The Fountain Girl

Chapter 18

I stayed at home through the hard and cold weekend, watching the snow blow past my window. Little snow-flake patterns had already intricately found their way onto my window's glass, and snow had piled up on the outside window sill. The rest of my family was off doing their own individual things while I was sitting snugly below my bed covers, Anna by my side, holding up a text book that she was trying hard to understand.

"What does this mean?" She asked me, pointing at a bunch of numbers and symbols on the book.

"It's a quadratic expression," I explained to her, "Look, one, two, three, four!" I counted with her, moving my index finger to each of the four constants in the book as I counted. She ignored my finger and continued counting, "Five, six, seven..." She got lost in the numbers halfway through, taking deep breaths like she was trying really hard to recall them. 

I was teaching her things at home since she didn't attend school, and she was a fast learner, just like I was. Her almond-shaped eyes looked at me like she expected me to teach her all the numbers, so I did, and in two minutes, she already knew how to count to ten.

In the afternoon I baked cookies with her. Although I wasn't particularly into the activity, Anna enjoyed it thoroughly. She turned the dough over and over in her hands when I told her to do so, and added in too many chocolate chips, but that was okay. She also helped me to pat the cookies into even round circles on my mother's baking tray. 

As the cookies came out of the oven a few minutes later, the delicious and  warm cottage-like smell filled the kitchen. Anna started drooling as she looked at the fresh cookies, her hand already reaching out for one. I broke it into smaller bite-sized pieces before feeding it to her.

She grinned and clapped her hands when she swallowed that piece, opening her mouth when she wanted another piece. I had one too and realised that it was the best cookie that I had ever tasted, the rich chocolate taste and the buttery aroma warming my tastebuds. 

At night, we watched one of the CDs that my parents had kept in the basement, the old cartoony Transformers that my father used to watch. Anna gasped and clapsed her hand over her mouth as the robots fought viciously, her other arm clingling around my arm, jumping in shock as an Autobot fired a laser cannon at the screen.

James, my mother and my father were all sitting on the couch, bored out of their minds as they watched the cartoon with us. Eventually, one by one, they left the living room for their own bedrooms, and Anna and I did so too. I ran my fingers through her silky, brown hair as I sent Katie the pictures of me and Anna's day, with the final caption at the end, 'Wish you were here.'