Treasure

A few months ago, I challenged my then-eleven year old friend Courtney -- an enthusiastic writer -- to give us both a writing prompt... something that would inspire us each to create at least one story.  She proposed the hunt for a treasure.  She recently turned twelve, and has read to me the lively result of her creative labors... a story of a shipwreck, super-human feats of swimming, magic crystals... everything an adventure should be.

And what have I been doing?  Poking along with my little bits which I've shared here, which don't yet string into any sort of story.  So I set myself to at least start a story that will involve adventure and treasure. And, as usual, I have no earthly idea where it's going.  Luckily, it doesn't appear to be a totally earthly story!

The wind blew the door shut, and the cat raced by in a panic.

"Monsters!" she shrieked, as she tried to take a corner at full speed and her claws skittered uselessly in the linoleum.

"It's not, Olivia," I said in a reasonable tone of voice. "It's the wind blowing through the house and creating a vacuum that sucked the door shut."

Her small grey face peeked around the corner and her green eyes narrowed. "I don't like vacuums. Noisy monsters."

I contemplated explaining that this had been a different kind of vacuum from the ancient, wheezing Hoover that I dragged infrequently from the closet. "Olivia detests vacuums," I would explain to visitors when I felt the need to defend the layers of dust and cat hair that collected in corners and under furniture. "I have to wait until she goes out before I can vacuum; she simply won't have it. But she doesn't appear to go out much anymore."

I do believe I could write a scholarly paper on the universality of people's facial reactions to that explanation.

Olivia took another step or two into the kitchen and settled herself onto a beam of fading sunlight pooled on the floor. She delicately licked a paw to indicate that she was above all this furor of slamming doors and monsters and vacuums.

"I don't know why you assume that monsters are behind every startling noise, Olivia," I said, using a wooden spoon to swirl cake batter around and around in my grandmother's ceramic bowl.

"Monsters are behind every fearsome thing," she replied indignantly. "I have seen them. Time and time again, I have witnessed them doing terrible things in the world."  She narrowed her eyes to slits. "I have done battle with them. I know many of their secrets."

I cradled the batter bowl in the crook of my arm so I could turn to look at her while I stirred.

"Olivia.  You and I have shared this house for, what, sixteen years?"

She flicked her tail a single time in response.

"And in ALL that time, you've never reported to me a single monster encounter. Not a tale of danger or heroism. Not a whiff of a secret."

Her tail flicked once more.  "I don't report to you."

I plunked the bowl down on the counter with emphasis. "I'm not saying you DO. I'm not your boss, your superior officer, your... your... QUEEN.  But don't you think that just once in sixteen years you might have reported something interesting about your day?  Spun me a little story of adventure as we cuddled on a winter evening? Perhaps a "How was your day, Jane? I did battle with a monster today over the Gateway to the Land of Secrets. Will there be tuna for dinner?"

Olivia hunkered down with her ears flattened and stared at me. "How do you know about the Gateway?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I'm making it up!  This is a hypothetical situation! I don't for one minute believe there is a Gateway to a Land of Secrets."

Olivia rose gracefully as the last of the sunbeam evaporated. She flexed her back and stretched her front legs. As she stalked regally from the room, she turned her head to me. "That," she said archly, "is where you're wrong."