Voices came through a vent into ten year old Jenna May’s bedroom. She was not supposed to listen to adult conversations, but her curiosity always got the better of her. She could hear her mother talking to her friends during their brunch they have around ten every morning. Jenna found most of the talk was about the local gossip. She was amazed that people could say mean things about one another and still get along. She heard one of the chairs slide across the floor. They must be in the dining room still.
“Oh, Catherine, you simply must come over with this plate. It’s so beautiful,” Jenna heard one of the women say.
“The plate does not leave this house, Peggy,” she heard her mother say. “It’s much too valuable to the family.”
Jenna wondered what plate her mother could be talking about. She didn’t know of any plate worth that much that it couldn’t leave the house. There was no sound coming from the vent. Jenna’s curiosity got the worst of her. Going against her mother’s wishes, she opened the door to her room. She had to see what this plate was all about and why it was so important to mother.
Jenna tiptoed barefoot against the wooden steps. Her long red curls bounced as she hurried along the green carpeted living room. She could hear her mother and her friends chatting away enjoying their cake and coffee. Jenna’s blue eyes peeked just enough into the dining area to see her mother. Her mother didn’t seem to notice, which was something that Jenna was used to. Nobody else seemed to notice her either. “Well, we simply must meet for dinner than,” the Peggy lady said. Peggy was a pudgy woman with brown hair and the creepiest looking eyes Jenna has ever seen.
She looked at her mother. Her mother’s radiance got the attention of many with her slender body and long red loose curls that caressed her shoulders and back and she had eyes that sparkled like sapphires. Jenna hoped she would grow up to look like her mother one day.
“That is a marvelous idea. How about tonight? Stewart and I can have Nancy watch Jenna.”
Stewart was Jenna’s father. People always told Jenna that she would always have her father’s shortness. Whatever that means. Jenna didn’t like the idea of Nancy watching her. She would always invite her boyfriend Steve over. Plus, she would get sent to bed early. What they didn’t know is that she would spend hours in the game room, watching movies she really was not supposed to and eating junk till her tummy hurt. She spent many nights in the game room.
Her mother raised the plate up. Jenna could see why her mother didn’t want the plate to leave the house. The plate looked like solid gold. It had the strangest thing in the middle of it. It looked like it had a ruby egg on it with some kind of orange bird on top of the egg. Her mother placed the...