Silver- Second book

Chapter 1- The Dilemma of Lua de Plada Hernandez

“What’s that one, daddy?” I pointed skywards at the three stars that were aligned into a straight line. As I stared at the constellation longer, I realized that there were two other stars near the end that made the stars form a shape of a spoon.

    “It’s the big dipper, duh.” Sol rolled his eyes. Even without the sun up, his golden eyes maintained their glow like the lamp Daddy bought with us.

    “Don’t be mean to your sister, Sol, or I just may have to give her your ice cream.” Daddy told him. Instantly, Sol’s eyes seemed to shine brighter, and I felt my muscles tense in anticipation.

    “We’re getting ice cream?” I almost shrieked with joy.

    “As long as you two behave.” Daddy smiled down at us, his dark hair nearly blending in with the sky. It was pretty obvious that Daddy wasn’t our real father and neither was Mommy. Both of them had brown skin and black hair while Sol was blonde to the irises. I, myself was just as whitish-silver as Sol was golden. The hospital Mommy and Daddy adopted us from told them that we were fraternal twins, which means that we were born at the same time, just from different pouches in our mother’s belly. I used to feel guilty, calling Daddy ‘Daddy’, because I thought that our real father was supposed to be called that. But, then I always remember that our father had a chance to act like a daddy too, but he decided not too, so it was his own fault, and our mother’s too. Besides, the Mommy and Daddy I have now turn out to be just fine.

    “We’ll behave, I promise. Right Lu?” Sol asked, using his infamous nickname for me.

    “As long you don’t treat me like I’m stupid again.” I narrowed my eyes teasingly at him. Sol gave me a famous grin and pulled me into a brotherly hug, spinning me around in circles so fast, the whole park continued to move even after we remained still.

    “Now, that’s more like it. How do you kids feel like some ice cream now?” Daddy asked us.

    “We’re not kids. We just turned eight, which makes us almost grown up.” I corrected, standing as tall as I could. This didn’t really give me the desired effect, though, because the last time Mommy checked my height, I was only three feet and three inches. Meanwhile, Sol was over four feet already! It wasn’t fair that he got to look natural and tall, while I had to look unnatural and little, but I guess all brothers get annoyingly lucky.

    “Oh, excuse me. Would you two grown ups join me to get ice cream, then?” Daddy asked, holding out his arm like a gentleman.

    “Absolutely.” I answered. Before I took his arm, I got one of those strange feelings inside my head, where it feels like a lot of wind blew inside and made my brain cold, but then I reached into my pocket and pulled out most of the money I saved, forty-one cents. I dropped the quarter, dime, nickel and penny into Daddy’s hand.

    “Honey, you don’t have to pay.” Daddy told me, about to give the money back. I closed his fingers over the coins and moved his hand back towards him.

    “You’re gonna need it. The ice cream is gonna cost us five dollars and forty-one cents. But, you only bought a five-dollar bill with you. The ice cream girl is gonna ask if you have an extra dollar, and you’ll tell her you thought you had two quarters, but you can’t find them anywhere and your face will turn red because you feel embarrassed. You get sad when you’re embarrassed, so I want you to take the money.” I told him. Daddy gave me another of those nervous looks he usually gives me when I’m about to warn him about stuff and picked me up so I would stand on the picnic table.