A Rose as Black as your Heart

(2) Goodbye, Canada. Hello, Soggy country.

“Whatever, loser. Want to know what I’ve found out?”

“Go on then.” I grinned at her as I tugged a cardboard box out from under my bed. “Hmm, wonder what’s in here...”

Savannah ignored my musings. “When I’m older, I’m going to get married to a guy, who I reckon is pretty hot and wealthy, and I’m going to be a millionaire, and have four kids! Isn’t that awesome?”

“Yep...” I opened the mysterious cardboard box. A whirl of dust sprayed up in my face, and I coughed. “Jeez, what the hell is this? I’ve never noticed it before...”

“I wonder what job I’ll have...” Savannah was as oblivious to my ramblings as I was to hers. She consulted her book seriously. “I think I’m either a model or... a tractor driver...”

The box was full of old books. They had authentic cracked leather covers, and were blanketed by a thick carpet of dust. I lifted one up gently, and several leafy yellow pages fluttered out. I gasped in horror and quickly tried to stuff them back in the book, but the fragile binding tore, holding the book together only by a dwindling thread.

“Oh shoot...” I muttered, carefully placing it back in the box, where it stirred up another blanket of grey dust that swirled through the air like tiny flies. I was always clumsy like that. Dad used to call me an accident waiting to happen.

“Hmm...” Savannah studied her palm broodingly. “I wonder if being a tractor driver pays well...”

I glanced at her with my eyebrows raised. With her thick, glossy brown curls and large green eyes, it was impossible to imagine Savannah being anything as grungy as a tractor driver. She was always as neat and elegant as I was messy and clumsy.

“I think you were better off being a... what was your other job? A stripper, wasn’t it?”

Savannah giggled and threw her book at me. “A model, you twerp. Can I read your palm, Alexis? Pretty please?”

“Hmm, let me think about that... no.” I shot her a teasing grin. “You can tell just as much from reading a palm as you can when it hits you in the face.”

Savannah laughed. “Damn, you’re so mean! I wonder if English people are psychic... Oh, those kids won’t know what’s hit them. I feel sorry for them.”

“Well hopefully, none of them well be creepy Yodas’ trying to read my palm.”

Savannah laughed again. “As far as I know, Yoda didn't read palms, and he wasn’t creepy. He was awesome. Now give me back my book before I predict eternal doom for the rest of your life.”

With a dry chuckle I tossed it back. “Here you go, Yoda. It's not my fault my knowledge on Starwars is nonexistent. Now come and tell me what you think these are.” I gestured to the dusty box of old books in front of me. “I found them under my bed and I swear I’ve never seen them before.”

“Wow. It must be seriously messy under the bed if you had no idea it was there.” Savannah shuffled over, and gasped in amazement when she saw the books. “Oh wow! Alexis, these are so cool!”