Magic in Costa Rica

Two Urns

I spent the whole next day trying to stay awake in class and re-reading To Kill A Mockingbird in between periods. After school, all I wanted to do was take a nap, but when I got home I noticed that the house was truly a mess and decided to clean up. We had lived in the same brick townhouse ever since I was born. Even though it was small and a bit cramped, it had always felt empty since mom died.

I started by vacuuming the gray carpet in the living room and dusting the wooden coffee table and picture frames that hung on the yellow-painted walls. My mom had painted all the walls in the house herself. She liked yellow because she thought it made the indoors look sunny, and the few windows we had weren't wide enough to let in a lot of natural light. After I cleaned the living room, I moved onto the kitchen, where I mopped the linoleum floors and wiped down the wooden cabinets and countertop. I hand washed all the dishes and left them on the drying rack. We had a dishwasher, but it left all the glasses cloudy, and I liked the feeling of scrubbing the dishes clean, and of warm, soapy water on my hands. Lastly, I took the trash out to the dumpster in the alleyway, and finally retreated to my room.

My room had the same gray carpeting as the living room, but my walls were a light, dusty pink instead of yellow. Fairy lights lined the walls, and a purple and red tapestry hung behind my bed, which had a pile of throw pillows at its head and a comforter the same color as my wall. My wooden dresser stood in the back corner of the room next to my closet, which was always partially open due to the amount of clothing I stuffed inside. I threw my backpack into a corner and put my laptop and copy of To Kill A Mockingbird on my bedside table before flinging myself onto my bed and falling asleep. I woke up hours later to find a plate of food on my desk and a note from my dad saying thank you for cleaning the house. I smiled, ate my food, which had already grown cold, and went back to sleep. I didn't wake up until my alarm went off the next morning.

I bolted out of bed and got dressed as fast as I could, scared to be late for my second English class. Mr. Miller had been nice enough to let it slide once, and I didn't intend on testing his patience again. I threw on a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting, floral top before combing my hair with my fingers. I paused in front of the mirror and leaned in closer to see my face. I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a tube of lipgloss, which I applied in one swipe to my lips. I also drew a thin stroke of eyeliner onto my eyelids and stepped back to observe my work. Not bad for an amateur. I thought about all the makeup tutorials I had mindlessly watched online and stifled laughter at the thought of trying to pull of such looks. I wiped the eyeliner off with a wet towel, but left the lipgloss on, and left early for school.

* * *

I arrived ten minutes early for class, and found the whole room empty, not even Mr. Miller was there yet. I sat down in the same seat I took the previous class, not because I was eager to sit in the front, but because I was scared to take someone else's seat. I settled in and opened up To Kill A Mockingbird until class started. As the students began filing in, I paid them no attention, until someone came in and sat down right next to me. I looked up to see a girl who looked younger than the rest of the students smiling at me eagerly. She had thick, square glasses and curly, blonde hair that framed her round face. Freckles sprinkled the bridge of her nose, which was large in proportion to her small features, but nicely shaped. She wore a periwinkle sweater and denim overalls that rolled up around her ankles.

"Hi?" I said, sounding more hostile than I intended. Boy, did I need to work on my social skills. She didn't seem to notice.

"Hi!" she stuck out her hand to shake mine. "I'm Carla Hayes, the other sophomore here," she chirped. I took her hand and shook it gingerly.

"I didn't know there was another sophomore in this class. Nice to meet you, I'm-"

"Alma Larson, I know. Mr. Miller -uh- introduced you to the class the other day," she cringed slightly. I scoffed lightly and smiled.

"Introduced. That's a nice way of putting it," I said, turning my attention back to my book. Carla took out hers.

"I love this book. I read it when I was in middle school, but reading it the second time around was even better than the first."

"Yeah, I really liked it too," I closed my book and sighed. Clearly I wasn't going to get any reading done before class started. "I read it all in one night actually."

"Wow, that's impressive. I can't read for that long or else my eyes start to hurt. I have an," she leaned forward and said in a half-whisper, "astigmatism."

"What the hell is that?" I asked. Carla pushed up her glasses.

"It's a small imperfection in the eye's curvature." She said it like she rehearsed it a thousand times before, which made me laugh. "What? What's funny?" She asked, her eyes darting around the room. I shook my head.

"Nothing, just the way you said it," I stood up straight and said in a high-pitched voice, "It's a small imperfection in the eye's curvature," and pushed up my imaginary glasses. Carla laughed and slapped my shoulder lightly.

"Hey! Mr. Miller was right, you are sassy!" she smiled and looked past my shoulder. "Speak of the devil..." Just then, Mr. Miller walked in, this time wearing a tweed jacket and navy blue tie. He sat at his desk and adjusted his tie before addressing the class.

"Good morning everyone. Before we start, how many of you actually read the book?" Everyone in the class raised their hands. "Okay, how many of you read the book without using Sparknotes?" A few hands lowered as laughter rippled through the class. "Well, I appreciate your honesty. Today we're going to have a pop quiz and I'm assigning a five-page essay on whatever topic you choose as long as it has to do with the book due Monday. Alright everyone, let's get started. Take out your pencils. This quiz is pretty basic comprehension, so it should be easy if you did, in fact, read the book." he started walking around the classroom and handing out the quizzes to each student individually.

"Good luck," Carla whispered as she wrote her name at the top of the page.

"Thanks," I said, "you too." I looked at the first question on the quiz. What costume did Scout wear for the Halloween pageant? Easy. A ham, I wrote. How did Atticus and Tom Robinson prove that he was not responsible for beating up Mayella Ewell? I circled option B: Mayella was beaten by a left-handed man, and Tom was crippled on his left side. I answered each of the questions without difficulty, but paused at the last one. What does the character Boo Radley symbolize? I stared at the blank spot next to the question mark before writing down my answer: A mockingbird. Just then, the bell rang and the rest of class rushed to scribble down their last answers before scrambling to leave. I took out the essay I had written about Atticus and Tom Robinson and handed it in along with my quiz. Mr. Miller raised his eyebrows.

"Well, that was fast," he smirked. I nodded and turned to leave. Carla stopped me in the hallway to ask about the quiz.

"Did you think it was hard? What did you put for the last answer?"

"A mockingbird, and I didn't think it was too hard."

"A mockingbird! That's so smart. I put innocence."

"I think that's good too."

Carla and I parted ways at the end of the hallway and went to our next class. At lunch, she met me in the library and we exchanged book recommendations and phone numbers. We sat in between bookcases and chatted while eating lunch. She told me about her family.

"I have a little sister named May, a big brother named Tim, a dog named Cooper, and two fish named Emerson and Thoreau. Oh, and my mom and my dad. My mom is a teacher and my dad is an engineer. How about you?"

"Oh it's just me and my dad. He used to be a magician but now he just works from home for some computer company. We don't have any pets."

"What about your mom?" Carla cocked her head to one side curiously. I sighed.

"My dad sawed her in half during a magic show when I was nine. But we still keep her ashes in an urn at home. Well, two separate urns, one for each half of her body," I said matter-of-factly. Carla dropped the pretzel she had in her hand and stared at me for a few seconds before bursting into uproarious laughter.

"Two urns! That's hilarious!" I started laughing too, and soon we were both giggling hysterically on the floor of the library. We didn't stop until the librarian found us and told us to keep it down, and I knew in that moment that I had finally made a friend.