UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #1)(15)

It took Mina fifteen minutes to ride to the Carmichael’s house on her bike from school. It took Mina an hour to walk home from the Carmichael's. She was tired, sore and grateful that the rain had stopped shortly after sixth period. She couldn’t imagine making this walk home in the rain.

Mrs. Wong spotted Mina walking past her restaurant and she called out to her. “Woo Hoo! Meeenha. I seen you in pahper today. You beeg celebrity.” She walked out bobbing her head holding a newspaper with a picture of Mina splattered across the front page.

The paper was from this morning before the assembly and since they didn’t have any photos of Mina when they ran it, they used Mina’s high school yearbook picture. Mina grabbed the paper and stared at it in shock. It was the worst photo of Mina in school history. Mina remembered that horrible school picture day. Mina had attempted to wear makeup, even put her hair in rollers so it would look like Savannah White’s and had tried to wear something other than her signature hoody, but the fates were against her that day. Sara got a flat tire so Mina had to ride her bike, and it had rained. Mina’s makeup, curls and clothes were drenched for the photo shoot.

“Oh no!” Mina grabbed the paper and crumpled it up. “Has my mom seen this?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Wong smiled proudly. “I show her as soon as she got home. See!” she pointed to the front window of her restaurant where she had diligently cut out the pictures of Mina’s face and had made a collage as a giant display. “I advertise we have big star, living above us. Good for beeznis. I bought every pahper from store for miles.” Sure enough there were five stacks of newspapers piled neatly against the red and gold door. “Everyone that eats here tonight gets complementary free sample and pahper. Beeznis is dooming.”

Mina groaned and handed the paper back to Mrs. Wong. “You mean booming?”

“Thaht’s wat I said, dooming.” Mrs. Wong smiled, her eyes disappearing behind her cheeks.

Mina trudged up the stairs and unlocked the door to their flat. The neat and tidy apartment looked as if a storm had blown through. “MOM!” Mina called out. Worried something had happened.

Sara tore out of her bedroom with armloads of clothes and a wild look in her eye. She dumped them into an open suitcase on their kitchen table and turned and pointed at Mina. “YOU! GO PACK!”

“Mom, why? What’s going on?” Mina cried frantically.

“Don’t you Mom me.” Sara looked panicked. “Do as I say, we are leaving.” She flipped the lid on the suitcase and zipped it. Mina grabbed the suitcase from her mother and they tugged on it until Mina won.

“No, I’m not packing unless you tell me why?” Mina argued.

“Mina, we have too. It’s for your own good.” Sara’s eyes were red rimmed from crying.

“That may have worked on me when I was younger, but not anymore. Charlie will listen to you without arguing, but I won’t. What’s good for me is to stay here. I have friends, well a friend.” For a split second Mina actually decided that moving across country wouldn’t be such a bad idea anyway, after the terrible last two days. But one look at the nervous wreck her mother had become in such a few short hours gave Mina the determination and strength she needed to make it through whatever disaster was about to unfold on them.

“You are still my daughter and you will listen to your mother.” Sara turned on Mina and put her hands on her hips, trying to instill whatever authority she could into her voice to sway her stubborn teenage daughter.

“Yes Mother, I will listen to you gladly, and do whatever you tell me to, AFTER you explain why we are moving.” Mina was an obedient daughter but she was also old enough now to shoulder some of the burden that plagued her mother. “Tell me why we keep running. I can help. Don’t you think I need to know?” Mina pleaded.

Sara’s eyes closed and her shoulders dropped toward the floor as if they carried the weight of the world, or at least one teenager. “I told you, it’s for your own good.”

“Is this because of the newspaper article? About what happened on the field trip?”

Sara didn’t say anything. Her silence was the only answer Mina needed.

“It’s because I saved someone’s life isn’t it.” Mina challenged. It was starting to make sense; a click went on in her brain that connected the pieces together. “You always discouraged me from trying out for sports, and clubs. You encouraged me to not stand out and try to fit in, to not get noticed, to be a loser. You always feared something terrible would happen to me, but that wasn’t all of it was it?”

Charlie walked into the kitchen with a small blue leather suitcase and began inserting his most prized possessions; bubblegum, baseball cards, his rock collection. From a distance, there didn’t look to be any item of actual clothing or shoes. Ignoring the discussion between his mother and sister, Charlie pandered around the kitchen and began to pack up his cereals.

“But I finally accomplish something. I do something great like save a life and for one day I’m a hero. Granted I hate being in the limelight and the center of attention but that’s it, isn’t it. You were afraid for something like this?”

Sara sighed and collapsed down onto a kitchen chair. She rubbed her small hands over her face in anxiousness. “Yes. I was trying to keep you from greatness.”