To Spark

Cayden

I don't know what started it. The idea just sparked in my head and I went with it after I saw dust on one of the bookshelves in one of the extra bedrooms. The house had been cleaned by a CIA team before we had arrived, but they hadn't done heavy duty stuff like dust off the chandelier or scrub the tiles with bleach. That, I decided was going to have to be done by me. But, I really didn't mind. It would give me something to do.

First, though, I had to locate cleaning supplies. So, I went to my room and changed into shorts and my oldest T-shirt, leaving my feet bare. I pulled my hair into a messy bun and even added a headband so that all of the hair would stay out of my face. Then, I headed off in pursuit of cleaning supplies. Turns out, they were all in a corner of the pantry. A broom, a mop and a bucket, a basket of cleaners. Even a vacuum cleaner, though it wasn't one of the newer models.

I started upstairs, in the extra bedroom. I vacuumed first, and then I filled the mop bucket with a mixture of bleach and vinegar and I cleaned the baseboards. Then, I moved on to the bedroom that I was staying in. First, I took off my sheets and took them downstairs to the laundry room, where I got them started in the washing machine. Then, I vacuumed the plush carpet in my room and cleaned the baseboards like I had done in the other room. I moved on to my bathroom before I knew it and had that cleaned in no time. Then, I took the time to vacuum the stairs, which took longer than I had thought that it would.

Next, I moved to put my sheets in the dryer and started a load of my laundry before I wondered if Joe needed clothes washed, too. So, I walked to his bedroom but froze. His door was slightly ajar, though I knew that he was outside running. All that I could see was his bed (unmade, of course) and I wondered if he would mind if I went in. Did finding clothes to wash count as snooping? It didn't as long as I didn't actually snoop, did it?

A hand came onto my shoulder and I let loose a little scream. Whirling around, I saw Joe, his blonde hair and his clothes dark with sweat. He raised an eyebrow, but he didn't appear angry. "What are you doing?"

"I was about to start a load of darks," I said, glad that I wasn't stammering. "I just wondered if you needed some clothes washed, too. But I didn't know if it was okay to go into your room…"

He shrugged and reached over my shoulder to push the door open. "I don't care; you can come into my room whenever you want."

Realizing that he needed me to either go in or get out of his way so that he could enter his room, I stepped inside. He turned on the light when he came in and pointed at a pile of clothes in the corner. "Those are the dirty ones. I was planning to wash them soon."

I nodded and moved to separate the darks from the lights.

"I'll be in the shower," he said and then moved into his bathroom and shut the door behind him.

The water started and I picked up the bundle of dark clothes and carried them into the laundry room, where I put them in the washer with mine and then started it. Then, I moved to vacuum the living room. After I was done with that, I stared up at the chandelier, pondering. I was going to need a ladder to get up there and clean it. I knew that there was one in the helicopter's building, but I decided to save that for later. Instead, I filled the mop bucket with fresh water and put in some bleach and vinegar to clean the baseboards.

As I cleaned them, I hummed the same Gaelic songs that my mother had used to hum while she cleaned. But when my favorite Gaelic song came into my head, I simply had to sing it; humming wouldn't do. So, I scrubbed the baseboards as I sang, trying to be quiet.

When I finished the song and stood up to go and dump the dirty water, I found Joe standing in the entrance to the living room, watching me. I froze.

"That was a pretty song," he said softly. "Does it translate into English well?"

"It's hard," I admitted as I moved for the kitchen. "But the song is about a girl that ran away with a guy that she thought she was in love with."

"She wasn't really in love with him?" he asked, following me.

"No," I dumped the water into the sink and watched it swirl down the drain. "As it turns out, she came to hate him. He drank and he gambled and he cheated."

"So what did she do?"

I set the bucket aside on the counter and avoided looking at him. "She went back home to her parents. And she was warmly welcomed home."

"There's a story like that in the Bible," he said conversationally. "The story of the prodigal son."

I walked into the living room with him following. "The son took his inheritance money and left. But he wasted it all away and he came back home to his father, who welcomed him back with open arms. Made the other son quite angry."

"I'll bet," I muttered. "Is it okay if I vacuum and clean your room?"

He nodded. "I told you, you can go in my room whenever you want."

I fetched the vacuum cleaner and moved towards his room.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked me. "I feel bad, you doing everything and me standing here like an idiot."

I paused and motioned towards the chandelier. "You can go get that ladder from the helicopter's building and clean the chandelier with a wet rag. Might take a while. I think I can see the dust from here."

He smiled. "Gotcha."

Joe

I found the ladder in the helicopter's building pretty easily and moved to bring it into the house. When I had it positioned under the chandelier, I moved into the kitchen to fill the mop bucket with hot water and then grabbed a cleaning rag before moving back into the living room.

Cayden had been right; the chandelier was extremely dusty and took forever to clean. In fact, by the time that I had finished, Cayden was done cleaning both my room and my bathroom. When she came out and saw the chandelier, she gave one of her half smiles. (In fact, I wondered if she ever gave a real smile at all). "That looks a ton better. It seems to sparkle."

I dropped the rag in the water and stepped off of the ladder. I backed up a ways and saw that she was right. The chandelier looked so much prettier now that it was clean.

Cayden moved to put my sheets in the washer and put the clothes in the dryer. I offered to help her put the sheets back on her bed, so we went upstairs together. "The house looks a lot better," I complimented. "I thought that the CIA cleaned it, but they did nothing compared to what you did."

She shrugged and tucked the edge of the sheets under the mattress. "I think that they were mainly focused on cleaning out bugs or hidden cameras."

"I think you're right about that," I said as we both moved to put the comforter on top of the sheets. "But it does look much better."

"I agree."

"What gave you the idea?" I asked as we simultaneously smoothed out wrinkles.

She shrugged. "Just a sort of spark of inspiration."

We headed back downstairs and I took the ladder back outside. When I came in, I saw her getting started on dinner. "Anything I can do?"

She pointed to a stack of carrots. "We're having vegetable beef stew. You can chop up those carrots. The cutting board is in that drawer."

I found the cutting board and a knife and expertly cut up the carrots. Then, she had me cut up green beans into smaller pieces. I cooked the beef in a pan while she heated up the water in a pot.

It was mostly silent except for Cayden's occasional soft orders or the sound of chopping or of the beef sizzling. Finally, we added all of the ingredients together in that big pot and Cayden put the lid on. "Now, we wait."

"How 'bout a game of chess?" I suggested. "While we wait."

She agreed and I went to go get the chessboard that could be found in the extra room upstairs.

"You can go first," she told me.

"But you're black," I said, confused.

"Which makes you virtuous white."

I shrugged and made my move. "So, you've played chess before?"

"I was the president of the chess club in high school," she said as she moved a pawn.

"Really?" I asked as I moved another of my pawns.

"No," she replied and countered my move.

I chuckled. "So what did you do in high school?"

"Learned," she said softly, looking at the chessboard and not at me. I got this sense that talking about her high school days bothered her.

"So, you didn't attend college?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Nope; didn't want to."

"What'd you get on your ACT?"

"A perfect score."

I paused in the act of moving a knight. "You got a perfect score on your ACT?"

"And the SAT," she said as if it weren't a big deal. "And I wouldn't put the knight there; you're trapping yourself."

I did a quick analysis of the board and saw that she was right. I moved the piece back. "So, did Harvard send you letters?"

"Every Ivy League school did."

"But you didn't want to go?" I asked as I made a smarter move.

She countered it immediately, as if she had been expecting me to make that move. "No. What about you? Any college education?"

I shook my head. "Blackthorne was like a college education. We learned PhD level everything and stuff like that."

She nodded slowly. "My private school was kind of like that. A school for geniuses."

"Was it a boarding school?"

"Yes," she answered as she got up and headed for the stove so that she could stir the stew a few times.

"I'll bet that was expensive."

"I had a scholarship," she said as she sank back into her chair and countered the move that I had made while she was gone.

Something was there, I knew it. Something had happened at her high school and it had changed her entire life. But she wasn't volunteering any information and I wasn't sure that I should push anything. So, I made a move on the board and said, "So, now that the house is clean, what's on the agenda for tomorrow?"

She made a move and shrugged. "I've got nothing. I guess just a lot of lounging around."

I made a move and realized that the game was going to end pretty soon. "There are plenty of movies. We could watch one together, if you want."

She nodded slowly and made her move. "Yeah, I guess we could do that."

"Or we could go into town if you want."

"I think I'd rather stay in."

"Me too," I admitted as I moved my bishop, certain that I had her.

But, she moved a piece and looked up at me, something glinting in her gorgeously blue eyes. "Checkmate." And then, the glint disappeared and she said, "Stew's probably done."

"That's the first time that anyone's ever beaten me at chess," I told her as I moved to grab some stew.

"You must not have played very smart people then."

I chuckled, not caring that she had been implying that I sucked at chess.