Lilah Tov (NaNoWriMo)

three

please give me feedback on this. i'd love to know what y'all think!! i love this so far, and it's just so much fun to write.

three

           “Are you sure that you put enough sunscreen on?” Eden interrogated, managing to sneak another glob on the fifth grader’s face.

           “Mom, I’ll be fine!” Jacob assured her.

           Eden was about to say something more, but then her niece stepped in, promising her that, “He won’t burn, Eden. He’s wearing a hat, sunglasses, and enough sunscreen to protect him even if took a trip to the actual sun. He’ll be fine.”

           “And what about you, Miss Sara?” Eden bent down so that she was closer to her daughter’s height. “Do you need anymore sunscreen?”

           Sara shook her head timidly, but that didn’t stop Eden from applying one last dollop on the plane of Sara’s nose.

           “Can we go now?” Lilah sighed.

           “Just make sure that my babies don’t burn!” Eden warned.

           “They’ll be fine!” Lilah threw her head back as she groaned the response to her anxious aunt. “And if they do burn, then we can just blame it on Will.”

           “Hear that, Will? My kids’ skin is in your hands,” Asher laughed unhelpfully.

           “Oh, just let the children go already!” cried my mom.

           I wanted to argue that Lilah and I weren’t children, but by the standards of the law, since we were under the age of eighteen, we were still, technically, minors, so the argument would be a futile point. Instead of uselessly debating which age group I was classified as, I took my mother’s words as a crutch, knowing that if anyone else said something, we would be here for another twenty minutes. It was almost noon now, which meant that if we stayed any longer, we would all have to sit down and eat again, thus prolonging our journey even more.

           “Shall we?” I said, gesturing to the inviting door.

           Lilah took hold of Sara’s hand, and the two of them practically skipped out of the air-conditioned house and out into the rough and tumultuous heat. After Eden gave her son the bottle of sunscreen, we were all set to go. I corralled the unpredictable Jacob Green, following behind Sarah and Lilah, who appeared to come to a stop by the edge of our driveway.

           “I don’t actually know where we’re going,” Lilah explained. Which was perfectly understandable, for this expedition happened to be based around the prospect of showing Lilah around, because she had never been here before.

           “Follow us,” Jake declared, leading the way like valiant explorer who had done the route hundreds of times before. But Jake had probably only walked to town once (the rest of his trips were undoubtedly encased in a cooled car), so he, too, had no clue as to where we were headed.

           So, I went along with Jake, mutely guiding him in the right direction, and not down a dead-end or private residence. All the while, Lilah and Sara were rapt in deep conversation about their favorite Disney princesses. Sara was going through her Disney phase, as it turned out. Jake had complained during brunch about having to watch Sleeping Beauty about fifty gazillion (the numbers were totally accurate) times, which “wasn’t fair, because it was a girls’ movie.” Having not grown up with sisters, I didn’t know the pain of having sit through an animated love story, but I still felt sympathy for the kid. Currently, though, Sara and Lilah’s conversation involved the intricacy of how great Pocahontas was but how Cinderella had prettier hair. I thought that I was in the clear, able to let Jake play explorer while I mindlessly auto-piloted my way into town. But then Lilah happened.