Chapter 10: Fun Time

Sitting at the big table with Grandma with four little cards between us on the table top and a stack of six matches beside me. I look at all the cards, trying to choose the best one before I pick it up. My hand hovers above the cards. I'm not sure which to pick.

"Which one are you going to pick?" Grandma asks me with a smile.

I freeze my hand on the third one. "I'm not sure."

"Well, so far every matching you picked you got right." She points out. "Go ahead. Pick a pair."

I nod my head and look back down at the cards.

Each card is exactly the same size as the rest with a pink background and a pretty white unicorn with a rainbow tail and maine on the front. The art work was done by my Grandma, she knows just how much I love unicorns. So when she made this fun game up and named it Spelling Word Match that we are playing now. She made the unicorns on the cards so it would be very pretty for me.

Spelling Word Match is like the game Memory but with my spelling words instead of pictures. We used to do this with my sight words when I was in Kindergarten so I would learn how to read and spell the sight words faster. But now that I have spelling words we use those instead.

The room is quiet as I know which card I am going to pick. I flip the top one on the bottom left over.

"Favorite." I say, picking up the card and reading the word that's on it.

With a smile, Grandma nods her head.

Looking at the cards I think really hard to where the matching card is for this one. A light bulb goes off in my mind. I get happy as I remember it's on the top right. When I find it I take a good long look at the word, cover the cards and spell out the word.

"Very good." Grandma praises me. "You spelled it correctly."

"Yay!" I say very happily.

I take my last turn. This time my word is "surprise". I know where that's at because it's the last card. I flip it over it real fast, look at it and spell it with no problem. My spelling words are big but they are easy for me.

"Your spelling is excellent." Grandma picks up all the cards. I smile. "Since that was our fifth time playing in a roll, now it's time to move onto something else."

I agree. With the game done I know what I want to do.

"Exercise." I suggest, sliding down from my chair.

"That's a good idea." She says.

Grandma puts the cards away for the Spelling Word Match game in the cupboard where she keeps all of the games. She likes to put away everything in its place right away so we won't lose anything. Daddy has told me that if I were to be more organized like Grandma I wouldn't have lost the pieces for my giant dinosaur puzzle. Or the shoes for my Barbies, or the pieces for my jumping Bed Bug game or my legos to my Marine biologist playset. Which no one can find.

I seem to be forgetful about where I put my stuff.

I run into the living room, right to the radio because exercising without music is just boring. I press the button, but instead of music it's boring old talk radio. This isn't good. I don't like talk radio and I'm not allowed to change the radio station after I accidentally broke three radios in a month. Sometimes I don't Know my own strength.

"Grandma," I call out, staring at the radio. "I need help."

In a flash Grandma is right beside me. "Ah, yes. Your Grandpa and I were listening to this station early this morning." She explains as she switches it to music.

"Why do you like talk radio?" I wonder as the song "Bad Romance" plays on the radio.

Hearing the music I can't help it. I begin dancing. It's one of my favorite songs. Grandma lets me listen to Pop music even though Daddy only wants me to listen to classical music. Daddy doesn't know about this because we block our thoughts from him about what music we listen to when he's at school. So music time is kind of like a secret between me and Grandma.

"Adults enjoy talk radio." Is all Grandma says as she pats my cheek. "Now, let's start with our warm up stretches."

"Ok." I say.

I like doing warm up stretches and exercising with Grandma. She makes it very fun. The song changes and by the time "Old Town Road" comes on we are doing push ups. We do lots of and lots of different exercises and listen to lots and lots of songs. We end our exercises with jumping jacks when the old song "Oops I Did It Again" comes on the radio.

When Grandma turns off the radio she looks at her watch and announces that it's music time now. She and I go over to my Daddy's big piano and sit down at the bench together.

I put my hands on the piano keys in the right places and start playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I know the song really, really well. Grandma smiles at me as my fingers glide across the keys, filling the house with very pretty music that I am making.

"Very good." Grandma praises me as she puts her arm around my shoulders and scoots closer to me. "You are very musical just like your daddy."

"Thank you." I smile really big.

I like that I play music like my Daddy. He is the one that taught me how to play. I've been playing the piano since I could sit up on my own. I remembered that the first piano I played on was very small but just my size back then. I think it was a toy but Daddy bought it and started teaching me. He wanted me to learn how to play the piano just like him.

My hands slowly run across the keys as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" goes slower and lower to the ending, without stopping I play "Chopsticks", which is fun to do. I like this song and so does Grandma. Before I know it the song ends and I begin playing "Ode to Joy" without messing up.

All these songs I have memorized by heart. My fingers know exactly what key to press without me having to concentrate or look down. Music is very easy for me.

The song comes to a close and Grandma puts a book of sheet music on the piano in front of me. She flips it to a page in the beginning and instructs me to play a song I've never played before. I do as she asks.

Looking at the sheet music I begin to put my finger on the keys where they are supposed to go and play the song "Danny Boy."

Every week Grandma always adds one new song to our piano lesson. That's because she says she wants to expand the songs that I know and can play. So I can become a better pianist just like my Daddy.

"You're doing so good." Grandma pats my shoulder.

"Thank you." I feel very happy as my fingers make the pretty music.

I love playing the piano. Music makes me feel happy and free. Like I'm flying and nothing can stop me. I love the feeling that I get when I learn a new song.

All too soon my piano lesson comes to an end and soon it is time for another activity which is Hopping Alphabet Order. It's another fun game that Grandma made up. With this game I have to hop on one foot as Grandma says the letter of the alphabet and I have to say and spell three words in alphabetical order that begin with that letter. If I mess up on the word or lose my balance I have to start all over again. It's a fun game but it's kind of complicated and I get tired afterwards.

As we get to the letter Z and I spell the last words. My tummy starts to rumble. It's a loud sound.

"Stop it tummy." I look down, talking to my tummy.

"Breakfast time?" Grandma giggles.

"That's what my tummy says." I answer in a small voice.

I feel embarrassed. I don't like that my tummy makes sounds. That doesn't happen to the rest of my family. It makes me feel different. But none of my family seems to mind that my tummy rumbles and makes noises. All of them say it's cute. I don't know why.

"I'll get breakfast for you." Grandma says.

Without a sound I walk closer to her. I reach up on my tiptoes and put my hand to her cheek. I show her my memories of my lunchtime caribou yesterday. I show her how I took it down all by myself and how Daddy was in the background being my cheerleader.

When my memories come to an end I dropped my hand.

"Ah! Yes." She smiles and hugs me. "That was a nice hunting trip but now it's time for breakfast."

I frown.

Even though she didn't say the word 'no' to my unspoken question. I can tell we are not going hunting. I don't like that. I also don't like it that I need to eat more than the rest of my family.

"Would you like to help me in the kitchen?" She asks and adds. "Or would you like to watch TV?"

"TV?" I say it like a question.

Smiling, she nods her head. "Alright. Go turn on the TV. I'll let you know when breakfast is done. You may watch cartoons until then."

"Ok."

I hop like a kangaroo over to the coffee table and grab the remote. The channel is on the news but I quickly changed it to Disney Junior. My favorite show Bluey is on TV. Which is much more interesting than the boring old news.

I jump onto the couch and settle in to watch my show. Besides the voices of the cartoon dogs from Bluey, on the big TV in the living room, that is filling up the big room as I sit alone in the living room watching my morning cartoons. The house is otherwise quiet.

Looking at the TV and watching the cartoon dogs ride bikes. I start thinking about all the things I am good at. Like reading, spelling, playing piano, hunting caribou, and hopping on one foot. But I can't ride a bike. I have one. Well, techally I had one. I crashed it into a tree last week when Uncle Jazz was trying to help me learn to ride it without training wheels.

Let's just say my bike riding lesson didn't work out very well. Daddy ended up freaking out once he saw the bike because I could have been hurt but I wasn't. Only my bike was hurt. Uncle Jazz calmed Daddy down while auntie Rose took my bike into the garage to try to fix it. She is good with tools and she can fix almost everything that has wheels. But she's still trying to fix my bike, it really got bent up. The tree really did a number on it.

I think I am the only person on Earth that can't ride a bike but that doesn't bother me. I can jump really high and float in the air a little. No human can do that.

The house is kinda quiet as the episode changes. I hear Grandma making a little noise in the kitchen. It sounds like she's making a mess in there. But she's probably not. After all, I am the one that makes a mess in the kitchen. Really, really big messes. I don't mean to, it just happens.

A few weeks ago I was helping Grandma, my Mommy and my aunties make food to take to a thing called a Potluck picnic that we had to go to for my Grandpa's work on a Saturday. I was helping Grandma make a salad while Mommy and Auntie Rose were making cheese Enchiladas and Auntie Alice was jumping up and down as she made very, very, very sparkly cupcakes with a lot of edible glitter and sprinkles on them. Nothing we were making looked or smelled yummy because it was all human food.

Yucky human food. But since Grandpa works at a Hospital with humans and we have to pretend that we are human too, we have to make and eat human food sometimes. Witch isn't always fun.

When Grandma cut up all the vegetables for the salad, I put it all in the big green bowl. She then said she needed to toss it and turned around to get a big spoon from a kitchen drawer. I didn't understand why we needed a spoon for that.

I wanted to surprise her and do it myself. So I grabbed the bowl and toasted it up in the air. Lattice, spinach and kale and all the other vegetables went all over the floor and in everyones hair. Everyone was so surprised. No one said anything for a long time.

Apparently that's not how you toss a salad. I learned that the hard way.

Mommy, Grandma and Auntie Rose all laughed it off. When I proudly said that the salad was tossed.

The three of them thought it was cute, that I was just being a kid and got it mixed up. But Auntie Alice, who got the worst of the raining salad and tomatoes splattered on her white flowered dress, ended up crying and Uncle Jazz came running to her. He was at her isde in no time, picking out bits of salad from her hair, ears and off her clothes. He had to calm her down with his special claiming magic.

Poor Auntie Alice, she was so upset. At times like that she doesn't like it so much that she can't "see" me in her visions.

Since the salad tornado I learned the proper way to toss a salad. I also learned that I am a disaster in the kitchen. That's not my only kitchen mishap. I have others but most of them are with Grandpa Charlie and Sue. I think it's safer for me not to be in the kitchen when people are cooking.

While I sit here by myself watching TV. The cartoon is still Bluey but the episode has now changed, it's now the magic asparagus episode. I think back to when I played this game with my Uncles. Both of my Uncles are so silly and are great playmates. They are always up for a good game of pretend.

This episode is one of my favorite episodes because it's funny. Bluey uses an asparagus that her Daddy says is macial and she pretends to change her parents and little sister into different animals including a magical chicken. All because she doesn't want to eat asparagus. I don't blame her for that one. Grandpa Carlisle is big on vegetables and he tried to get me to eat one of those nasty things before. Yuck.

The only time I like asparagus is when I play Magic Asparagus. It's a really fun game to play. Only thing is I wish I had someone little to play with, I am always playing with teenagers and adults.

I know it's only a cartoon but Bluey has a little sister and I wish I did too. All I have in my family are big people. I wish I could have a little brother or sister to be my friend. I asked Mommy and Daddy for one but they said that it can't happen. As much as they wish I could have a brother or a sister, I am their one and only miracle baby. I'm not sure why that is because they wouldn't tell me any more.

The episode on the TV change. Now it's the one where Bluey's little sister Bingo goes to school. She goes to a school with all the other little doggies and a teacher that is not her grandma. I've watched this one before but I still like it.

As I watch the episode I begin to wonder what school would be like. Not homeschool like I do here with Grandma in our school room upstairs. But real school. Like my parents, aunts and uncles all go to.

My imagination goes to work and I begin to think of school. I imagine a big building with other kids and a play yard full of fun things like swings and slides and a jungle gym to climb. Just like the one on Bluey.

I wonder if school in real life is as fun as it looks like on Bluey. I think it must be since Auntie Alice always looks so excited to go to school everyday.

Putting my elbow on the arm of the couch, I rest my head in my hand. My eyes look at my favorite morning cartoon but my mind goes to school, this time inside the classroom. Or at least what I think it might be like.

Having never seen the inside of a real classroom - besides on TV - I imagine a bright and colorful room with a teacher and lots of other kids. Tables and so many books. Because I like books. I think school would be fun with lots of new friends and play time.

"Nessie," Grandma's voice pulls me out of my imagination. She is in the living room now, I look at her. "Did you hear me calling you?"

"No. Sorry." I feel confused.

Grandma smiles at me. "It's time for breakfast."

"Okay."

Before I'm off the couch grandma picks up the remote and turns off the TV. I slide off the couch and skip all the way into the kitchen. I can smell breakfast. I know what it is even before I see it. I hop up to the kitchen table and sit at my chair.

When I'm sitting very nice with my hands folded in my lap. Grandma places my plastic pink unicorn plate with red pancakes and a matching unicorn spoon in front of me. I smile. It's my favorite morning breakfast; blood pancakes. I get the best of both worlds in this one meal. Human food is the pancakes and vampire food is the caribou blood that is added in.

A full human or a full vampire would think this breakfast is yucky. But a vampire princess that is half human and half vampire like me, finds it very yummy.

I pick up my fork, dig in and take a big bite. It's very delicious.

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Hey lovely, readers.

Thanks for reading. :)))

Amber would be delighted if you could leave a review. Your reviews make her smile. She wants you guys to know that we are finally reaching the end of this story. There's only a few more chapters left.