Bennie

The Adventure

I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, softly shaking me awake. It's warm and comforting, and had just ran it's fingering through my hair to put me to sleep just hours before. I wonder why it's waking me up now. Is it morning already? I sleepily blink to pry open my heavy eyelids, just enough to make out who the hand belongs to. I see a pair of hazel eyes, and long curled lashes. Some stray curly hairs loosely hang over them. With the hand she used to wake me up, she brushes them over ear, tucking them back with the mess of brownish-red curls sneaking over her shoulders. Her caramel skin and dark freckles are lit up by yellow shapes dancing across her face due my nightlight on the nightstand. Mama is very pretty. Daddy says I look a lot like her, except I got his green eyes which i'm not complaining about. I wonder how similar I'll look to her when I'm all grown up.

"Is it morning Mama? I still feel very sleepy, and the sun isn't up yet." Usually when I wake up, the whole room is filled with sunshine. I have a huge window over my bed. I don't have blinds, and my curtains are kinda see through so it doesn't stop the sunlight from shining through.

"Well, Buggie, it is morning, but it's so, early that even the sun isn't awake yet", she replied, speaking in her warm soft voice, flashing a toothy smile.

"Oh, isn't this the time that Dad goes to work? I'm not allowed to be up this late. Last time, Daddy got mad and said if I stayed up this late again, then I'd be in big trouble." She smiled at me in a reassuring way, a dimple showing up on her right cheek as she did.

"Today we're doing something a little different Bennie. Daddy already went to work, and in the mean time we're going to go on a little adventure, okay Buggie?" Hearing those words, my heart sped up and the excitement I felt was enough to wake me up fully. 

"An adventure?!", I nearly yelled. Mom and Dad know how much I love to explore. In the backyard there's this huge puddle almost big enough to be a pond. When it rains, a bunch of frogs and toads appear. I love to go out and take pictures, and draw them. If they get up and start hoping around I go and follow them writing down everything they're doing. It's not just frogs I like. I like bugs, and animals, and plants, so much so that Mom started calling me Buggie. 

"Buggie, I want you to go wash the sleepy out of your eyes and brush your teeth! I'll get your clothes and breakfast ready in the mean time!" I nearly, jump out of my bed to race into the bathroom and do as I was told. I start with brushing my teeth, then my washing my face. As I'm drying my face with a towel, I notice mom in the mirror standing in the doorway, looking at me with a slight grin on her face. As I turn around to face her I notice something little off in her expression. Before I'm able to find out what it is she speaks.

"Hand me your toothbrush and face towel Bug", she says with a warm smile holding out her hand. I gave her a puzzled look, then handed her both. She turns away heading back into my room as I follow behind. I see that she had made my bed, and the clothes she had picked out are spread across the foot of my bed. A plain yellow t-shirt, the the overall shorts I like to wear when I go exploring, and the pair of beat up white converse I often chased around the frogs in. I notice mom moved on the other side of my room out the corner of my eye. I watching as she tucks my towel and toothbrush into one of the travel bags I use when we go on vacation. I notice next to it a large navy backpack I've never seen before and an even bigger version of my travel bag to the right of it. After she zips it up, she sits back on her heels, having been standing on her knees, and lets out big sigh. I walk over to her and sit down next to her in the same way.

"What's the matter Mama?" She looks at me and smiles. I stare at her for a moment, and there's still something off about her smile. I look into her eyes. She smiling, but her eyes look so sad. She looks kind of scared, worried even, but shes been acting so calm. The flicker in her eyes tells me she notices my concern and her expression changes slightly.

"Nothings wrong Bennie. Mommy's just a bit tired still, that's all", she says while attempting to run her hands through my hair, but it gets caught in a tangle. She chuckles and says,"Let mommy brush your hair." I watch as she takes my brush and detangler out of the large backpack. As sits down behind my and starts brushing my hair, my gaze falls on the two new bags. Are both of those bags filled with my things? When she she finishes, she puts everything back where she got it and then got up to leave the room, giving me a brief, "Be right back." when she leaves, I get up from the floor and move the two new bags away from the closet door to open it. My eyes grow wide with confusion, and surprise. My entire closet is empty. I shut the door and make my way across the room to my dresser. The top right drawer, the right middle drawer, bottom right drawer, the top middle drawer and etc.... Every single one is empty.

As she walks back into the room, holding what smells like a breakfast sandwich in one hand and what I can make out to be a Sunny D in the other, she notices me crouched by the dresser with all the drawers open. She sets down my breakfast on my nightstand, and speed-walks over to me without saying a word she gently, but hastily pushes all the drawers back. I look at her expression to see if shes mad or not. She seems like she has a lot on her mind, and her face looks slightly damp, as if she was crying and tried to swipe the tears away.  I'm even more concerned now, but I don't wanna jump to conclusions. I just hope she's not upset and maybe she teared up from yawning. She did say she was tired. I hope I didn't do something wrong. Once all the drawers are closed, I turned to face her. "What kind of adventure are we going on Mama?"

She turned to me and smiled, but not as big as she had before. " A long one", she said. I saw tears well up slightly in her eyes as she looked away fairly quickly, as if to not let me see. She gets up and clears her throat. She then waves for me to get up from the floor. "Go ahead and eat your breakfast, Mommy's gonna go to the bathroom and then we'll leave for our adventure!" She said this while looking in my eyes giving me the biggest of the smiles she had given me today, then turned to leave. The tears in her eyes were still there but not as apparent as before, and her eyes seemed a little happier. I guess she was just a little tired. I smiled to myself, relieved that Mama is okay, and started getting excited again about our adventure as I ate my breakfast.

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Author's Note: 

I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my story. There will be many, many more! I do not have a specific day I will be updating just yet, so for now it will just be whenever I get chapter done(which should be fairly often). If you have any comments or questions let me know. Hope to see you in the next author's note!