Seeing Things Through Her Eyes

Chapter Seven - Younger Me Again

I felt someone gently shaking my arm to wake me up.

"Honey, it's time to get up, you have school today," my mums soft voice whispered, drawing me out of my sleep, the same way she used to wake me everyday.

I forced my hazel eyes open to see who was waking me up, it was impossible for it to be my mum. My eyesight was blurry, as if I'd been sleeping for three hundred very slow years. I could vaguely see someone leaning over my bed smiling at me. She had one hand stopping her natural, long brown hair from flicking across my face. The other had was stroking my hair, that was sprawled across my pillow in all directions, to smoothen it out.

"Good morning sweetie, did you sleep well?" She smiled at me kindly giving me a strong feeling of déjà vu.

My eyes adjusted, I was definitely staring straight at my mum, my dead mum. It was completely impossible.

"Mu-mum?" I mumbled, stuck in a slight daze.

"Yes sweetie?" Her voice was so soft, I did my best to hold onto the sound of it. It was a sound I hadn't heard for over a year.

I quickly thought of a question to ask, struggling to figure out if I was dreaming or not, "What day is it?"

"Monday, school starts today after the half term holiday, come on, Izzy will be wondering where you are at this rate," she laughed and walked out of my room, leaving me alone with my thoughts to get read.

I was sure school started three days ago. I could smell my dad's cooking from upstairs. He was making scrambled egg on toast. It was a smell that I learned to recognise from when I was tiny. I missed his breakfasts. No one makes it quite like dad does. The egg melts in your mouth, while the toast is soft but crunchy at the same time. Just the way I like it. I always looked forward to dad's Monday morning special. It was never the same after he died. It made getting up on Mondays more enjoyable and gave us all something to look forward to. The warm smell drifted further into my room reaching my nose and encouraging me to get ready in super quick time. I raced downstairs, half expecting my mind to be playing tricks on me and giving me what I wanted to see or smell not what I actually was seeing. It was the only logical explanation. My brain flashed back to what happened yesterday. Who said it had to be logical after swapping bodies with Izzy for a day?

I dashed downstairs, following the smell like a trained police sniffer dog. The second I walked into my living room the smell got stronger, there was no way my mind was playing a trick as good as that on me. I immediately heard my dads cheerful whistling. It was an old song, one he'd mastered whistling years and years and years ago. He used to whistle all the time. It seemed to keep the house smiling.

"Dad!" I dashed over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck and hung onto him tightly; resistant to let him go.

He paused mid song, "Hey darling, why are you acting like you've not seen me in over a year? I'm still here, I always will be. What have you broken?" he tried to joke.

I swatted him round the head softly, pretending to know some sense into him.

"Dad?"

He carried on whistling, not paying attention to what was burning on the hot stove.

"Dad!" I screamed.

He jumped, "What?"

I pointed to the scrambled egg that was drying out and burning in the pan. He jumped out of the daydreamy position he was in and sprung into action. I laughed as he ran around the kitchen looking to mix some milk and butter into the eggy mess he had made. He stirred it in, letting it soak into all the egg to take out the horrible dryness. I watched as it went from hard, small and dry to soft and fluffy in an instant. Trust my dad to fix it, he always knew how. Even with strange things he knew nothing about, he always could fix it.