The Diary of Joy

Me

15. Peace, the year of the Phoenix

Dear Angel,

I have told you a lot about my family and me, how we are now. Still, I haven't told you about a few of the times I got in serious trouble because although my sister's name is Mischief she is not the only one who gets in trouble in our family.

If I am being honest, I have seen my fair share of trouble but most of the time it wasn't my fault. Well, at least I don't think it was my fault and that must count for something, am I right?

Most of the time I would just do something really stupid and give my parents a scare. Okay, I it's usually a bigger scare for them than it looks to me but most of the time it just happens. I don't do anything to stir trouble on purpose.

For example, there was this one time when I thought it would be cool to eat a blueberry by throwing it up in the air and catching it with my mouth. At first, it was funny because I would miss and get hit by the blueberry but then I started getting good at it. I would manage to catch every second one and you must admit that is quite impressive.

Anyway, my success made me confident, so I wasn't paying as much attention as I probably should have and that was when trouble found me. I threw the blueberry harder than usual and I managed to catch it with my mouth but unfortunately for me, it went straight through my throat without me having the time to chew it. Even worse was the fact that it went down the wrong tube.

That was when I started coughing and choking but since I was so young I didn't actually know how to properly cough it up, so it stayed lodged and wouldn't move. Although I was coughing so much that tears started streaming down my face it wasn't getting any better.

I started panicking. I couldn't breathe properly and I had no idea what to do. Dad was next to me, but he seemed as lost as I was. He kept hitting my back hoping it would help me cough it up, which it didn't.

Luckily for me, mom came rushing in from the yard, and she jammed her fingers in my throat and pulled the blueberry out. It turned out that it was stuck in my throat after all, and she was smart enough to realize it.

Still, once she saved my life she started shaking from fear and even my always relaxed dad had some trouble calming down. I guess I gave them quite the scare and that's why I am very careful these days, I don't want them to go through that again. And also choking is no fun.

Anyway, I had a few situations similar to that one, but I was in luck because when you have parents like mine, they are always there to save the day. Well, mom is. Dad is there to panic and then later claim that he helped.

Besides those unfortunate events, there are few that some would claim were my fault. I of course strongly disagree since I feel like my reactions were justified. One is the famous biting incident.

So, Mischief and I were playing and everything was well until we had a small disagreement. You see, we had this small ball that we played with, and we couldn't decide what the next game would be, so we got into an argument.

Since we couldn't agree on how to use the ball I decided to put it aside, in a box and that we would go our separate ways, play something else. But of course, Mischief was too stubborn to let it go.

Instead of just leaving, she tried to take the box away from the table I put it on and not knowing what to do, how to stop her, I bit her. In my defense, it seemed like the best idea at the time. Now when I think about it I realize that I probably could have just taken the box and flew off but still...

Anyway, once I bit her, and she started screaming so loudly that my ears hurt I realized that I would be in a lot of trouble. Scared as I was I decided that the best course of action would be to run away.

Honestly, I have no idea why I thought that. I mean our parents are not THAT strict. They would yell at me, sure. Maybe ask me to apologize and never to do it again. Nothing too awful, but I still ran out of there as fast as I could.

The funny thing was that I was running as if someone was chasing me, but no one was. I ran through our yard and into the forest. Once in the forest, I flew up to a tree then skipped from tree to tree and then went down only to go into a rabbits hole, through the hole and on the other end of the forest.

Now that I think about it I think it was the craziest thing I have ever done, but I was too panicked to think clearly. It was as if my thinking was not working and I just acted on some strange instinct.

It took them some time, but they finally found me and by the time they did they were too scared to be mad at me. I was gone for quite some time, and they thought I might have run away from home. Of course, once they calmed down they grounded me for both biting my sister and running away.

I still claim she is the one to blame. If she hadn't been so hot-headed she wouldn't have been bitten and I wouldn't have been in trouble. Unfortunately, my parents didn't agree with my opinion, so I had to endure my punishment.

Except for that, there was another incident that might be worth mentioning that my parents won't stop talking about. The bloody hands incident, I call it. Mom probably has some more terrifying names for it.

Anyway, about that, it's important for you to have in mind that since the moment I was born I was always much better at flying than at walking. Flying was easy and I could do it graciously and effortlessly but walking, not so much.

Often times I would fall down and get hurt especially if I was trying to carry something while walking. Usually, it wasn't anything more than a scraped knee but one time it was a bit worse. Okay, so mom would probably say a lot of worse but still...

I was out playing on the river bank and I thought it would be a great idea to cross the brook by making a stone bridge. Which in my mind meant putting heavy stones in the brook so that I could skip on them and over the river. Things didn't go as planned.

Because of my clumsiness on foot, I wasn't able to hold on to the stone as firmly as I should have and in turn, it fell down but somehow, even today I don't know how it fell down on my hand. The rock was big enough to make a huge gush on my hand but not big enough to break it.

Still, there was a lot of blood dripping from the wound, so I decided I'd better go home. All the way home I was holding the bleeding hands in front of me for some weird reason so that's why the first thing my mother saw when she came out to greet me, was my bloody hands still dripping blood and my smiling face telling her I got hurt.

So, my dear Angel, that's the kind of trouble I used to get into.

Anyway, I better be off now, I need to help mom wash the dishes or I might be in a lot of trouble.

Your friend, 

Joy