Alexandria

Two

From then on, every night for the next four nights I stayed up and waited by my window. I moved all of my artwork to the floor and about every five minutes or so I would take my pencils away from the paper and just listen, full of hope and praying that there would be a repeat of the other night. At the faintest sign of anything moving I tossed my work aside and I peeped out the window. Sometimes I would stay awake until six o'clock in the morning, and then immediatley regret it the next day when my dad called me down for breakfast two hours later. 

Tonight was the fifth night, and now I was working diligently on a dwarf's beard. It had to be perfect since it was, of course, their pride and joy. Midnight. I stopped drawing, stayed perfectly still and I listened until my head began to ache. Back to drawing. The beard was finished and I began working on his rough, bold facial features. Two. The wind began to pick up outside and the leaves began to dance with the wind, and their soft, soothing song filled my mind. I closed my eyes, leaned my weary head against the wall and listened to the rustle. A few leaves' dance was cut short as they forcefully hit my window, but I didn't even flinch. I knew that that wasn't the creatures, and I wasn't going to get my hopes up this time. 

I heard a teeny scratch on the window, but I was sure that it was just another leaf. There was another huge gust of wind and the leaves  were sent into chaos. The wind whispered a sweet lullaby and I was overcome with a deep heaviness. I opened my eyes in protest, only to have fuzzy vision and fight the weight of my sleepy eyelids. Through half open eyes I glanced at the window. I could just barely make out the leaves dancing once more against my window. Pink leaves, blue leaves, green leaves. It was truly beautiful.

The smell of bacon shook me out of my death-like slumber and I forced myself off of the floor and clambered into our brightly lit kitchen. I squinted at the black pans, then our bright white tile flooring, and back at the pans while I silently cursed flouresent lighting. My dad's thunderous laughter almost made me curse out loud.

"Goodmorning, Champ!" I clamped my hands over my poor ears and groaned as he let out another round of sharp guffaws. He slapped my back and chugged a full cup a coffee, immediatley refilling it and slamming himself into one of our brown wooden dining chairs. He wiped some coffee out of his dark brown mustache with the back of his hand and green. "So, uh, I, uh, went to the post office yesterday, Joshie boy." His eyes were twinkling. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and blinked until all of the stars were gone before responding.

"Yeah?" I flipped the bacon and narrowly dodged a drop of hot oil making a run for it. I shuffled to the sink and began methodically cleaning the pots he was done using with an old white wash cloth and scentless soap. I didn't really care much for cleaning, but I knew that if I didn't do it that it would never get done, because my dad most certainly wouldn't do it. He slapped his legs with boths hands and rocked back in his chair before stomping his feet onto the floor and letting out another chuckle. Now that I was more awake I could see that he was practially glowing. I eyed him suspiciously and slowly put the cooking ware back into the sink.

"You got anything important to do today, son?" I blinked in surprise and wrinkled my brow. All I had really planned to do today was either draw or go "exploring" on our land, but that wasn't news. It was what I did every day, so I didn't really understand why he was asking.

"What?"

"Didn't think so!" In a matter of seconds he was out of his chair and about a foot away from me, just oozing with excitement. "You're gonna hang out with Jaqueline today, okay?"

"Who?" 

"Oh, you know Maria Sanchez's daughter." I did not know, actually. I opened my mouth to protest, but I was cut off before I could even make the beginnings of a sound. "Come on, the Sanchezs are going out of town today, and Mrs. Sanchez didn't want to leave her daughter alone. We bumped into each other at the post office and she told me that she knew I had a polite young man, that could possibly, you know keep her company." He smiled eagerly at me and continued. "I've met her once, she's a great girl, Joshua. She's tall and beautiful, with a sharp mind and a bag full of books. You don't have to marry the poor girl, but I already told her mother that you would spend time with her today. We're going to go pick her up after breakfast today, okay? So you best look decent, alright?" He said I don't have to marry her, but he certainly sounds like he's expecting it. 

He turned away abrubtly and started shoveling our breakfasts onto our plates. Today was definitely going to be an interesting day.