The Wayward Gifted - Broken Point by Mike Hopper, Donna Childree

grandmother?” Sam
asked in a whisper.
    Olivia stopped. The room was silent.
Sam didn’t move. Steuart smiled for a moment imagining Olivia with the hungry
pirates as they waited for turtle soup. Olivia sipped her tea and looked at
Sam. Sam sat quietly and said nothing. Olivia stared at her daughter. Steuart
thought about wrestling with Sparky. Olivia leaned in closer, huffed quietly and
then spoke. “Well then, I see. I can only say that I am shocked by your incomprehensible
behavior. I don’t know what to think about this. Samantha Leigh, you have not
even thanked me.”
    Steuart cocked his head. He looked at
his mother. He looked at Sam. Sam frowned and clenched her teeth. She felt warm
blood trickle down inside her mouth.
    “Well?” Olivia waited.
    Sam saw her mother’s mouth move, but she
didn’t hear the words. Her life had suddenly ended at the age of twelve. She
understood that she would never again have fun. Nothing would be the same. She
looked at the book. Her hand moved across the pages as her feelings disconnected
from her body. She watched her fingers. She silently mouthed the inscription,
closed the book and traced the title with her fingers.
    “I’m waiting Samantha Leigh,” Olivia
took a deep breath.
    Still seated, Sam slowly lifted the
book from the table and held it high above her head. Using her full range of
motion she sent the thing flying across the room. The book barely missed a
decorative table holding Olivia’s special collection of crystal flowers and
angels. It hit the wall, ricocheted across the room, and slid over the table as
it raked the crystal pieces, one crashing into the other, pulling them down
onto the hardwood floor before landing on top of the newly shattered glass. Sam
threw the gloves across the room. She put her hands in the cake, grabbed a
fistful and threw it at her mother. She ran out the door crying and shouting,
“I wanted the paints!”
    Steuart, up from his seat, turned to
his mother and began yelling, “ Cherry
Matzo! She wanted the paints. Cherry
Matzo ! My sister wanted the paints! Why don’t you care about us? My sister
wanted the paints!” He put his hands in the remaining mess of cake and threw it
on his mother’s dress before running out of the house into the cold November
night screaming “ Cherry Matzo! ”
    Sam ran down the trail towards the
towers, over the bridge, crossed the river, jumped down, and crossed the brook.
She jumped up, leapt across the railroad tracks, and continued into the
Preserve. She ran to the tree house that she and Steuart discovered on their
first day in town, climbed the ladder and sat against the back corner wall.
Steuart quickly joined his sister. The two sat together sobbing. The night was cold,
snowy and black.

 
    * * *

 
    Sam and Steuart sat huddled together
shivering in the darkness. “This is the worst day of my entire life,” Sam
cried.
    Steuart sat close to his sister. “You
might have picked a better night to run away. We should have grabbed our
coats.”
    “You think I planned this? I wanted to
paint tonight. I feel like such an idiot.”
    “I wish you hadn’t run out of the
house.”
    “You didn’t have to follow me.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “I was stupid. I should have known that
she wasn’t going to give me what I asked for. You tried to tell me.”
    “You were just hoping.”
    Sam continued crying, “Why did she give
me that stupid book? I don’t even believe it. I hate that book.”
    “She wants us to be grown.”
    “I know. She said there’s one waiting
for you too.”
    “We’re in big trouble.”
    “I don’t care. I never want to see or
talk to her again.”
    “You’re angry. You aren’t serious.”
    “I am serious. I don’t want to see her
ever again—as long as I live.”
    Steuart shivered, “Eventually we’ll
have to go home.”
    “Not me. I don’t care if I’m homeless,
eating out of dumpsters, and living in ditches for the rest of my life. Anything
is better than