The Lightning Sphere

Chapter 3

Maggie and Sam had been best friends forever. She wasn’t too good at making new friends, so she had very little a school and wasn’t good at trusting people. She didn’t speak what was on her mind much and was pretty quiet. But with Sam it was different. She was louder than ever around him and they did everything together. And now she had lost him. He was gone.

 Maggie tapped her fingers on her knees as she stared out the front seat window, trees blurring by. It had been a while since Sam’s death, and they had to wait a couple of days after for her dad to get out of the hospital and get accustomed to his new wheelchair.

     It was one of those new ones where nobody had to actually push you and you could use a little control pad. Her dad had let her wheel around in the driveway. She was actually pretty jealous of him. But at the same time, she felt sorry for him to not be able to run anymore. Running had brought her so much joy. It surprised Maggie how something so trivial had seemed so important to her in her past.

    They were driving to Maggie’s grandma’s house so they could bury Sam in the same graveyard as their Grandpa. They lived all the way up in Vancouver, so it was about a 10 hour drive from Calgary.

    Maggie was told to only pack what she needed, but she thought that she wouldn’t need to bring too much anyway because she didn’t think she could concentrate on anything else besides her brother’s death.

    Packed up in front of her, she had her dark purple suit case with enough clothes for a couple weeks. She also had a purple back-pack, a laptop case and a small wooden box. Inside the back-pack contained her inhaler, hairbrush and other toiletries. There was also the photo album she had kept from when their family had gone to Hawaii for the summer.

    In the laptop case was her Laptop, and in the wooden box was the small amethyst that Sam had given her the day he died. She never left it behind anywhere. She would either be clutching it in her hand or warming it in her pocket at all times.

    Maggie’s ears suddenly started popping. She had forgotten that her grandma had lived up on such a steep mountain. The last time she had visited was her 8th Christmas, and now she was 11 years old.

    She unwrapped a piece of fruity gum and shoved it in her mouth. Then she tucked the leftover packet into the front pocket of her back-pack. No-one had spoken very much on the way. Her mom had to focus on the road and her Dad was asleep most of the time. That’s basically all he ever did since he got out of the hospital. Besides, they all had one thing on their minds; Sam.

    Soon the steep slope gradually became flat, and a big house came into view a few miles off. The driveway was long, but Maggie thought that Grandma had liked it this way, to avoid door-to-door sales people.

    Grandma had a sizeable yard. There was a blow up pool that she set up every summer. Maggie expected that since it was already September, She would be putting it away very soon. There was also a very large apple tree that Maggie, Sam and all of their cousins would climb up.

    There were other things that the kids would always use. A big green tree house in the tallest tree with a slide as an escape hatch was a favourite, and Grandpa had a couple sheds around the property. But ever since Maggie’s Grandpa had died five years ago, the sheds were always locked and no-one was ever allowed in them.

     Not counting Maggie’s car, there were five others in the driveway as they pulled up. Maggie recognized four of them as their cousins’, but did not know who the fifth one belonged to.

    The van slowed to a stop. Maggie didn’t want to get out. Out of all the family members, Maggie and her parents would be the ones getting the most sympathy.     But that’s not what Maggie wanted. She didn’t want hugs from her cousins. She didn’t want reassuring conversations. All Maggie had wanted was to be left alone.