Chapter 24: I... WAS SO BRAVE!

I'm Narrie Trish Middlecreek and I am... Mostly partially convinced that my grandparents have haunted my make up birthday party circus!

Anyways..! Where's this aroma..! Sigh... Momma Lauri still has some of her clown makeup and and the coffee smell is in the air and... Maybe I'm just tired but I feel like a whiny little kid..!

Basically, if you don't know the context... My party just ended and well... I'm 11 now, and I'm too old to take a nap!

(Picture of kitchen with Momma Lauri still having some of her clown costume on as she's making coffee..)

"So..." I was really good, I mean like, I didn't even slur my words at all so..! I put on the cuteness and smiled, "Can I have some? I was a really good girl!"

"Uh huh." Momma Lauri said sarcastically and well... There's this thing about geeks... They speak "geekanese", basically, there's this rumor of micro subcultures in the bigger schools...

And well, I honestly don't know if she meant, 'No.' or, 'It's not like your going to sleep tonight anyways... So..!'

"And um..." Well, I thought it best to make up a really quick good reason why I need an after circus birthday party pickup loaded with caffeine and sugar and...

She's getting out the spices!

"And," I told her because Momma Laurie who's coffee is so much better than any energy drink that I've ever had and said..! "You were really proud of me!"

Well... Sh did not budge! No, instead she put me on the spot by squinting her eyes!

"And uh..." I started to sit down and tell her that, "I really want to share something with you." AH! that spicy aroma that you constantly insist that the recipe has been passed orally for generations.

That means by talking, like... NOT EVER WRITTEN DOWN!!!

I took a good look at Moms back and told her, "Sometimes you say that it's okay to have coffee to help me before I spill the beans and tell you guys something important that's on my mind so..."

She just turned around and broke up the dust from the afternoon sun and asked, "What's on your mind Honey?"

"I'm tired..." I... Okay... I just thought I saw some of that glowing fairy magic dust swimming around Mommas hand, but like, I thought that magic was all just make believe... Yeah, just like ghosts. "Never mind, it's nothing."

(Picture of coffee aroma and dust particle glowing.)

"Well..." Momma Laurie laughed as she spun the golden glowing dust around with her arm and told me, "Whether you need it or not, "everything will be better if you reach for the stars." then she took another mug down for Momma Kate and told me that, "You two have proven that to me."

(Picture of Grammy Trisha reaching out her hand into the dust glow and blowing it as grampa Middlecreek waved to her.)

"I..." Umm... Grampa Middlecreak just opened the kitchen door and waved to my imaginary Grammie Trisha..?

"I coulda' sworn..." He just mumbled and... Okay, this is getting way too weird for me to wait for coffee... I mean..!

"I..." Imaginary grammie just swirled that golden dust and smiled at me like.. Like...

"Yeah!" Momma Laurie broke up my nonsense thoughts by telling us, "That was one of Mom's things, she always told us that, "Not only will everything will be okay, but things will get even better if you keep trying and reach for the stars..."

I looked at the cloudy apparition that looked like her and I even thought that I heard a voice that sounded like the home videos that Lauri showed us tell me, "Not only will everything will be okay, but things will get even better if you keep trying and reach for the stars..."

Okay..!

"You know my new name right, Trish?" I looked at Momma Lauri, who's probably going to think I'm crazy but... "Well... I saw her. Grammie, I saw her before I even met you!"

Momma Lauri she seemed okay with that so..! I completely spilled the beans! I mean, I just couldn't take it anymore! "I saw you after school at the diner, and then I had a dream about Mom and then I saw you again and you waved and I thought that, "Mom might get a new friend! Because..."

Momma Laurie smiled at me and... "Because in my dream, Granny Trisha told me that you were going to help Mom be less lonely."

"And then!" I was so proud of myself and poured myself a cup of that liquid energy and told Momma Laurie my deep dark secret..! "the next day I saw you and mom laughing and imagined that grammie Trisha, I didn't know it was her back then, but she and Grampa Alexander were peeking through the window and pointing and laughing and..."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

What's wrong? Momma Lauri bit her lip and is looking around and...

There I was, holding my breath because I really didn't know if I just messed up and made Momma Lauri really mad at me or sad, but... I just wanted her to look at me!

(Picture of Momma Lauri clown with tears in her eyes..)

Well...! After she smiled at me, I went to get a photograph from the refrigerator and said, "I know it's probably just all the stress going on! But I would really like to get to know them a little better..." Momma Lauri just took my hand and asked, "You know what this means?"

"What?" Umm... Like, I don't know, I'm tired? I'm crazy? I'm hallucinating and have something wrong with me that combined with an overactive imagination and the fact that... I have no clue?

"Kate." Laurie laughed and told Mom,"We might not last forever."

Okay... That's the second time they've joked like this... IN FRONT OF ME!

I know that I'm probably blowing things out of proportion but... It's all my fault, I should NEVER have mentioned Granny Trisha, I just thought, since it's my middle name now, I mean...

Well... She just took a sip and I am getting kinda scared that she might be going back on her promise... I know that Momma Lauri gave me this locket to help me remember that no matter what, we'll be family but... What if she's lying?

Mom said that people lie.

I slid open the locket and held my expression while my heart cringed for the really, really bad news...

"Oh Narrie, it's nothing bad." Lauri said like... "It's just one of them signs you know."

'So... You're not breaking up?' I want to ask them sometime, I want a clear answer before I go to bed. So instead I watched her pour coffee and asked, "Just a sign?"

"Mm-hmm." Momma Laurie poured in some creamer and sighed.

"Okay... You... You do want me still in your life right? I mean! You gave me this locket and promised!"

"Oh sweetheart, it's just that well... You know my brother?" Then she looked at Mom and said, "You know how we thought she helped Jarrod and Amber get together too."

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with Amber!" Mom got all defensive and now they're "talking" again, the exact same way that scares me! " Amber is a really good parent and Jared's best friend."

"Exactly," Momma Lauri gave Mom a kiss, and then well...

I guess I was over reacting... So I made a foam heart in my mug and I... I think I'll give it to Grampie.

"Hi Grampie!" Grampa Middlecreek works at the hardware store and is helping us get some other rooms all fixed up so that we can be a real bed and breakfast! "Here! I made you some coffee."

"Thanks Hon." I gave it to him and some of my cloudy heart still almost looked like something, and guess what..! "WOW! You're expanding your abilities!"

(Picture of Narrie's latte art.)

"It's a garden, but then I messed it up so I tried to fix it into a heart and I messed that up too but it should be okay."

"Well..." He set the coffee down and, "Ready for for our handshake?"

Basically? We modify it almost every week and see who gets the moves in the correct order first.

First we had a high five. Then we spun around, tapped each others shoulders and gave each other a hug!

And well, afterwards he helped a tired kid stop thinking that the world is falling on their shoulders. Me, I'm the tired who who had a nightmare 3 days ago about the circus tend falling down on my head!

"You know," Grampie told me, "there's a lot of people who love you, and everything really will be okay, otherwise, what am I making a nursery for?"

I... What? Nursery? Like... A..!

Anyways...

"Narrie Honey, I really want to let you know what surprised me," Momma Laurie took a deep breath and brought me a mug to help me make my own creamy concoction and said, "Granny Trisha told me where I could find a really good friend too, in my dreams. But I thought that it was just my imagination."

She helped me fill up the mug with some whipped cream and explained, "But what surprised me was that if she was in your dreams too, then maybe it wasn't... Just a dream."

(Picture of Grannie Trisha nodding a smile behind Momma Lauri.)

"Really?" Momma Laurie just told me that it's okay to think that imaginary Granny might not be just imaginary. "Then like... Maybe she can help me in middle school? Oh yeah, since she's haunting this place, she can help me clean!"

"Ha ha ha." Momma Laurie put a cherry on top of my whipped creamy spicy cocoa and told me, "In my dream, Mom and Dad, Granny Trisha told me where I could safely open my heart up to a couple of really great people..."

Well... My nose was in the whipped cream and then she tells me that???

And then she looked directly at me. Meaning that she challenged me to a game of blink 1, 2, 3...

"I love you."

(Picture of blink 3...2...1... "I love you.")

You see, after my parents got engaged, Momma Laurie taught me this really mean game. She told me that I "don't need to mean it, but it's still sometimes fun to say it..?"

"Okay..?" I remember asking, "Umm... Say what?"

"Well!" Momma Laurie was trying so hard to be exciting back then... And "If we both say the phrase I'm thinking about at the same time, we can have a ditto flavored cookie!"

"What's a ditto flavored cookie?" I really wanted to know? I mean...

"It's two of a kind, a copy, a..." She pointed her finger to me and said, "I'll have whatever she's having."

Well... Now when we say it at the same time, it feels kinda special you know?

ANYWAYS.

"I love you my little acrobat!" Momma Lauri reminded me that this is my forever home and I don't really need to worry, "and I love your mom and I love knowing that everything really is..."

"Yeah!" I answered quickly because I know how that emotional stuff sometimes bugs her, I mean... Today is a happy day! "And you know..." I looked around at all of my family and said, "I love my new middle name too."

'And all the changes we're making? Like growing up? Or going into middle school without Sunny?'

Sorry... Those thoughts were actually NOT supposed to pop into my mind!

"WELL..." Momma Kate yawned, "I hope you like your make up birthday missy because this not so little adventure is going to ruin my sleep for months!"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

That's the great Kate. The person who I am always going to love even when she does gets mad at me for real and... Like when I forget that I gotta sometimes remind her that I do.

In fact... Care?

Well... I remedied that by running up to her, accidentally made her spill her creamy sleepy time tea, and then I reminded the person who gave me the best make up birthday party in the whole world that! "I love you too!"

FIN

Well..! This is Narrie Trish Middlecreek, and... It's the end of our little adventure and well..! It was super fun!

Like, all of that circus stuff! Yeah, Kick off for back to school! Yeah!

Wait... You say we ended the last chapter with a cliffhanger?

And what'd I say at the beginning of the chapter?

Ahh... OH! You wanna know about the elfs! Well... Don't tell anyone but... (We made 'em up.)