Forever Sixteen

Forever Sixteen

By Krystal A. Walsh

I grimaced at myself in the mirror, running my toothbrush across my front teeth one last time to make sure they were completely clean before my dentist appointment. Then with a sigh, I put my toothbrush away, and walked out of my bathroom, into my bedroom. It was large attic room, with large windows looking out over the park, and cozy rugs covering the wooden floor. I twirled around in front of the full-length mirror to make sure my dress and leggings were still neat and unwrinkled.

Forest green dress and brown leggings, one of my many favorite outfits. It made me feel like a tree nymph out of a book. My friends always laughed when I said things like that, I am so bookish! But I really can’t help it, I inherited it from my parents. They’re the ones who moved here to Avondale, Colorado before I was born because it reminded them of Anne of Green Gables and Lord of the Rings. I smiled; I love my parents and all their bookish craziness.

Behind me my window banged open, letting in a gust of cold March wind.  I shivered. Maybe I should wear a scarf. I tried on my favorite red one. No, ew…I look like a Christmas tree. I made a face and grabbed my white one instead, this looked a lot better, though it did make my pale skin look even paler.

“Tessa!” My mom’s voice called me from downstairs, “Are you ready? We need to leave!”

“Coming Mom!” I yelled, taking one last look at myself in the mirror. Good thing I don’t wear makeup very much, I thought to myself. I don’t know how girls have time to put makeup on every single day! They must wake up early. I hate getting up early; I’m more of a night owl. 

“Tessa!” my Mom called again.

I turned to grab my schoolbooks, and my purse then hurried to my door, tripping over one of my many piles of books in the process.  I carefully checked them over, making sure none of them were hurt then dashed down the spiral staircase from my room.

Mom was waiting for me by the door, keys in hand.

“All ready?”  She asked.

“Yup” I made a face, I hated going to the dentist’s.

Mom just laughed and we headed out to the car in the cool March breeze.

~

Once at the Dentist’s office I leaned back in the chair staring at the stupid posters on the ceiling, while the dentist talked to my mom. Dumb cartoons, ugly fish, talking teeth with huge sparkly smiles…typical dentist office. I sighed. Why couldn’t they put something more useful, like random Lord Of The Rings Trivia, or a list of World Records, or– suddenly I overheard what the dentist was saying to my mom

“She’ll need to get her wisdom teeth out very soon, before they become infected.”

My mom was nodding, “Okay, yes we will schedule an appointment for after her birthday. Maybe in 3 weeks or so?”

I groaned as they continued talking. I’d always dreaded getting my teeth pulled ever since I was 7 when I’d had a baby tooth pulled, and had technical difficulties which caused the pain medication to wear off before they were done pulling my tooth. That had been absolutely the worse experience of my life.

At least my mom was nice enough to schedule it for after my birthday, but still…. I shivered. No don’t think about it, I told myself.

Soon my mom finished talking to the receptionist, and we walked out to the car.

“I scheduled an appointment with the oral surgeon for April 3^rd, for you to get your wisdom teeth out.”  Mom said.

“Mom do I have to get my teeth pulled?” I pleaded, giving her puppy eyes.

“I’m sorry honey, but we don’t want them to cause worse problems. It won’t be like last time, they put you out for this.”

I let out a sigh. I had 3 weeks to find a way out of this.

~

     On her way back home, mom dropped me off at my boyfriend Patrick’s house. We studied together twice a week, him helping me with Math and Science, and me helping him in English and History. I often thought myself that it was funny how we could get along so well, and yet have completely different interests.

I ran up the brick pathway to the front steps of the big two-story house, but as I reached out to knock on the bright red door, it flew open, and Patrick stood there, laughing as I stood there with my hand awkwardly held in the air in front of me.

“Knocking on imaginary doors again, my dear delusional bookworm?” he teased.

“Shut up Ricky!” I playfully slapped him, and he gave me that mischievous to-die-for dimpled grin that always made me melt.

We both waved to my mom, who was shaking her head jokingly in disapproval at us as she drove off, then I kicked off my shoes as Ricky closed the door.

“Race you!”

The two of us raced down the hallway, then slid across the wooden floors in our socks, almost slamming into Rick’s older sister who screamed and nearly dropped her cell phone.

We both laughed and ran into the schoolroom as she glared after us murderously. Patrick Murray, or Ricky as I always called him, was 17 and the second oldest of 7 children. Besides his older sister Aryn, who was 19, he had 2 little brothers, 14-year-old Darcie and 12-year-old Sullivan, and 3 younger sisters. Evelyn and Brianna, who were twins, both 10, and the cute 3-year-old, Deirdre. With all these siblings, Ricky’s house was never dull, and I loved it! Though the more quiet Ricky could never understand how I actually enjoyed the chaos.

Upstairs in the schoolroom, Darcie and Sullivan were laying on the floor, absorbed in the 6 foot-high model of a Warren-Truss Bridge they were constructing out of wooden skewers and hot glue as a science project. All the Murray boys were very much into building things. Ricky and I carefully made our way across the floor, trying to avoid stepping on any sharp little wooden pieces, and then flopped down on the big squishy couch to study.

“Math first today, girly?” Patrick asked.

I let out a sigh, “Fine…math first.” After pulling my long black hair up into a messy bun, I dropped my precious Chesterton and creative writing books onto the floor next to the couch, and pulled the ghastly Geometry books out of my bag.

Stealing Ricky’s fancy mechanical pencil out of his hand, I began working on the math lesson, handing him my own pink pencil to use instead, and laughing at his exaggerated look of horror.

I finished three geometry problems before I got confused.

“Ricky…Help please?”

“Yup…one second…lemme finish this..” Ricky answered without looking up from where he sat leaning over his book. 

     In the bright sunshine coming through the window, his dark auburn hair looked bright red.  Ricky and I both had green eyes, but the resemblance stopped there. Ricky’s parents were from Ireland, having come over to the United States for college, where they met, and the entire Murray family was fully and completely Irish, very friendly, and clannish. They all had brilliant green or blue eyes and everyone had dark auburn or red hair except for Darcie, whose hair was undeniably black. The Murray’s also all had, to my great enjoyment, unmistakable Irish accents. Even though I had known the Murray’s since I was a little child, I never got tired of hearing their accent, and I would often tease Ricky by imitating his accent until he begged me to stop.

  “Ok I can help you now,” Ricky said suddenly, breaking into my train of thought, and dragging me back to the depressing reality of geometry problems.

~

  Three hours later, we were finally done with school, and we headed down to the kitchen for lunch.

“Ahh, there you are!” Mrs. Murray smiled cheerfully, “Can you give me a hand with lunch?”

Catching sight of the cheese, olives, red sauce and pizza dough already laid out on the counter I readily agreed as did Patrick, and we started rolling out mini pizzas for each family member. Laughing and talking the whole time, not to mention sampling the olives, cheese, pineapple and ham that sat so temptingly on the counter.

I knew Patrick and his siblings so well, I didn’t even have to ask what each person wanted on their pizza, and I quickly made mine, Evelyn’s and Brianna’s, being interrupted every few minutes by Deirdre’s curious little toddler hands sneaking into the food.

“Come on Deirdre, stop eating all the pineapple or there won’t be any left on your pizza!” I said, pulling the cute little culprit away from the counter yet again.

“My tongue ish fwuffy” Deirdre answered me with the wide-eyed seriousness of a three year old, as she showed me her tiny pink tongue.

Patrick, overhearing this, laughed. “That’s what happens when you eat too much pineapple, Squishy.”

At this, Squishy, as the Murray boys called their littlest sister, nervously clutched her tongue as if it would fall off, and asked in a muffled voice, “Wiw it fawl off?”

“It might if you eat any more pineapple before the pizzas are done.” Patrick answered, equally serious.

And in the sheer terror of losing her tongue, “Squishy” fled from the room, leaving the rest of us giggling uncontrollably.

When Mrs. Murray turned to put the pizzas in the oven, Patrick began throwing the extra olives in the air and catching them in his mouth, until Aryn walked in and stopped in shocked horror.

“Mom! Patrick is playing with his food again!”

      Mrs. Murray turned around just to see Patrick catch the last of the olives in his mouth, and he bowed gracefully, smiling mischievously.

His mom merely shook her head with exasperation, then turned back the oven quickly to hide her smile. Patrick winked at me, setting me off in convulsive giggles, as Aryn rolled her eyes in true older sister fashion and stormed out of the room.

     I had almost forgotten about the less-than-pleasant dentist appointment that morning, until I bit into a large piece of pineapple, and felt my sore gums stinging with the acidic juice.

“Ooww!” I made a face, “I really don’t like my teeth right now.” 

“Why’s that?” Patrick asked, as he dumped dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

“Had a dentist appointment this morning,” I paused to take another bite of pineapple, “And…he said I need to get my wisdom teeth pulled.”

“Ooooh..” Patrick knew all about what happened when I was younger, and he grimaced in sympathy. “Aww that sucks, but hey I got my wisdom teeth pulled two months ago and it wasn’t that bad…”

I glared at him, “You could hardly talk for a week! It was awful!”

Patrick shrugged, smiling slightly as he gave me a wet soapy hug. “That’s why we write notes in code. You’ll be fine!”

I sighed.

“C’mon…no being sad…I forbid it!” Patrick threatened me with the sponge and I shrieked and grabbed the dish towel, smacking him ‘til we got in a full out dishtowel fight, laughing our heads off.

Chapter 2~

         I carefully flipped through my notebook, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. My sweet sixteen birthday party was tomorrow and I had everything carefully planned out. My best friends Genevieve and her older sister Morgan were over helping me decorate and they were having a blast, mummifying each other with lime green and white streamers. I put down my notebook after Gen fell over with a particularly loud squeak.

“Oh my gosh you guys!” I giggled, “We’ll have to like, put you guys up as decorations if you use up all the streamers!”  

Of course then the girls came after me with the streamers, and I fled down the stairs to the living room. My dad had brought home tons of flowers from the whole-sale flower company that he managed and my mum had put them all over the house. It was lovely!

Just then Ricky and my dad walked past the sliding glass door, dragging a table between them, and I walked out to see their progress. Outside we had strung lights from tree to tree and from the house to the fence over the lawn to make an outdoor dance floor. As old fashioned as it might seem, I really wanted to have a dance for my sixteenth birthday, just the like balls girls used to have hundreds of years ago when they turned sixteen.