Riley

Chapter nine: A different kind of Saturday

Five devastating days.

On Monday Riley received the result of her math test: a B with several negative notes. She had miscalculated several times and marked the correct answer; Mrs. Heller seemed offended when she handed her the corrected paper, as well as making her feel like a nobody. Usually, she ignored that viper's harsh comments, but that day they hurt her. She felt sick for the first time since the beginning of sixth grade. She was grateful that Theo reassured her once she was back in her seat.

Tuesday was slightly better, but not by much. Mrs. Towers graded all the work, many A's, a few B's, and one C. Riley and Theo's worl was much criticized: variously colored windows, buildings too close together, and the sky too blue for a normal afternoon. Theo replied almost offended, "We chose to make a city at night, Mrs. Towers. Dark blue is the color of night!" If he had kept quiet, she and her companion would not have been the unlucky ones to get that damn C.

The next day and the day after that, the group of males decided to show their worst, so much so that the entire class earned two good notes within a day of each other.

In fact, on both Wednesday and Thursday, at lunchtime, Helen received a call from Assistant Principal Allen to bring her up to speed on what had happened at school.

On Friday, there was a clean slate of questioning and testing. Riley, Theo and their classmates did their best. As a joke, Theo likened that day to revenge for the riots of the last two days, and his friend agreed with him, since all the teachers had the brilliant - and crazy - idea of fixing everything that day. Old people and sadists too!

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Saturday finally arrived. Riley woke up very early and made breakfast for her parents. It was the first time she had done such a thoughtful thing, she had memorized everything they did for breakfast - drinks, cereals and cookies. Getting it wrong was a distant probability; she had written herself a schedule to best implement her plan. She made her father a cup of hot milk with some chocolate chip cookies, and her mother a cup of latte with a bowl of gluten-free cookies.

Five minutes before 9:30, Riley entered their room quietly with an alarm clock in hand and stood in the middle of the bed. She watched them excitedly, noticed their joined hands and their crossed gazes. They are beautiful, she thought. Then the alarm clock rang and knocked them out of bed.

"I'm awake!" exclaimed Greg shocked.

"Mom!" cried Helen, also distraught.

They looked at each other with terror on their faces for a moment. Without needing to speak they said to each other, "That wasn't my alarm clock!"

"Good morning!" announced a sunny voice.

Still bewildered, her parents turned their attention to the source of their abrupt awakening.

Greg sighed in frustration and brought a hand to his face. Helen, frowning in anger, said her name, "Riley!"

"Here I am!" joked the little girl.

"I was having a good dream," complained Greg, then asked, "What time is it?"

"It's almost 9:40," replied the sunny little girl and walked to the door. "I made you breakfast."

"What?" asked Helen to the little girl, but she was already gone.

"Our daughter made us breakfast," said Greg in amazement, then gave his wife a peck. "Tell me you saw that bulge too."

Helen looked at him intently and returned the gesture. "Yes, I saw it. But I'm waiting for you to ask me, I'm not in the mood to be a detective."

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