Double Rainbows

Double Rainbows

By Priya Kitzmiller

This book is dedicated many people and one feeling. This story first made its appearance in my cluttered brain when I left my glasses at home and spent the whole day squinting and left school with a pounding headache that only grew worse when I walked into the glass door on our front porch. The feeling that came with this experience was like I was blind as a bat.

The first person I will name is a teacher known by her fellow associates as Lexi and by my fellow pupils as Mrs. Oliver, with her help I travel to many lands all in her magical library then chart and record them. I also want to thank all of my friends for helping me up when I fall, which is often. I also want to thank Mom for letting me stay up late with her computer working on this project while blasting crappy music. I want to thank Dad for always laughing at my horrible jokes and filling me with laughter. For all my wonderful friends. And Eli how can I forget you my little pal? Ahh my little bro, without you I would have only one feeling: happiness, but I would lack my ability to hate with a fiery passion and where would I get all my bruises and who’s to forget that you’re better than any way to lose weight and all my life you have kept me in shape. I love you little guy.

Maple Leaf Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright 2017

On New Year's Eve at exactly 5:57 newly 11 year old Xia (zee-uh) woke to the smell of devoted parents.You might wonder what devoted parents smell like. It's different for all people, if your favorite meal of the day is breakfast and you like to eat bacon and eggs and cheese on a biscuit that's what devoted parents smell would like to you. That's how Xia smelled devoted parents. She ran down the stairs nearly slipped, and collided with a tall skinny package, she had a very good assumption of what the heck was in this ridiculous package. Skis. Xias favorite place was the Ski Resort at the other side of town. She had enjoyed going with her friends but had been jealous when they had their own skis and she had to rent hers. Her mom picked her up and put her in a chair with a steaming plate in front of it. This plate contained 2 biscuits from scratch, 3 pieces of crunchy bacon and a little heap of cheesy egg. These were the ultimate makings for bacon egg cheese sandwiches. She went to work putting a biscuit in front of her then piling the egg on it, soon followed by the bacon topped with the second biscuit. She bit into pure melty heaven ahh creamy then crunchy and crispy. So good.

After she inhaled her little delicacy she was met with another plate bearing the same thing. After pleasantly stuffing herself, her parents took her plates to the sink and washed them. She went over to the couch where every year she ceremoniously opened her presents. All year she had been begging for a pair of skis and a tank of fish so she expected they'd be somewhere in here. As soon as her parents were next to her she lunged for the tall skinny package that had nearly wiped her out, she seized her prey and tore off the wrapping to expose... more wrapping! She tore that off then saw a blank brown box. With one look she persuaded her father to hand over his knife, and she tore it through the box to reveal something yellow. Yellow was her favorite colour, she had yellow snow pants, a yellow helmet, yellow gloves, and a yellow parka. She finished opening the box, it was a pair of neon yellow skis with neon yellow ski boots to match! She hugged her mom then her dad, removed the plastic wrap from the skis and put her feet in the boots. She imagined that she was bombing down a hill and dodging those awful pines. As she reached the bottom of her imaginary hill she spotted the fried waffle hut and zoomed over. 20 dollar bills appeared in her hand and she passed them over and received a stack of scalding hot waffles. She bit down hard to taste old leather, she had sampled the couch!

The mornings spoils had concealed a water pillow, an electric blanket and, a big 1 pound bag of skittles. Xia tore off the plastic wrapper from her bag of skittles and took a big bite. She had soon made a reasonable dent in the amount of skittles in the bag. She was reaching in for another big bite when the doorbell rang and a very smiley Ky walked in. She was wearing snow gear and a smile.

Suddenly the ground started shaking. Like they were in one of those paint mixer things. The strange thing was, nothing was falling from the walls, and no one seemed to notice. Then another strange thing happened: everyone started to fade. Huh, what a strange turn of events thought dreaming Xia.

Her last thought before waking was: Ahh! We’re all gonna die!

“Everyone does,” said her mom.

“Mom!” yelled Xia.

Xia got dressed, a chore that consisted of, putting on a fleece then a t shirt soon followed by jeans,socks,and little yellow earrings in the shape of stars. When she looked in the mirror she saw how ridiculous her torso looked and repeat steps one and two in her process and, with her fleece on the outside this time rushed down stairs this however was a bad decision for, at the bottom of the stairs her skis were precariously propped up on the banister. Seeing the skis brought a flood of memories and and for a small amount of time her brain was focused on skiing. Ah, wonderful skiing. The feeling of flying over the powdery snow so effortly was so, so, just so amazingly hard to put into words.

Breakfast was the usual. Cold milk, with a hearty amount of fruit loops. At first the bowl in front of her had her confused, where were the biscuits? But then she remembered that, that fantasy was a dream. She got her backpack, a baby blue thing with midnight blue stripes and a purple splotch where she had spilt her, “ berry good berry lemonade”. On the way out the door she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Brown hair the color of an old chestnut, and then the most peculiar part of her, her eyes. Round and innocent gray disks. But no, not just gray, toward the inside there were flecks of a topaz colored blue and at the edges there was a small line of what appeared to be real fluorite. Everyone else in her family either had brown or blue eyes so she felt like the odd one out.

The bus stop was only a few blocks away, and the one to the high and middle schools was across the lane. Around the sign for the bus stop there were a few scruffy little trees that looked like toothpicks with bits of old green tissue paper stuck on them. Near the scruffiest tree stood Ky, her best friend.

Xia and Ky entered the bus about as happy as a mouse in a snakes killer grip. They entered their assigned seat near the front and to the left. The bus smelled like old dead things and spitballs and the unpleasant stuff grandma made for dinner last week.

Their conversation was the same as last time and the time before that and so on and so on. They talked about boys, and skiing, and whose birthday was coming up. All the normal jibber jabber.

School was the same, boring the first hour, tricky the next, almost fun the third, practically unbearable the fourth, fifth was a nightmare, sixth was a daydream, and the seventh hour was dismissal.

When she got outside she started to run over to Ky but being a natural Klutz she hit the only patch of ice on the playground and instead of walking to Ky she smashed into her. One awkward goodbye later she was sitting in her babysitters car. Clarity, her babysitter, was in the car along with her daughter Heaven. Heaven was only four or five years older than Xia, but as far as she was concerned she was completely more responsible and independent and was far better at, well, everything. When they got to Heavens house they raced up the stairs, you might not have been able to tell but Xia was very fast. She raced up those stairs like her butt was on fire and planted herself on the good couch, the one facing the T.V. . Heaven had to go to the other couch that was positioned just so the poor person on it was forced to turn their head in a very uncomfy 90* angle to see the television..

Remember when I told you that Heaven was better at everything? Well I meant Xbox too. After Xia lost about 7 or 8 games, the tables changed. They came to a game where you made your figure do aerobics. Xia, sensing that this game would be lost, decided she would go out with a bang. For some reason this game was easier than the rest, like she had been cut some slack from the T.V. gods or something. To her surprise, in the end when they slowly revealed the scores the look on Heaven's face could have killed, she had lost against Xia! Heaven, thinking there must have been some mistake decided they would play again and then she would win and they would move on. Xia, sensing something very unexpected was about to take place stood up to act out what her minion was doing. Heaven, sensing some real competition for once, did the same thing.

In the middle of the game, something even more unexpected happened, off in the distance there was a boom. And I don’t mean you every day boom, I mean a boom like a giant atomic bomb that ate to many burritos then drank gasoline and got to close to a bonfire. For the tiniest fraction of time you can think of divided by 2, Xia and Heaven locked eyes. Both of their pupils got bigger with fear then, less than a second after these 2 events that each lasted about half of one there came the worst noise yet: a crack. It sounded like a cross between glass and bone being smashed and obliterated on a cliff side made of titanium.

Then Xia was met with a searing pain like a white hot rod was being pressed up against her temple. Her eyes crossed, then her vision flickered she looked at Heaven and held out her hand in a sort of : catch me, way. Her hand was squeezed then she couldn’t see anything except black and more black like she was at the bottom of a huge lake. The only feeling that didn’t leave her was the warmth of Heaven's hand.

Xia woke up later to see, well, nothing, but she smelled hospital. And judging by the fact she had been in terrible pain and couldn’t see, she guessed she probably needed to be in one and, here she was. Then she felt a familiar warmth in her hand. It was Heaven, she had stayed by Xias side all, well, night or whatever, Xia had no idea what time it was. Then the warmth in her hand stirred, Heaven was awake.

“Good morning sleepy head, by the way what time is it?”

Xia said in what she thought was Heaven's general direction.”

“There’s a clock right in front of you. You can read analog clocks, right?”

“ Uh, duh of course I can. I just can’t read this one, it probably has something to do with the fact that I can’t see anything.”

“Ah yes that would make it hard.”

“No kidding, so what time is it again?”

“It’s 8:45. Are you hungry? I’m starving, aren’t hospitals supposed to serve,like, pudding or something?”

“Good point. Besides anyone in my state definitely deserves pudding,” Xia said matter of factly.

“Okay then, let's go.”

Xia crawled to the edge of the bed then she turned around so her legs were dangling off the edge of the bed and dropped down so she was standing. Xia put her arms out in front of her and felt her way to the door. After nearly breaking 3 lamps and smashing painfully into a large unidentified object (otherwise known as an expensive T.V) they found their way to the snack bar.

“Ooh, what's that smell? Is it, is it, um is it chocolate?”

“No, it’s tapioca pudding.”

“ I loooove tapioca pudding. What else is there?”

“Every flavor of pudding, candy, all sorts, rolls, comfort food, stuff like that.”

“Can you get me one of everything please?”

“Everything?”

“What can I say, I’m on a no sea food diet. I don’t see food and I eat it.”

“Hee hee hee,” Heaven said sarcastically.

“As you wish Buttercup.”

One baked potato, 6 puddings,8 packages of candy later the two girls rested on the big bed in the hospital. Heaven was watching T.V and Xia was listening to it. At 8:25 some inappropriate stuff came on and Heaven turned the T.V off and they sat in silence for about 4 minutes.

“I’m hungry again,” said Xia.

“Oh no you’re not!” Heaven's replied.

“Can you look up morse code? I’ve always wanted to learn it. We could do it into each other's hands.”

“Xia, what the heck does that have to do with anything?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” retorted Heaven.

Three times through the alphabet later Heaven asked Xia a few 3 to 4 letter words like cat and bat and like and then some bonus words like pudding and other types of food and finally Television.

“Oh yeah, I totally got this,” said a very proud Xia.

“And by the way, why did you come to the hospital with me?”

Xia thought she heard the door open but was not sure.

“Well,I thought you would need a friend by your side. Plus you just looked so vulnerable.”

“Oh, that's not true don’t believe it Xia, by the way it’s me Clarity. She fainted when she saw you hit her floor and we thought she would need to go to the hospital too.”

“Mom that’s not true.”

“Oh is that so? Was the sight of me really so horrible?”

“He he he, yes,” said Heaven.

“Heaven! What a horrible thing to say. Oh don’t give me that look, Xia do you see this?”

“Actually no, I can’t see anything.”

“Oh my. And I just remembered we found out what hit you in the head, would you like to know?”

“Sigh, why not?”

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Well, it’s sort of a long story. You know the house next to ours, the big yellow one?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Well the old man that lives there used to go hunting a lot. He kept one of his old rifles in a case on the wall. His nephew was over at his house and he accidentally knocked it over. When it hit the ground a piece of glass got wedged in the trigger and, when a bit of wood hit all of that the gun went off and right through our window.”

Well, bye you guys and, I almost forgot here’s your homework Heaven.

“Gee thanks, mom.”

Heaven says sarcastically. The door closes and Clarity has made her exit.

“Well let’s see what mom gave me this time. O.K algebra here, history there, this is prealgebra, that was post algebra…

“Shut up,” said an annoyed Xia.

The day went on and on for poor Xia and finally got so dully boring that she fell asleep. As she slept she saw blurry patches of color yes color!

The next morning Xia sat up and blinked, instead of seeing complete blackness she saw an unbearable light, yes light then as she blinked it became more bearable then all at once it became blue, eyes baby blue then a patch of red, some yellow, a bit of green and the most beautiful purple you can imagine a darkish lightish playful color. What the heck was this. Then it hit her like a stray pop fly, she could see! And these, these were double rainbows crossing in the sky in perfect 90* angles. Again, what the heck.

2 weeks later

“Okay Xia here you go”

“Thanks” said Xia, accepting the beige glasses.

“You will never see properly again but glasses will help.”

“Yeah” as the glasses slide down on her nose everything slides into focus and Xia feels like she is looking at the world from a whole new perspective.

Xia devoted her life to donating money to blind children in need and is known nationally as a hero in the fight to help blind children.