Angela
Sandy True’s moist, pudgy hands formed the sugary dough into a perfect ball. She sniffed loudly and wiped her chapped nose on the back of her hand. Pesky cold. However, Sandy didn’t mind too much because Angela had a cold too. Sandy gently rolled her perfect ball in a shallow dish of the sugar and cinnamon mixture her mother had prepared. She set the sugary ball onto a greased sheet and pressed two childish fingers on its surface, flattening it slightly. Butter and sugar clung to her fingertips and she eagerly licked them clean before dipping her hands back into the dough. “Sandy, sweetie, what did I tell you about…” her mother started then sighed and shrugged her shoulders. After all, Sandy would most likely eat all the cookies anyway.
Outside the kitchen window, rain was gently patting the soggy lawn. “So much for a white Christmas,” Miss True commented, smiling towards her daughter, “Hm, Sandy?”
“I quite like the rain, Mother,” Sandy stated wistfully in her faux British accent. “It reminds me of sprinklers in the summertime. It makes me feel like a flower.” She then hopped down from her perch by the dining room table, twirled on her tippy toes and toddled away to find Angela.
“Don’t forget to wash your hands, dear!” Miss True called after her daughter who had already disappeared behind Grandma True’s favorite nativity scene. It glowed warmly. Sandy wasn’t listening, she was already composing a story to share with Angela. Miss True’s eyes wandered to the muddy front lawn that she had worked so hard to maintain. “At least with no freeze,” she thought to herself, “the gas bill will be lower this year.”
Sandy found Angela dancing ballet style in Sandy’s Lion King themed bedroom. Lisa, the skinny minnie from school, once said that The Lion King was only for boys. Sandy told her that Angela was a girl and she liked Lion King too, so Lisa could go eat raw eggs and spiders because she was stupid. Angela agreed.
“Greetings, dearest Angela,” sang Sandy. Angela smiled and kept dancing. “Are you practicing for the performance of the Nutcracker?” Angela nodded. “I wish I could be an English princess like her,” thought Sandy, but she would never say such blasphemy aloud, she wouldn’t want Angela to think she was jealous. Angela was beautiful and always wore silken pink dresses.“Did you know that tomorrow is Christmas?” asked Sandy. “Did you know that a big voice in the clouds put a seed, like a watermelon seed, in a lady named Virgin Mary and the watermelon grew and then it turned into a king named Jeezes when it came out? When I have a seed and it comes out I’m going to name it Virgin, I think thats a nice name.” Angela continued dancing. Sandy’s brows furrowed. She breathed deeply, her cheeks felt hot and flushed.
“Lisa told me I could fit a whole watermelon in my tummy,” Sandy said, hoping to get a response from her closest friend. Angela felt distant. Sandy sighed and threw herself onto her Simba blanket. Soft, childish rolls of skin cushioned her fall. Angela pirouetted and twirled.
A sweet smell wafted up the stairs and through Sandy’s door. Below, Sandy could hear her mother opening up the oven, the gentle clutter of the metal racks as she removed trays, and the barely audible sound of a familiar tune she’d heard nearly every Sunday. Sandy’s tummy grumbled. She rolled onto her back and tried to look at her toes but couldn’t find them. She tried to squish her tummy smaller with her baby-like hands. Her eyes began to well up with water. “Once upon a time,” Sandy whispered, “there was a really pretty princess… who lived in a little town called Bethlehem…” Her voice faded away. Sandy closed her eyes.
Sandy is floating into Ms. Greene’s rainbow colored classroom, late as usual. She takes her seat, criss-cross applesauce, in the circle. It is show-and-tell time and Sandy brought a special surprise, her fellow queen from the far off land of England, Queen Angela. Sandy and Angela were dressed in shimmering gold with pink ribbons and those really cool Simba slippers from Wal-Mart. On their heads they wore silver crowns with rare feathers and shells of all colors. Sandy feels gorgeous. When it comes her turn to present, Sandy grasps Angela’s hand tightly and sings effortlessly, in her best queen voice, “Dearest subjects of Bethlehem, I would like to introduce you to my dearest queen, Queen Angela!” Though instead of hearing roars of applause and comments on their beauty, Sandy is listening to silence. Someone begins whispering. “What is she holding in her hand?” The noise grows.
“Nothing, Sandy brought nothing!” Laughter fills the empty space.
“What is she wearing?” Fingers point.
“It looks like she has a watermelon in her tummy!” Lisa cries.
Sandy reaches for Angela’s hand, together they can withstand anything, but her hand only grabs thin air. “Angela?” Sandy cries and looks frantically about. “Angela, where are you?”
“She’s not real!” voices scream.
Sandy’s eyes fluttered open. Her round cheeks felt damp and her eyes soggy like the lawn outside. She rolled off her Lion King bed and onto the floor beneath.
“Angela?” No reply. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a movement.
“Angela!” she cried and chased her down the stairs.
Her mother was still humming in the kitchen. Sandy raced past. She checked beneath the couch, behind the cupboard that held her mother’s nice dishes and under the few boxes wrapped in newspaper beneath the Christmas tree. She tipped over the plastic nativity scene that glowed pastel colors. No Angela.
Tears and mucus dribbled down her face. Rain pelted against the window pane. Sandy thought of how Angela never minded the rain because it reminded her of sprinklers and flowers.
“Sandy, is something wrong honey?” Miss True called from the kitchen.
“Angela!” Sandy wailed in response and flung the door open, only to be greeted by a cold blast of freezing rain and wind.
“I’m coming, Angela!” she called and barrelled through the soggy lawn and onto the street. Her breath came in short gasps as she struggled to jog down the road, screaming for Angela. Her hair, skin and clothes felt heavy and full of cold water, she trembled involuntarily. How would she survive Mrs. Greene’s class without her? Who would understand her?
Suddenly, Sandy felt two arms encircle and lift her off the ground. Cradled in safety, she clung to the familiar shoulders of a strong woman. Sandy buried her face into her mother’s bosom as she was carried into the safety of a familiar house with familiar sweet smells and a familiar couch. Miss True rocked Sandy back and forth, back and forth, humming that familiar tune.
“Mommy,” Sandy sniffed. “Angela isn’t real, is she?”
Miss True stopped humming. She looked towards her toppled Nativity scene. She smiled at their pastel colors and peaceful expressions. Miss True breathed deeply, watching her daughter’s head rise and fall with the expansion and compression of her lungs. “No, of course she is real, Sandy. Hasn’t she been there for you?”
Sandy paused. “Sometimes,” she answered.
“Then she is real. Just as virgin births, kings born in mangers and angels brings me comfort, you can believe in Angela.”
~Maddie Gerig