You Call This a Gift?
CHAPTER 10: Annalisia

I stood at my locker packing away the rest of my belongings. I gazed down the hall and froze in my place when I saw Davis making his way toward me. He paused for a minute and shooed away his crowd of friends that followed him everywhere. I quickly turned to look in the mirror hanging on my locker and fixed my hair. I felt a tap on my shoulder and swung around. My hair swiped across Davis’ face and my heart sunk in embarrassment.

“Hey, girl, what’s the rush?” he said with a giggle.

“Uhm, well, I, uh, you see I was just, you know, I was…” I mumbled gibberish while he placed his finger against his lips to shush me.

“Anna, relax, I just came over to ask you to sign my yearbook. Maybe you could leave your number in there too and we could hang out over break,” he said charmingly.

“Oh right, of course, yearbook, ha-ha, sure,” I replied trying to sound cool while utterly failing at it. He handed me his book and took mine signing it with his adorable name then gave me an amused look and winked leaving me with, “See ya later.”

After Davis was out of view, I sunk to the ground with my yearbook in hand and opened to see what he had written. Right under my picture, he had written over Mason Deren’s photo, “Had fun this year, hope to chill over the summer, HAGS, Davis.”

I smiled from ear to ear hugging the book against myself. “Eh-hem,” I heard and saw a shoe tapping on the ground in front of me.

“Hello, Anna, are we going? Come on, I would like to get out of this school and pretend like it never existed,” she said quite seriously.

I stood up giggling. “Well, good luck with that, Kenna, we’ll be back in a few months,” I replied as I started walking down the hall.

“Hmm, no, we won’t. We will be at camp,” she said looking at me confused.

“What do you mean we will be at camp? That’s just for the summer,” I said surely.

“No, sweetie, camp is over the summer and then we stay there for school. Didn’t your mom tell you?” She asked sure she had said too much.

“Mom!” I yelled as I pushed through the front door pulling Kenna along with me.

Kenna pleaded, “Wait, Wait, maybe you should wait for your mom to tell you.”

My mother interrupted smiling with, “Tell her what, dear?”

“Mom, you can’t do this to me!” I shouted.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, do what to you?” she asked waiting for an answer.

“Send me to a new school and not even tell me! I’m not going and I’m not going to camp!” I screamed with hope in my voice.

“Now, you listen to me and listen well! You do not barge into my house like that and yell at me the way you just did, do you understand me?!” she said in her motherly tone.

I stared at the floor ashamed of the way I spoke to her, “Yes, Mom, I understand,” I said.

“Now, you are grounded this week, and next week, you will be off to camp! And If I didn’t already agree to let Kenna spend the night, she would be going home. Now both of you to your room!” she demanded.

I plopped on my bed angrily saying, “I can’t believe this! I’m going to lose my friends and any chance with Davis I may have had.”

Kenna nudged me over and plopped next to me. “You’re not losing me,” she said in a sad tone.

“I know, I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do. This week, I’m grounded, and next week, we’re off to camp. How am I ever supposed to hang out with Davis?” I asked depressingly.

Kenna sat up and stared at me. “Is Davis seriously what matters right now? We have powers, Anna, freaking powers! We’re going to some weird camp, and we need to focus on each other or we won’t get through it,” she said annoyed.

“You’re right.” I agreed. We both peered at the ceiling lost in thought.

“Anna! You haven’t opened your gift!” she said jumping up grabbing the perfectly wrapped present she had given me.

“Oh, yea, guess I was a bit distracted,” I replied with a laugh. I carefully tore the paper revealing the box inside. I looked at her curiously. Her face was lit up with excitement.

“I hope you love it,” she said right before I managed to open it. I gazed down at the gift. My eyes immediately began filling with tears. My heart was spilling over with joy. When I was ten, my grandmother died, but a few days before she had given me a locket necklace. It didn’t open. It had an engraving on the front that read, “Forever and always” continuing on the back with, “Keep me close to your heart.”

“Kenna, where did you replace this?” I questioned. I asked because when I was twelve, I had lost it at the beach. I cried over that locket for weeks.

“I’m a Time-Turner, duh! I went back to the day after your grandma gave it to you and took it and brought it back to this time,” she said. “If you didn’t wait till the right time, you would’ve never understood,” she added.

“Thank you so much, Kenna,” I said.

I lifted my head and looked at Kenna to make sure she was sleeping before getting up and making my way to the desk. I looked at my yearbook sitting there and read his message one more time tracing his name with my finger. I opened the junk drawer of my dresser and buried the book way below to keep it away from my thoughts. “As if that would work,” I mumbled to myself. I sat on my window seat admiring the star painted sky and pondered what life would be like in this new world. I heard my door creak open and saw Marina’s little head bobbing in view. I rolled my eyes with a giggle and motioned her to come over.

“What are you doing up love?” I questioned.

“I’m scared,” she said while pulling herself up on the window seat and then climbed into my lap hugging herself to me.

“Marina, why on earth are you scared and scared of what?” I pried.

“You’re leaving me and going far away!” she said while starting to cry. She added in, “It’s just going to be me and mom without you. I don’t want to lose my big sissy.”

I wrapped my arms around her and lovingly said, “Marina sweetheart, you’ve got quite a lot of thoughts in that little head of yours, right? I’m not going away forever, I promise; it’s just camp and school. I’m going to visit, every chance I get, I promise!”

She nuzzled into a tighter hug. I sang to her for a while until we both fell asleep at the window.