October Flash Fiction #2 - The Last Time in Their Bed

            “Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her mind, “There’s another little girl in the garden somewhere!”

            “Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,” the Rose said:  “but she’s redder—and her petals are shorter I think.”

            “Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,” the Tiger-lily interrupted:  “not tumbled about anyhow, like yours.”

            “But that’s not your fault,” the Rose added kindly:  “you’re beginning to fade, you know—and then one can’t help one’s petals getting a little untidy.”  _Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 2

            Charlotte, now that she was eleven, in middle school, and therefore practically an adult, insisted that everyone now call her Charlie.  It sounded much more sophisticated.  At least that was what she told her mother, who laughed for a moment before getting distracted, again, by her sisters, who were battling over the older one combing the younger one’s hair.  Sometimes it was best to be the middle sister because she was well out of that.

            She had also cut off her long hair about a week back.  “You look like a boy,” her younger sister said. 

“It’s called a pixie,” her mother said.  “That means she looks elfin, like a girl from a fairy tale.”

“Not Rapunzel,” her sister insisted.

Charlie knew Rapunzel’s hair had grown back.  She hoped it would take a while for hers to grow back.  Long enough, anyway.

They had gone from the salon to math tutoring.  Charlie had a fractious relationship with fractions and Mr. Lewis was supposed to make it better.  Her mother dropped her off at his apartment door, having turned a deaf ear to Charlie’s pleas not to have to go.  “You never want to go,” her mother commented.  “But math is inevitable.”

Another girl was just coming out, her long hair braided into a crown around her head.  The girl’s eyes were dark and cloudy, but Mr. Lewis smiled.  Then he noticed Charlie’s hair.

“Don’t you look grown-up,” he said.  He shut the bedroom door on the crumpled sheets and turned to the paper-strewn table.

And Charlie knew they were moving on to division.