Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Trip to the Mall

I hung up the phone.
Yes, they had it, yes, they were finished with it, no, they did not have to send it back to Warner Brothers. Yes, I could have it if I came and got it before they sent it to the garbage, and could I get there in an hour? Yes.
I ran up the stairs to my room, and cleared a space for it. It needed it's own special shrine-area, free of other decoration. There were posters where I wanted it, so I carefully peeled the tape off. I accidentally tore a little bit off of Myrtle's left ear in a de-taping incident-- whoops.
There was tape in my hair-- the blue kind. The only kind you're allowed to put on your walls until you buy your own house, because it doesn't stick to anything but hair. I pulled it out and flicked it into a ball and off my fingers.
The space was ready, with nothing on the wall behind it, and a clearing on the floor (unusual for my room) where it was to stand.
"Mom!"
"What, dear, I'm making lunch."
"They said I could have it if we got there in an hour."
"Oh, honey... you don't really want that, do you? Just think how much space it'll take up-- and what'll you do with it when the craze is over?"
I raised my eyebrow. "The craze is never over. Not here. Now let's go."
Sigh. "Oh, alright."
She ate lunch while I tapped my fingers on the kitchen counter, intentionally bugging her to get her to take me seriously and hurry up.
We got in the car, and I was smiling. If felt like an appointment, like going to a birthday party, where you absolutely must be the first guest to arrive because that means you're the best friend, even if you weren't there to help set up.
We got to the mall, and Mom took
F
O
R
E
V
E
R
finding a parking place.
Mom walked over to the map where they list all the stores and restaurants and restrooms and show where they are located, but I was already on the escalator.
"Mom! They said they're on the third level, just across the way from the food court! We don't need a map, and we're gonna be LATE!!"
She rolled her eyes like teenagers are supposed to, except she was my mom.
I saw the bookstore, composed myself, and walked in, barely containing my excitement. There it was, almost glowing in all it's greenish glory. It must have been four feet wide and as tall as I was: Dumbledore on one side, and Harry on the other: in the middle was the bowl of potion where the fake locket was kept in the cave by the beach, right where R.A.B. (who I knew with all my heart HAD to be Regulus, it just had to be!) had left it years before. A huge, beautiful, glorious expanse of green cardboard, and it said on it, just like they promised, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". It was more than even I, with my wild imagination, had imagined.
That moment, forever, would be part of me. Traveling miles to the mall with a mother who despised malls, and myself not a frequenter, either--- traveling to the mall, (miles!) all to pick up a cardboard stand up advertisement for the sixth Harry Potter book. That is me, and that is childhood.

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