The Fountain Girl

Chapter 3

"What is that...?" James asked with a hint of hestation, like he was staring at a new animal he hadn't witnessed before.

"If I get up, will you hit me again?" I asked back.

"Tell me what that is, and then I'll reconsider."

"Not before you promise that you won't hit me for the rest of the week." I tried to keep the confidence in my tone.

"...Fine." I stood up and put Anna next to me. "Her name's Anna. Found her two blocks down in the middle of a kidnap. So I saved her. And I'm gonna ask mom and dad what to do."

"Of course you saved her from a man twice your age." He added in sarcasm.

I ignored and nodded at him curtly like he was a stranger and stepped right into the house, Anna's hand in mine.

Since my parents wouldn't be home for another hour, I brought Anna up to my room and let her play with some of my toys from back in kindergarten. She picked up the pink power ranger from my power rangers collection.

While I changed and bathed, she must've crawled to my study desk and grabbed a pencil and paper, because when I came out of the shower she had already drawn a misshapen lump with four sticks for limbs and a thick, black line for a visor on the back of my math homework. I assumed she was drawing the pink power ranger. And I didn't like math anyway.

I had already figured out how I was going to break the news to my loving and understanding parents by the time dinner ended. As I trudged down the stairs towards the dining room alone, I ran my lines through my head once more.

Three minutes later we were tucking in to beef stew.

"So, how was work, dad?"

The stereotypically slightly obese and white-bearded man that was my father replied, "As usual."

"Mom?"

"Indifferent." Everyone seemed calm so far, except for James, who was obviously nervously drumming his fingers on the table.

I glanced around the table once before moving into phase two.

"So mom. Dad. What if... Let's say... We had another living thing in the house. A dog, perhaps. How would we cope with that? Just curious, of course." I said, a little awkwardly.

A short pause.

"There's a random question. I suppose I would be okay with it." My mom said, to my relief.

"I think it would be a wonderful idea. Having something new to take care of and love, just what this family needs! I love pets!" My dad exclaimed, chuckling and staining his beard with stew. I almost sighed with relief.

Phase three.

"Now, let's say we have another child in the family. How about that?" I asked, smiling to ease the tension.

"Er... I don't think so, your father and I are too old to do this sort of thing," my mother said, eye-smiling at my father, who did the same.

Even though phase three kind of didn't go as plan, it was finally time for phase four.

"Wait here," I told the rest of my family, before dashing up the stairs to fling my door open, scooping Anna up from my bed and hurrying back down.

"Tada!" I exclaimed not-so-exuberantly as I turned the corner to show my family Anna, who was turning the pink power ranger over and over in her hands.

I felt like laughing when I saw my family's faces. My dad's eyes were wide open and his ajar mouth was barely visible under his tangle of a beard. My mom had put her hands on her cheeks and had the same general ridiculous expression on her face on my dad, only even more intense. James had his chin down on the table already, looking at me and slowly shaking his head at me, like I made a mistake.

Oh dear.