standing next to the counter. She gave him a pointed Are you kidding? look.
"Okay, fine." Michael stood up.
As he cut up an apple for his sister, he kept looking over at her expectant face. Her hair was sticking up in all directions, her bright blue eyes aglow, and Michael felt a strong longing flood through him that he had never experienced before. He could barely remember a detail from his life when he had been that age, but he knew that he had always been rooted firmly in the moment, never thinking further ahead than a description of that nights dinner. Life had seemed unbelievably long then, and an adventure at every step. Now, his life was completely mapped out in front of him: The rest of grade ten, grade eleven, grade twelve, get into college, get a good job, start a family. Everything had a schedule. Everything was planned out. No more heat-of-the-moment decisions.
It wasn't fun looking so far ahead. Nothing was a mystery anymore. Life had lost it's spice, it's secret ingredient.
As Michael handed Grace her apples, he wished as hard as he could for something out of the ordinary to happen. Something crazy.
If only he hadn't wished so hard.
Maybe then his wish wouldn't have come true.
Sorry this was a short chapter, but chapters will most likely be kept short in this story. I will try to update often, though. Thanks for reading!
Loser_Luke
