Prince Tennyson

  “Wow, Chelsea. That is a lot of reading you did.” She turned and walked back to sit on the bed, bringing the Bible with her. “A lot of hard reading.” As she looked at the book some more, Mom turned a couple of pages. “Did you understand what was happening? I’m not even sure I can follow this.”

  “No,” I admitted. “But I did know that Jesus was born. I read that part.” I sat up and leaned over her shoulder to see where she was at. She was right where I read earlier. I was surprised to see how fast my mom had found my place.

  “Mom?”

  “Hmm?” Her fingers turned a few more pages and I watched her eyes scan them.

  Was she reading? “How did you find that Luke part so fast?” I asked.

  Mom shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  I wasn’t buying it. As quick as I could, I climbed off the bed and knelt on the floor below her and watched her face.

  She moved the Bible and looked at me funny. “Chelsea, what are you doing?”

  “You’ve read the Bible before, haven’t you?”

  “What?”

  “There is no way you could’ve found that Luke place so fast. I know. I tried.” I pointed right at the book in her hand. “How come you never told me you’ve already tried to find out if God was real?”

  “Oh, honey.” Mom snapped the book shut. “Just because I’ve read the Bible doesn’t mean I know He’s real.”

  I thought about that for a moment. I didn’t want to think about what that would mean. Instead, I sat up taller and leaned in really close to my mom. “Well, since you’re so good at finding the places in the Bible, will you help me?” I was perfectly serious, and I wanted Mom to know it, too.

  I think she knew it, because she put her hands on my shoulders and chewed on her lip before she let out a big sigh and said, “All right. Because I know how important this is to you, okay?”

  “Really?” I smiled so big it made my mom blink.

  “Really.”

  I didn’t wait to see if her smile made it to her eyes. Instead, I jumped up and gave her a big, huge hug.

  ***

  Later that night when Hannah and I were getting ready for bed, she said, “That’s a weird book. How come it’s in here?”

  I just smiled to myself and slipped my nightgown over my head. “It’s a new book I’m reading.”

  I caught Hannah’s face just in time. She looked totally amazed. “What?” she gasped. “You’re reading that huge book? Really?”

  “Yep.” I picked up my clothes. Then to be nice, I scooped up hers as well and carried them to the hamper across the hall in the bathroom. When I came back, Hannah was sitting on her bed.

  “But why?” she asked.

  She was six. She asked “why” a lot. Grandma said it was a good way for her to learn things. I thought it had more to do with getting attention and making people talk to her. It was a good trick. If I was smart, I would use it more. “Because it’s something me and Mom are doing together to see if we can find out if God is real.”

  “Wow.” Hannah had no idea what I was talking about. I knew she didn’t. She just said “wow” so she would sound big.

  I brushed my hair off my face and then walked over to turn off the light. I made sure the hall light was still on before I flipped the switch.

  In the darkened room, I heard Hannah snuggle herself into the covers. I jumped into my bed quickly and then snuggled up too.

  My mind raced with all the fun stuff that would happen when Mom and I read the Bible together. I couldn’t wait to spend more time with her. It was almost like a dream come true—except I’d never dreamed it before. I never thought Mom would begin to act like her old self again. It was so weird and so very cool all at the same time.

  I thought Hannah had already gone to sleep, but I was wrong.

  “Chelsea?” she whispered. “Are you asleep?”

  “No,” I whispered back. “What do you need?”

  She was quiet for a few seconds and then she said, “I was just wondering if you ever thought about Daddy.”

  “Dad? All the time. Why?”

  Hannah’s bed squeaked as she rolled over to face me. “Because I was really little when he went to war, ‘member? I was only four when he left. And lots of days I can’t ‘member him anymore. Can you ‘member him?”

  I was very grateful I was a determined girl right then. “Yes, I remember Dad.”

  There were a few minutes of silence before Hannah asked, “Chelsea?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did people really call our daddy a prince?”

  “Yes. They did.”

  “Really?” I heard her covers rustle more; I figured she’d rolled back over. “I thought so, but I wasn’t sure anymore.”

  I stared up at the ceiling and watched my dad do lots of fun things with me and my sister. I watched us run down the beach chasing him with our buckets of fish water. I watched him push us super, super high in the swings at our old park. I watched him laugh as he sprayed us with the hose when we were helping wash the car. I watched him ride his bike with Hannah behind him in her seat, and me on my—

  “Chelsea?” her voice was very soft this time. “Chelsea, what if I don’t ‘member Daddy anymore? What if I forget what our prince looked like?”

  “You won’t. I promise. I won’t let you.”

  My sister believed me. Just like that. I could tell, because her voice was louder when she said, “Okay.”

  I decided to tell her. “Hannah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t let me forget to show you my secret box tomorrow, okay?”

  Chapter Seven

  WE COULDN’T WAIT TO get home fast so we could look at the pictures. I did make Hannah promise never to tell anyone, not Grandma Haney, or Mom, or Cameron, or her friends at school. She held her hand up and put her other hand over her heart and promised to never, ever tell anyone. Then I climbed down from the bed and crawled under it and pulled out my secret box.

  I didn’t know Hannah was crying. I was too busy pointing out my favorite pictures. It wasn’t until she said, “How long did you have these for?” that I even heard the wobbliness in her voice.

  I stopped and looked right up at her.

  Hannah wiped her eyes and tried to smile, but I could tell her mouth didn’t want to listen to her brain. “Have you had these pictures for forever?”

  “No.” I looked at the picture of Dad smiling back at me. He was holding Hannah up when she was a baby—they had matching baseball shirts on. My eyes started to cry too. I’d forgotten for a moment that Dad would never be able to hold Hannah up again. That made me sad.

  “Daddy was a prince, wasn’t he?” Hannah whispered.

  I glanced over to see her holding the picture of him in his uniform. He had cool stripes and things on his chest. They had little shiny silver and bronze pins in them. He was the most handsome dad ever. “Yeah, Hannah,” I answered her. “Dad was really a prince. The handsomest prince in the whole world.”

  “Wow.” Hannah just stared at that picture for a long time. I looked at it too. Then she said, “We were lucky to have him, weren’t we?”

  My eyes got watery again. I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but I figured she was right. “Yeah, we were really lucky to have him, even if it was just for a little while.”

  “The luckiest family ever, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I started to pick up the other pictures, because it was hard to see Dad with my eyes trying to cry so much.

  Hannah’s finger came out and touched the hat Dad wore in the picture. “God must’ve really loved us if he let us be Prince Tennyson’s kids.”

  “What? How do you know about God?” I asked, surprised that she was even bringing Him up.

  Hannah set the picture down and gave me her “I’m not stupid” look. I blinked, just like Mom did, and wondered for a minute if she knew more than I thought she did. I think she could see that I was wondering that because then she said, “Duh, everybody is
always talking about Him at school.”

  “Really?” I quickly put away the rest of the pictures, even the one Hannah liked, and closed the box. “Are you sure? First graders talk about God?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, what do they say?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Mostly stuff like, “oh, my gosh”—except not gosh, but God, but Grandma Haney gets mad if I say that.”

  “Oh.” I was disappointed. Everyone said that in fifth grade, too. I was hoping she’d tell me something else, something that would prove—

  “Except Jocelyn says that God loves her very much, because she gets to have pretty clothes and pretty shoes,” Hannah added. “That’s why I thought, if that was true, if God really did love Jocelyn that much because of her pretty clothes, then He must really, really love us because He didn’t just give us clothes—He gave us our daddy!”

  “Yep.” I couldn’t talk to Hannah anymore. Instead, I crawled under my bed and took a real long time putting up my box. I didn’t want to come out, so I just stayed under there. I folded my arms and rested my chin on them.

  Eventually my sister left the room.

  Then I thought and thought about what she’d said. I thought and thought about all the other dads in the world I knew. Like my friends’ dads, and our old neighbors’ dads, and even my mom’s dad—the one who left when she was a little girl and she never even saw him again. I thought about all those dads and I decided Hannah was right. If God was real, He must really, really love me and my family, because we got the best dad ever. We got a prince.

  ***

  By Tuesday, I had gotten up the guts to talk to the principal about taking school off on Wednesdays. I walked right into Principal Flanders’ office during my lunch recess and told her what I thought. She laughed at me, but it was a good laugh.

  “I like you, Chelsea Tennyson,” she said. “You’ve got gumption.” She walked around to the front of her desk and put her arm around me.

  I wasn’t sure what gumption was, but if it was anything like being desperate, then she pretty much figured me out. I decided to explain, just in case. “Actually, I’m at my rope’s end.” That was a saying Grandma Haney used all the time when she was going to give up. I liked it. “I just can’t deal with Wednesdays anymore at all. They’re really bad for me. And I’m always getting in trouble on that day—it’s scary, really, like a spell is on me on Wednesdays.”

  Ms. Flanders raised her eyebrows really high. “A spell? Really?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Hmm… spells are pretty serious.” She walked me over to her couch in the back of the room. We both sat down. “So, what makes you think you’ve been cursed? Do you want to talk about it?”

  I looked up at the clock and realized I still had about fifteen minutes before fifth-grade lunch recess was over. I took a deep breath.

  “Actually, it all started when I was in fourth grade in California. One Wednesday in November, a guy came to the door to tell us my dad died and we wouldn’t ever see him again.”

  Ms. Flanders gasped, but I didn’t look at her. I looked right down at my hands. It was really hard to tell the principal, but I figured I needed to if I was going to plead my case. “Since then, something bad has always happened on Wednesdays, no matter what. It’s just getting to be too much for me.”

  “Has anything happened to you since you’ve been here at this school?” she asked.

  “Yeah. But last Wednesday was the worst. I got in big trouble on that day.”

  “Really? I don’t think I can picture you getting in trouble. Can you tell me what happened?”

  I took another deep breath. I knew once I was done, she would probably be mad at me. “Okay…”

  I told Ms. Flanders all about what happened in class when I said my dad was a prince who went off to battle—I even told her how mad my teacher was. Then I said I was really sorry for making all the kids laugh and how I didn’t know it would be so bad, because at my old school, that’s what everyone called my dad—a prince.

  Well, when I was done, I was right. Ms. Flanders was mad. I could tell just by looking at her face, and especially with how she said, “Excuse me, Chelsea. I’m going to call your teacher in here. Will you please stay seated for a while?”

  “Uh—okay.” I gulped. I couldn’t help it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think today was really Wednesday and not Tuesday.

  Chapter Eight

  WHEN MY TEACHER, MRS. Sheridan, came into the principal’s office, she looked surprised to see me, but she didn’t say anything because Ms. Flanders took her right back through a door I didn’t notice until she opened it.

  Just before she shut the door, the principal poked her head out and said, “We’ll be a minute, Chelsea. You may read if you’d like.” She pointed to a small bookshelf with a bunch of kids’ books on it. “If you need anything, just tell my secretary, Miss Steines, and she’ll help you, okay?”

  I nodded.

  Ms. Flanders smiled a half smile and shut the door.

  I waited.

  The lunch recess bell rang and I still waited.

  After minutes of waiting in the quiet, where all I heard was the phone ringing and being answered by Miss Steines, I wandered over to the bookshelf. Most of the books were for somebody Hannah’s age. I decided there must be a lot of first graders who got sent to the principal’s office. After I picked up a Dr. Seuss one, I walked back over to the couch and flipped through its pages. I was too nervous to read it, but I looked at all the funny pictures.

  Dr. Seuss books always have funny pictures.

  “Chelsea?”

  Startled, I glanced up to see my teacher walking toward me. The principal was coming out of the room behind her. “Y-yeah?”

  My teacher walked all the way up to the couch. Her eyes looked sort of red and blotchy. Then she did the craziest thing. She knelt down right in front of me, moved the book off my lap, and held both of my hands. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there—it wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

  “Chelsea, I had no idea you were telling me about your dad when you were reading that story last week. I thought you didn’t listen to me and made up your own story.”

  I shook my head, but Mrs. Sheridan kept talking.

  “And I definitely didn’t know Prince Tennyson was your dad’s nickname.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my hands, still held by her, because all of a sudden I thought of my dad again and my heart hurt.

  “Chelsea, sweetie,” my teacher squeezed my hands, “I’m so sorry I misunderstood you.”

  My eyes flew to hers. She was sorry?

  “And I’m really, really, really sorry I ripped up your paper. That was a very special paper; I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t realize how very wonderful your dad was and how much you trusted me and wanted to share with me. Can you forgive me for being so mean to you?” Mrs. Sheridan’s eyes were full of tears.

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. It was the most surprising thing that had ever happened to me.

  Mrs. Sheridan squeezed me really tight in a big hug and I saw the principal smile behind her. I smiled back. But not a real smile, just a “I can’t believe this is happening” smile.

  “Chelsea?” My teacher pulled away and wiped her eyes and held my hands again. “I want to make it up to you, okay? How about I let you pick a day to tell about your dad? A special day, when you can share with the whole class about his nickname and what made him a prince. You can even tell me what his favorite food was and we’ll bring it in for the kids to have a special treat. Will that work? Would you like to share your dad with us and all your good memories of him, too? Or would that hurt too much?”

  “I—uh.” I blinked at her and felt my jaw drop. I thought I would like to do that. I didn’t think it would hurt that much to talk about him. “Okay.”

  Mrs. Sheridan smiled a real smile that went all the way to her eyes. Then she stood up and held out her arm for me. After I put
up the book, she wrapped her arm around my shoulders. We said goodbye to the principal and walked down the hallway back to class.

  There was another lady in the room, waiting for Mrs. Sheridan and talking to the kids. She smiled big when she saw us, but my teacher just shook her head, and then we walked past her over to the wall where the big calendar was. Mrs. Sheridan showed me all the days and asked me to pick one for my dad’s special day.

  “You can have any day you choose.”

  Hmm. I looked and looked and then finally I chose the most specialist day of all. March 31st. “That day! That’s my dad’s birthday.”

  “Oh! What a wonderful day to celebrate your special day for him. So, are you totally sure, before I write it down?”

  “Yep. I’m sure.”

  Mrs. Sheridan nodded and wrote on there with her marker:

  PRINCE TENNYSON’S DAY.

  I laughed. That was the same thing Mom used to put on the calendar when it was Dad’s birthday.

  Then it hit me.

  “Mrs. Sheridan? Do you think my family could come to my dad’s special day too?”

  My teacher looked at me funny and then smiled. “Okay. I think that would be a great idea.”

  I smiled too. Really big.

  I wasn’t sure if Mom and Grandma Haney and Hannah and Cameron would want to come, but maybe. And maybe this year, March 31st would be a special day for them too.

  I smiled all the way to my seat. And then I still smiled when Sarah and Jasmine asked me what had happened and where I had been. I smiled the whole time I told them. I even giggled right out loud when I told them what the teacher and I were planning for March 31st.

  Tuesdays are so much better than Wednesdays.

  Then I gasped.

  Mrs. Sheridan had said goodbye to the other lady and had already started talking to us. But I couldn’t help it. I raised my hand up really quick and closed my eyes, hoping it wasn’t true.

  “What is it, Chelsea? Do you need something?” asked my teacher.

  I squeezed my eyes tighter and whispered, “What day is March 31st on?

  “It’s a Wednesday. Why?”