Aunt Jessie’s Box
Brooke Hendricks | Kristy Lankford
My Aunt Jessie was Superwoman. Okay, maybe not exactly Superwoman, but like a smarter, cooler, awesomer version of an adult. She didn’t visit us a lot, but when she did, she gave me really cool presents.
Then she died. And I was kinda sad about that. But then my mom told me that I could have something from Aunt Jessie’s house and I got less sad because now I’d be getting a present. I liked presents.
I liked Aunt Jessie’s house, too, because it was kind of like a museum. But not a boring museum. A cool one. She had a bunch of awesome stuff from all around the world, like this pointy spear sword thing from Taiwan and a creepy lion mask from Nigeria. She even had a collection of recent video games from Japan, and not even the most popular kid in my class had that.
Her house was packed with this stuff, and I really couldn’t decide on just one thing. I wanted everything. But my mom said that was against the rules. So I had to make one decision.
The problem was I didn’t think I could just make one decision, though. It was like going into a massive candy store and only buying one Hershey kiss, you know? It didn’t make sense. Then Mom and I walked into the study. And I saw this thing right on Aunt Jessie’s desk and I just knew right then that it was what I wanted.
It was a box.
Not an average, cardboard box that mail ships in, but one of those mysterious boxes in video games that you have to do a bunch of things to unlock. Maybe Aunt Jessie’s box would give me powers or something. I always wanted to fly.
I reached across the desk and grabbed the box, but it didn’t even lift up from the table.
“Careful,” my mom said. She ran over, grabbed the box like it wasn’t super heavy, and handed it to me real slow. “This is probably worth a lot.”
It was so heavy that I still couldn’t hold it right, so I just dropped it to the floor and sat beside it. The box was small and black, and there was a bunch of weird characters written all over its outsides. I asked my mom about the characters. She told me not to worry about it, because Aunt Jessie was like a free subscription to the Rosetta Stone series and she tended to write a lot of strange things no one understood. So I just focused on opening the box.
There was a latch at the bottom of it, so it was pretty easy. I unlocked the latch and push the lid open. I was hoping for bright lights to shine out of it and grant me immunity or flying capabilities, but I guess those things just didn’t happen in real life. There was nothing in the box but a big, girly diamond. My mom sounded pretty impressed from a corner of the room, but I shoved that thing right back into its box and grabbed Aunt Jessie’s long sword stick instead.
