The Outsiders: Before My Time Part III

When Cleaning Turns To Time Traveling

Goldie Curtis's POV
June 5, 2038

You're going to think I am insane. Perhaps I am, but it does not take from the fact that this actually happened. I'm old enough to recognize the difference between reality and fantasy, so I refuse to be told that this is just my imagination or a dream. If it was a dream, I certainly would not have my little siblings in it with me.

Nothing got passed my parents. Not even sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to a party. I thought I was successful until I got home and snuck back into my room. I thought I was in the clear, but I opened my bedroom door to see that I was face to face with my mother. She was standing on the other side. She had her fluffy pink robe on, arms crossed, and her foot was tapping in disappointment.

I tried to turn around but my father was standing right behind me. All he said was, "hope it was a fun night because you won't be having one of those for a while."

That's how I got stuck cleaning the attic.

Candy was as sweet as her name. She is the most like my father. Very caring, lovable, and optimistic. That's one thing I admired about my little sister. But she can be annoying, as all little sisters are. She was sent up to join me in cleaning the attic when my parents found out that she lost $20 that they gave her for lunch. I think it fell out of her pocket on her way to a friend's house, but they wanted to give her a lesson on responsibility.

The youngest, Red, could be a little hot head. He's got some spunk that I often find hilarious. His hair was naturally red, to match his fiery personality and name. He got into some trouble for cheating on and still failing a math test, so up to the attic he went.

It really doesn't matter how we all got there, but we all sat together in that dusty attic to clean it. Pops says that it should take us the whole weekend. Already it was miserable, and just as interesting as it sounds. There was just garbage up there and junk that my parents never threw away. It was not going to be duck soup.

Candy has always had a knack for enjoying antiques. Once when we were on a road trip as a family, she made us pull over to an antique store. She ended up buying a vintage smart-phone. By some miracle, it turned on for about five seconds before never coming back to life again. Mom said we had to charge it, using something called a cable. She showed us the hole where the charger would enter the phone. I thought that was so strange. How did my parents live through such caveman times?

Candy was having a blast, going through our parent's old stuff in the attic. This probably wasn't the kind of punishment my parents were hoping to achieve. There were lots of dusty photos with my folks growing up together in Tulsa. They were high school sweethearts. Candy kept trying to show me, but I really didn't care to see. I've seen them all before and I just wanted to clean the attic and get out of there. If we do a good job, I'm hopeful that Mom and Dad will let me out tonight if I come home by my curfew. If I wasn't so busy trying to clean the attic, I probably would have been a little more intrigued on how much Tulsa has changed over the past few decades.

"Here's a photo of Grandpa Two and Grandma Lily!" Candy showed me the photograph.

I took it and didn't look at it for too long, I've seen this picture before. It was taken sometime in the late 1960's or early 70's, they're standing together in front of a house. Grandpa Two had these thick sideburns he kept his entire life, and Grandma Lily had her natural blonde hair curled and pinned out of her face. They're our great-grandparents on Mom's side. I'm not sure if they were married at the time, but Grandpa Two has a wide smile on his face while Grandma Lily is in the middle of laughing at something he said. They look so young and happy.