Rainbow Tech

Brielle

I headed into my living room, where my parents were watching TV. The speech about getting a job still lingered. I didn't want a job; I was scared.

"Brielle, I made some popcorn." said my mom. "George already has some, but if you can get a bowl I can fill it up and you can take it back to your room." My mom held up a bowl filled three-fourths of the way with popcorn. I went and grabbed a smaller bowl from the kitchen cabinet, and then I happily grabbed some of it. "Why don't you stay out here?" my mom asked as George barrelled past me and nearly spilled my bowl, wanting more popcorn for himself.

"Agh! George!" I slapped him. "Come on, I wanna at least make this bowl get back to my room safely!" There'd been several accidents involving my brother and dishes. The hallways to our rooms were not ever safe.

"Sorry!" he blurted, not meaning it. I just sighed and walked back to my room to finish making the birdhouse I'd built out of shoe boxes. It wasn't much, but I was hoping that I could show it to my dad and eventually get to make it out of real wood.

The rest of the evening was spent in my room, pretty much; I ate popcorn and enjoyed the quiet I got from being away from George, who followed me everywhere he could. I finished up my birdhouse, went to watch the rest of the movie with my parents, then went to bed.

"Sugar, I know this is gonna be pretty annoying to you..." my dad began, sitting on my bed, "but you're fifteen and I think you're gonna need to start thinking about getting a job. You're stuck in your room all day building things, and you never show anyone what you're building...except that Keegan kid. Who is he, anyway?"

"I already told you, he goes to school with me and he's a grade above me, but we're both taking engineering," I explained for the fiftieth time.

"What makes it so hard for you to show things to us, but you can show everything to that boy?" asked my dad.

"I don't know, I'm just...I'm just really nervous about what you'll think!" I blurted.

"And you aren't nervous about what he thinks?"

"...I am a little nervous."

"Sweetie, we'll like every single thing you make. What've you made today?" He stood up and waited for me to find my latest project.

I nervously brought out the birdhouse. "Here it is...It's supposed to be a birdhouse, and I wanted to ask if I could use real wood next time."

"It's great, Brielle!" My dad hugged me after I set the finished project down. "Tell you what, you and I can go make a real birdhouse tomorrow, I've got some guys at the hardware store who'll be happy to sell you some wood for that!"

"Really?! Thank you Daddy!" I hugged him tightly. "Thank you so much!"

"No problem, honey." My dad kissed me on the head and left the room. "Goodnight!"

"Goodnight!" I sighed happily.

I woke up and woke my dad so we could get to the hardware store. The drive wasn't too bad, only a few miles, but too far to walk. My dad greeted all his coworkers and explained my situation; I'd even brought the shoebox model for scaling! Within a half-hour I'd found some wood, and we were headed home.

On the drive back, we had to take another route. I saw a large, gray building with a rainbow-colored "R" on the front of it. People were going in and out, people dressed in light blue, carrying various objects across bricks laid out along the ground, to different areas around the building. "Daddy, look! What's that?" I pointed over to it.