I wrote this for JFW1415's Epic Contest of Mass Proportion. Enter. It ends at midnight whatever your time is.
“Crap!” Eric hissed, rubbing at his eye.
“What happened?” Emily asked, looking up from her coloring book.
Eric held up the peeled orange. “This stupid fruit happened. I wish you would do this yourself.” He chucked the orange at the sink, watching juice splatter out.
Emily stood up, her blue crayon still clenched tightly in her hand. “I think I’ll just go out and play instead.” She grinned and dropped the crayon. Her tiny feet carried her across the kitchen to the back door, opening it wide. “See, look how nice it is outside.”
Eric glanced out the door. Rain. Torrents of rain were falling hard, smoothing the grass down flat. “Em, you’re not going out there. You’ll get all wet.”
“No I won’t.” She reached up into the coat rack. “I have this!” She held up the neon pink umbrella that their mother had bought for her for her last birthday.
Eric shrugged. Emily was seven now, old enough to get into trouble on her own. “Fine, Em, but if you catch pneumonia, I’m not taking care of you.”
In a matter of seconds, Emily was out the door, the pink umbrella opened wide, her blond curls bouncing enthusiastically.
Eric peeked through the window and watched her for a moment. Her umbrella caught most of the rain, letting it drain off into the grass where her fading red tennis shoes left deep dents in the ground. He shouldn’t have let her go out in the rain, but there wasn’t much use in telling her anything.
Eric ripped open the fridge and pushed aside the warped Tupperware containers until her found the half eaten slice of cherry pie he had started on for breakfast. “Pie for breakfast. What would mom say about that?” he whispered to himself and laughed. “Not that she’ll have to know.”
Swiftly, he snapped the plate out of the fridge, the fork rattling on the plate, and walked over to the table where Emily’s coloring book sat open. “Weird book,” he commented, flipping through the pages of circus imagery. Most of them were blank but to the back he found a finished picture.
Emily was always very particular about her coloring. “Always stay inside the lines. Mommy always says to stay inside the lines,” she would chime while she colored. And he had stayed inside the lines, coloring in the clown who was running away from his shadow, petrified. And underneath the drawing she had scrawled out her name in her clumsy hand-writing.
“Colors perfectly but can’t write her name worth a shit. I’ll never understand her.”
He nibbled at the pie and flipped through the pictures idly until he heard Emily struggling with the door handle. He snapped the book shut and walked back to the sink just as she flung the door open.
“Look what I found!” Her voice cracked into a squeak, followed by a hollow thud as she dropped a yellow tabby cat on the linoleum. “Can we keep him?”
The cat crept around the kitchen table, rubbing up against the rusting metal legs. “Hannah, you do remember that you’re allergic to cats, right? You’d be sneezing the whole time you’re near it.”
Emily’s wiry fingers rubbed at her nose. “No I won’t.” She picked up the cat and cradled it like a baby. “I’m going to call you,” she paused and glanced up at her brother, “Eric.”
Eric just rolled his eyes.
Emily sneezed and set the cat down on the table. “There you go, Eric. Do you want to help me color?”
The cat pawed at the book’s cover.
She smiled. “I’m gonna take that as a yes.”
