June 2009 Story Contest

The Three Flowers by Moona

I'm going to send you a story.   It's called The Three Flowers. It's a little sad but it ends up really happy. The first part is about Ella's past.
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I, Ella Roany, sat at my desk in my bedroom. I picked up the perfectly round, turquoise colored sea stone my father had given me when I was one and a half. It had been our last day together because the next day, he left to fight in the war. It was too bad that a couple months later, he died. He had been shot in the stomach and he broke his leg. My older brother Max and I were very sad, and my mom cried the most.

Then my two-year-old birthday came. It was the most horrible birthday ever because my dad wasn't there. In the summer when I was two and a half, we went to Italy. At this time Max was five and he wasn't much of a sharer.

I was only two and a half so I didn't know many things. I took his extremely precious baseball bobble-head and kept hitting it against the tile floor until the head broke off and we had to throw it out. Max got so mad at me he threw his sea stone at me and it hit me right next to my left eye. He got in terrible trouble and I was rushed to the hospital.

I got six stitches above my left cheek. I'm fine now but I still have a scar. I looked at the picture of our entire family including my dad at the beach I had gotten the stone.

I thought I saw my father wink at me and say,"I'll always be with you, even when I die I'll still be in your heart. You won't forget me will you?"

I shed a single tear. "How could I ever forget you Daddy? I still remember your sweet face," I said.

Then I saw my one and a half year old self saying,"Dada." Then I put my little hand over his and he smiled.

The sudden sound of footsteps scared me out of my skin. My mom walked in. "Why are you so quiet? I've been calling you for lunch for ten minutes!" she said. "Anyway, you have to finish lunch quickly because the Christmas presents are waiting in the living-room!"

We went downstairs and I finished lunch. We opened all of the presents in the living-room. My smile faded off my face. "Where's the present you and Max got me?" I asked.

"Come with me," my mom answered. She took me into the stable then into a stall with ribbon and a bow on the gate.

"He's beautiful!" I said delightfully. An appaloosa stallion stood in front of me. Three flowers(A rose, a tulip, and a pansy)laid on the ground in front of him. The rose had nineteen petals, the tulip had seven, and the pansy had four. That's thirty in all.

I would take off a petal every time something bad happened. My first petal was torn off when Masko(That's what I named the appaloosa)got sick. I tore off the second when he died of his sickness.

Then I got a new mare. She  had a filly. After I had torn off twenty-nine of the thirty petals I said to myself, "One petal left." That petal never came off, but one stormy day with lightning and thunder, the petal died. I threw away the stem and kept the petal in a secret compartment in my desk. I also kept the stone there.

I touched the scar on my face and smiled. "That petal's not going anywhere. Someone will put it in my ash box or on my grave," I said.

THE END