Effacing

Chapter 6 : Learning

        My sister and I went to get the door. Outside was a little girl around Breanna's age. I assumed this was Anna. There was another girl, around sixteen years old, which I assumed was Anna's sister.

        "Hello," the older girl said, extending her hand to shake mine. "My name is Savannah. Hi, Crystal"

        I smiled shyly.

        "No need to be shy around me," she said. "Trust me, we're going to be the best of friends."

        Anna came up to me and gave me a hug. "Hello!" she said. "I'm so excited to spend today with you! You seem so cool!"

        "Then what are we doing here just standing!" Breanna said, "Let's go!"

        With that, we went to the living room and my dad walked in with a bag. He set it on the table and started retrieving the things. He took out paper, paint brushes, paint, pencils, and erasers.

        Everyone started grabbing, but before I could get my own materials, Anna insisted on getting everything for me. She got me a pencil, a paper, and an eraser.

        "Here you go," she said. I hated being treated like this. Why can't everyone just treat me normally, like I am normal. I know I'm not, but they don't have to remind me by treating me specially. Breanna and Anna started drawing with their pencils what looked like a flower.

        "What do you want to draw?" Savannah asked. "We could draw something simple, for starters. What about a flower?" There goes the special treatment again.

        "Sure," I said. She grabbed her pencil.

        "Just copy my hand," she said. Ugh, I know how to draw. Whatever. Me telling her to stop treating me differently will just provoke her more. She drew a circle on the paper. So did I. She drew a petal, another. I imitated her delicate hand movements until the light marks of pencil depicted a flower.

        "Perfect," Savannah said, admiring the configuration of a flower. She handed me a paint brush and a pallet of colors."Pick two colors," she said.

         I pointed at a purple and an orange. She dipped her paintbrush into water and into the purple paint. I copied her. Then we synchronously painted the drawn petals purple. We then switched to orange after cleaning our paintbrush. We painted the central pistil of the flower.

        "Like this," Savannah said, "you will be able to learn many things. With your willingness to learn, you will make a lot of progress."

        I smiled at her as my dad walked in. He had a huge smile on his face and was holding I purple gift bag. "This is a welcome home gift. Open it up," he said.

        I grabbed the bag and opened it. Inside was a white, long envelope. I took it out and opened it. Inside were five papers all folded in half.

        "They are plane tickets," my dad said. "We're spending Christmas in Cafifornia! And we have enough tickets for Anna and Savannah to come!" He looked at me, anticipating an excited reaction.

        But I couldn't help wondering out loud, "Wasn't mom coming for Christmas?"