Inside the walls

Inside a nursery.

"Once upon a time..."

Cliché, she knows.

Mirabel felt her pen drop out of her hand, clattering on a half doodled on notebook below, then rolling to an unusually messy desk. Her head soon followed, eyes deliriously scanning the old cuckoo clock. (This one in particular looked like a gingerbread house!) 1:27 a.m. She knew she was tired, but she also knew she had a sewing project to finish that should've been finished days ago. Too many ideas she wanted to finish, including, but not limited to! Pink knitted knee pads for Luisa since she'd complained she was getting scrapes (that technically Mirabel had promised would be ready two weeks ago), a completed book- like journal of her family's adventures, and last but not least, a gift for Antonio's gift ceremony... which was tomorrow.

...Which meant she couldn't put off finishing it any longer. Especially since said cousin was peacefully sleeping and wouldn't be barging in on her anymore, so really, she had no excuse.

"Sleep is for the weak, I suppose." Mirabel giggled.

Mirabel playfully tossed her legs up, swinging over onto her mattress. Not so gracefully, she snatched her project from under the bed, satin ribbons and yellow yarn streaming out from inside its box. Flicking her eyes towards her sleeping roommate, she slowly slipped the box lid off, setting it beside her for later.

But what was the gift of?

She cheekily plucked the piece out.

Well.

It was always obvious from Antonio's messily taped crayon drawings of insects on his wall, to embroidered bedding of toucans, to excitedly sharing any new knowledge of his latest obsession, the Feline Franchise (As Auntie Pepa gracefully put it) to anyone and everyone in sight, that the boy was completely hooked on animals big and small.

So, Mirabel, fairly confident in her sewing skills, set to work around three weeks ago to discreetly borrow the prettiest materials she could find, and then a week later, began sewing up a stuffed jaguar toy for her unofficial favorite cousin.

And she had to admit, sewing on the spots was tedious, not having actual spotted fabric and all, but as she rubbed her fingers over the felt, she couldn't have thought of anything better she could have made.

Go over, go under... over, under, crap, don't sew the fluff outside the fabric!

Until at last, she was left with only two tiny black button eyes to sew on.

Mirabel quietly pried open a tin cookie container, now recycled into a button box. The buttons both coming from store bought and she may or may not have popped some off old clothes to use again for later.

For example, these two buttons were taken from one of Antonio's old baby onesies. So, in a way, you could say she'd been working on a gift for five whole years.

"But that's ridiculous," Mirabel chuckled, sticking her needles back into their cushion.

*

And with that, her gift sewn and wrapped at 1:48 a.m. May 21st, 1950, Mirabel Madrigal went to bed, moonlight leaking through the nursery window, bathing the room in a ghostly light. Her notebook still lay there, flipped open to the second page.

"Once upon a time," it read, ink splattered on the page.

Cliché, she knows.

1:48 a.m. May 21st, 1950...

This is the time her story truly begins; however, she'll soon find her family's story may delve years before her birth.