Author's Note/Disclaimer: More than a year after I started these series, I've begun revising them. I started this second string of short stories and writing sketches due to the success and 1-year anniversary of the writing of "First Impressions and Other Little Shop Stories." Looking over this first story brought a smile to my face, as I never realized how much of my heart was in this piece until I read it over for what it was worth.
I do not claim to own any of the Little Shop characters in these shorts. If I did, I'd be amazed and somewhat disturbed by my creativity. I did create Julie and Nathaniel Krelborn though.
*S. Snowflake
Like Father, Like Daughter
It was a breezy summer day in Greenville; the kind of day when a person would instantly feel the urge to fly a kite. The sky was so full of soaring triangles, squares, and diamonds that it looked as if extraterrestrials were invading the planet of the tract home dwellers below. In the middle of the innermost street sat a little house like the rest of the other square homes. It belonged to Krelborn family, consisting of Seymour and Audrey Krelborn, their daughter Julie, and the family dog Rover.
Three-year-old Julie Krelborn sat in her bedroom, staring out the window at the kites high above and sighed, letting her brown hair flop onto her face.
"Daddy, I wanna go to the park," she said.
"We're goin,' we're goin'," her father said and stood in her doorway. His glasses reflected the sunlight from outside as he straightened his shirt just a little. "Your ma's busy today. She can't come with us, but we can still fly the kite, okay Julie girl?"
Julie's smile almost seemed to glimmer. "Okie-dokie Daddy," she replied and grabbed the kite near her feet. She took her father's hand and walked out the door with him.
"Bye-bye, Mama!" she called behind.
Audrey Krelborn glanced up from the dining room where she was arranging daisies for a client. She waved and her blonde hair bounced from side to side a little. "Bye, sweetheart," she said squeakily to her daughter.
"Okay now, let's see…" muttered Seymour as he unwound the string connecting the blue and white kite to its control stick. Why did they have to make these things so complicated? he wondered with frustration.
"C'mon, Daddy. The wind's blowin'," Julie yelped.
"Don't think I'm not trying. This isn't easy, Julie girl. It-it's tricky."
"It's just sthring," Julie said with a small lisp. "Mama can do it."
Seymour smirked, as if his daughter's words hurt his pride. "No, I can do this. It's a quest!" he cried and began rapidly untangling the string. His fingers became strangled in the white twine a few times, but somehow he felt that he was making progress.
Just a little more… what kind of dad can't do this for their kid? Me–that's who. I can't even remember flying one of these when I was little.
Seymour had spent his childhood as an orphan in New York City, and he never had those father-son bonding experiences that most boys would go through. Besides, he had always been the unlucky and uncoordinated type. He was never good at sports or games of chance. The only skill he had was running away from bullies, and he found that to be his most valuable asset. Never had he thought that he would have to share the American parental tradition of flying a kite with his own child.
"Daddy? Daddy, you got it, you got it!" Julie cried, pointing to the string.
"Huh? Oh, oh!" Seymour replied, snapping out of his reveries. "Yeah, I-I finally got it. I told ya' I would. Now, let's see how we're going to make this thing fly. Okaaay…" He paused and fingered the strings.
"I run with it and you hold onto da' string, Daddy. 'Member?" Julie said.
"Huh? Oh, of course I knew that," Seymour replied with a nervous laugh. "Okay then, take this baby and let her go!"
Julie grinned and ran with the blue and white kite in her hands nearly forty feet ahead of her father. He held onto the string, watching her go as she pushed the kite up into the air and it just barely began to float above the ground.
"Oh boy. What do I do now? C'mon, think Seymour ol' boy…" he muttered to himself.
"Daddy, move your arms up a little!" Julie called to him.
"Move my arms? Oookay," Seymour replied to her and did as his daughter said. He took a small breath, releasing the fear of messing this up, and looked to the sky. Suddenly the kite flapped and let the breeze carry it. Is it… it can't be… it is! he thought.
Seymour grinned as he watched the kite fly above his head. It danced like a little friend for its keepers. Nothing could be better than the sight of the kite.
"You did it, Daddy!" Julie squealed and began the run toward her father.
"Yeah! I did it… we did it!" he declared and threw his hands up into the air above him in triumph.
"Daddy, da' kite!" she yelped.
"I know, we got it."
"No Daddy the kite! It's getting away!"
"What?" he asked. It was only then Seymour realized that he had let go of the string in his triumphant hand throw. "G'yaah!" was the only sound he could utter as he ran after the bluish spinning entity.
He ran clumsily for several yards after the flying escapee, determined to catch it. At last, a grassy hill presented an opportunity for Seymour, and he leaped into the air with his arms extended. By maybe some skill or just dumb luck, he managed to capture the kite in both of his arms, but then he fell flat onto the ground. He sat back up and spat out blades of grass and dust that were stuck in his teeth.
"Well, that worked like a dream," he grumbled sarcastically.
Seymour heard his daughter walking up over the hill. "Uh-oh! Did ya fall, Daddy?" she asked.
"No, I'm just lying on the ground because I feel like it," Seymour answered sarcastically
"Why would you do that, daddy? Whoa!" Then she slipped and rolled down the hill to her father's side, almost identically to how he had.
"Whoops…" the little girl muttered.
And with that, Seymour could not help but grin widely laugh as he stood up and helped his daughter back onto her feet. "Aw, Julie girl," he replied, shaking his head and readjusting his glasses. "Here's the kite back, but try not to slip like that again."
"You comin', Daddy?" Julie asked him.
Seymour shrugged. "Yeah sure. Why not?"
Seymour was surer about things that day flying the blue and white kite with Julie. He was a klutz; he knew that, but Julie did not seem to mind. He had heard said "like father like son", but now he knew that it was true for fathers and their daughters too.
The End.
