Cherub

I watched her ride off, slightly wobbly because of the extra weight of the groceries. Her dark curls thrashed and bounced all around her head. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to see her again or never again, if I wanted to bury my face in her hair or cut it all off. The parking lot was empty except for a few cars including my own and a middle aged woman with a beehive who had been gazing at me with a strangely knowing look. “What are you lookin’ at.” She rolled her eyes behind her cat eye glasses and passed me to enter the store. I turned around and I followed suit. I started to walk down the canned vegetable aisle where a couple of boys my dad hired for summer work were still cleaning up what had been ground zero. As I walked past the two boys showing obviously no intentions of helping them, I felt the slight slipping feeling of something under my foot. I crouched down to pick up what appeared to be a bit of trash, probably someone’s discarded grocery list.
I don’t know what compelled me to read it exactly, but I did.

It was someone’s check list for a “secret adventure”, written on the back of a torn envelope. It looked like a little kid’s camping list. The list read tent, lantern, sleeping bag, non-perishable food items. For some reason, the list seemed oddly familiar. “Kristofferson, wait!” The second I heard my mother’s frantic voice, I turned and started to walk in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. “ Kristofferson Scott, don’t you walk away from your mother! I carried you for nine months!” I reluctantly stopped and turned. “Please tell me that poor girl hasn’t left already.” Her blue eyes as always were filled with worry. I furrowed my eyebrows. ” She left about five minutes ago mom.” She threw her hands up in defeat. “ I forgot to give her these.” She opened her small palms to reveal two tasseled ear plugs. “Well, she left her tent, she’s coming back, I can give ‘em to her tomorrow since you’ll be at Aunt Pat’s.” She put them in the small pocket my apron had on the chest and patted it. “Good boy.”Then she retreated towards the back of the store. Suddenly, it made sense why the list seemed so familiar. The tent, lantern, sleeping bag, it was her list. I took the list from my pocket and slowly flipped it over. In the upper right corner of the ripped piece of paper was an address.

You know when something comes up and instead of being an idiot you do the most practical thing and move on? Well I’ll just tell you now that I did the exact opposite of that thing.

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