The Cube

Chapter One

"Tristan!" my younger sister, Ashie, called up the stairs to me, "You said we'd be going clothes shopping today!"

"Coming!" I called back down. I grabbed the money my mom left on the counter for dress clothes. Our cousin's wedding was in about a week so I needed to buy a nice dress shirt anyway.

After we got to the thrift store I quickly found a white button-down shirt that would fit me. I decided to try it on just to make sure it fit alright and looked okay on me. I looked at my reflection in the mirror of the dressing room I was in. I looked at my short black hair and thought aloud, "I think I need to cut my hair." My dark brown eyes glanced about the mirror to find any errors that I couldn't see in the shirt. I changed back into the orange and grey shirt that I wore to the store and waited for my sister to finish picking out a dress. As I waited, my eyes wandered and something caught them.

It was in a worn cardboard package with the label reading 'Dr. Funko's Magic Cube'. Inside was a Rubik's Cube that had colored foil squares instead of the regular square stickers. Instead of the cube being solved and sealed inside the box in mint condition it was worn, like the box, with the foil stickers peeling up and unsolved. Someone must have gotten frustrated trying to solve it and returned it to the thrift store. I grabbed the Rubik's cube convinced I could solve it. My sister returned to me and she had finally picked out a dress. It was a yellow short sleeved dress with white stripes that was fairly plain and fairly cheap.

After leaving the store with our new clothing in our possession, Ashie and I clambered into our car while she dug through the plastic bag to investigate the cardboard box. " 'Dr. Funko's Magic Cube'? Why did you buy this?" she asked.

"I thought I could solve it," I replied, "It should be pretty easy."

"You could barely pass geometry," Ashie reminded me.

I turned to her and said, "I bet you wouldn't have if you took the same class as me."

"I have," she stared at the puzzle cube, shuffling the pieces while speaking, "I'm taking math classes a grade above my own, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, starting the car and backing out of the parking spot, "I remember." I started driving home with my sister attempting to solve the Rubik's cube. Once we pulled into the driveway I grabbed the Rubik's cube out of her hand and ran inside our house. I dashed to my messy room and leaped onto the bed. I looked up how to solve a Rubik's cube online and began to solve it.