Assignment 2: Post here!

[Timsup2nothin]

The boy walked into the store next to his sister. They exchanged a few words and went their separate ways. She was mean, he was bratty; another day for a teen-aged girl stuck with the task of watching her little brother. He stalked away to look at toys, but as soon as he was out of sight a wistful look came to his face. She wasn't much, but in many ways she was all the family he had. Their parents were at work, and their daughter was their designated alternate. Two thousand miles away there was an entire clan of aunts, uncles, cousins. His mother was the only one of five children to move far from home.

Next door lived a family with four kids, all older than his sister. Some of them had moved out, but not far, and had kids of their own. The neighbors watched their grandkids frequently, and fondly. Sometimes his sister babysat for the grandkids. Her care for them was different than it was for him, with a sweetness; perhaps because they were younger, perhaps because they were girls, perhaps because they didn't go out of their way to torment her. Most likely it was because the adults involved treated her with appreciation and an open wallet, while her own parents expected her to answer the most egregious orders with a 'yes, sir' and unswerving compliance.

The boy clutched five dollars in his fist. The desert heat and the walk conspired to make his hand sweaty, and the sweat soaked paper took a set of creases. He carefully smoothed the bill and tucked it into his pocket. He did not walk far before taking it out again. He looked at the wrinkles and blinked back tears, and remembered the bill when it was flat, crisp, and new. The crease through Lincoln's face split the bill precisely in half. He had made that crease the first time he put the bill in his pocket. He had agonized over it for what seemed like hours while his sister waited. He had ignored her impatience. She was the one who insisted he bring the money with him to the store. That had been months before, right after Christmas. There had been many trips since.

It had come in a card; red, with Santa in his reindeer drawn sleigh flying across the length of it. The front lifted up to reveal a pocket in the back of the card, with an oval showing the green tinted face, and 'Merry Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa' in black ink, inscribed on the right side of the cutout. The boy wasn't very good at reading flowing script, being more conversant in his own blocky printing, but he could make out those five words. The card waited in a place of honor on the small table next to his bed.

His sister found him in the toy section. He put up token resistance, but really he was ready to leave. After carefully considering all the things he could buy nothing had challenged his attachment to the gift from his distant grandparents. He slid the bill back into his pocket and followed her to the register. Racks of tempting candy and chips guarded the check out line, but he passed them with barely a glance. No momentary thrill of flavor would claim his prize.

He carried a bag of groceries in both hands; across the vacant parcel, where the desert slipped in between the store and their neighborhood; four or five blocks to their street; five houses to pass, then up their driveway. He broiled in the sun. There was no relief, as his sister carried two sacks. He distracted himself with anticipation; smoothing out his precious gift and placing it back in the card. Abandoning the bag to a dining room chair he raced to his room.

The remorseless wind of the desert gives no meaning to the scraps that it tumbles along.

The boy frantically turned out his pockets, then burst into tears.