Amazement

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

***

"Why are we watching this?" Penelope asked in a whiny tone, sounding upset that her brother and best friend refused to acknowledge her.

Carlo and Maddie waited until the show was on a commercial break until they turned to Penelope.

"How can you watch that?" Penelope questioned again. "It's Disney!"

"It's Gravity Falls!" Carlo retorted.

"Only the best cartoon ever!" Maddie crowed, high-fiving Carlo. "Anyway, get out."

"Why?" Penelope pouted.

"We're having guests for dinner."

Carlo shrugged. "Cool, we can eat with the guests."

"No. Go home!" Maddie commanded, shooing her friends out the door.

"Come over after school tomorrow!" Penelope tossed the words over her shoulder as she left the living room.

With a sigh, Maddie ran upstairs to her purple-themed bedroom and changed into skinny jeans and a 'nice' blouse.

"They'll be here any minute!" April called from downstairs, where she was making beef stroganoff with Italian bread and brownies.

Maddie plopped down in her desk chair and logged into her Mac. She was dimly aware of her mother calling her to come down, but she bluntly ignored her, instead scrolling aimlessly through Tumblr.

Her door burst open.

Luke Parkin walked in, and in his arms was Maddie's baby brother.

"What are you doing?" Maddie demanded, snatching Mickey from his arms.

"April sent me up to come get you. And she asked if I could watch Michael," Luke shrugged, flashing a dimpled smile.

"Mickey," Maddie corrected him. "We call him Mickey."

"Like Mickey Mouse?"

Maddie didn't respond, instead laying Mickey down gently in the center of her queen sized bed and returning to her laptop.

"April said dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes."

Maddie continued to ignore him. She could hear him walking around her room, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of turning to see what he was doing.

"Wow," he breathed suddenly.

Maddie's curiosity got the best if her, and she turned in her swivel chair. Unsurprisingly, Luke was staring at her wall picture collage. All her dance pictures, school pictures, family pictures, and photos with Penelope and Carlo were on the wall.

The entire wall, from the ceiling to the floor, was covered in photos. Maddie had begun her masterpiece at the beginning of sixth grade. The entire wall had been covered by the time she'd reached freshman, but she had continued to add photos to the wall, and some were overlapping with others.

"Who's that?" Luke asked, pointing to a picture of Penelope and Carlo, Maddie in between them. The trio was just six years old, though Maddie looked much younger.

"Me, Penelope, and Carlo," she told him.

"Penelope and Carlo? As in the Gregory twins?"

Maddie nodded. "Also known as my two idiot best friends since birth. They just left."

Luke nodded and turned back to the wall.

"So is purple your favorite color or something?"

Maddie smiled. "Yeah. Daddy always told me I was royalty, and purple's the color of royalty."