picture source: https://pixabay.com/es/photos/tigres-cachorro-tiger-cub-madre-67577/
Linden’s most favorite person in the whole world was her Mama. Mama told her jokes every morning and tickled her before bed. Mama let her eat dessert in front of the TV-every once in a while. Mama spent her days at the homeless shelter caring for the poor and sick, and Mama always came home and baked tasty desserts, and let Linden lick the spoon before she was done with them. Linden promised she would grow up and be cool and funny like her Mama.
Linden loved her Pop more than anything as well, even if he watched shows about stocks and traveled ‘On Board’ to faraway countries to do his work. Linden always imagined her father as a pirate, a huge black hat with a skull on it atop his head, and a parrot on his shoulder. Mama always said he was from a family that was rich as royalty on an island just off the coast of North America, but whenever Linden asked to visit the place Mama would only laugh and say, “One day”.
Then one early morning, when the sky was still black and the birds were asleep, Linden heard crying. That couldn’t be right, Linden had no baby siblings. It sounded as if it were… Mama!
Linden ran downstairs to see her Mama with a hand supporting her forehead as she leaned over the table, sniffling. Her other hand held a phone.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” Linden asked.
Mama turned to Linden, her face, puffy and her eyes red. “Your Pop… he… the plane taking him to the U.K. crashed into the ocean,” Mama’s voice wavered, and then she collapsed on the table.
Linden imagined a cannon from enemy pirates shooting at her Pop’s pirate boat. “YARRRR!” he would yell, shanking his sword in the air as his boat sank, his crew running around like mad.
“But… why didn’t he just sail to the U.K. with his pirate crew!?” Linden asked.
Mama lifted her head up. “What pirate crew?”
“The one Pop works ‘On Board’ with!”
“Linden, your father works ‘Abroad’, not ‘on board’ and he doesn’t have a pirate crew.” Mama fell back into her arms and cried harder, her body bouncing as she wailed.
Linden teared up. Pop couldn’t be gone! Not just like that! Not without saying goodbye.
The next day, Mama didn’t tell any jokes, didn’t say a thing. but she did cook the best pancakes in the whole world, and before she took Linden to daycare she kissed her forehead and said, “Have a great day at daycare, ‘kay honey?” Mama got herself another job, something to do with money, and spent most of her time on the phone and on the computer, looking at stocks. She was now very busy, but she still managed to find time to play dolls with Linden or watch the kids channel on TV with her. Eventually Mama even went back to telling funny stories again, when she got home from her two, no, three?-jobs.
One day Linden was busy playing with her toy ponies near Mama’s room, when all the lights turned off. The stove and microwave beeped. “Oh no, the electricity! I completely forgot!” Mama sent papers flying as she got up and dashed to the kitchen.
“Why did the lights go out?” Linden asked.
“Because I forgot to pay the light bill. But don’t worry! I’ll get the lights right back on! I’ll figure this out!”
This was becoming a common phrase for the New Mama. New Mama had dark circles under her eyes and always seemed to have something she needed to do. But one thing Mama never did was give up. She always found a way to fix things. Linden promised she would be like this too.
I have to help Mama get money so that she can be normal again! but how? thought Linden. Then she thought about what Mama would say in her situation. I’ll figure this out! So that night she made a plan. Linden pretended to fall asleep on the floor. She heard her Mama’s footsteps getting louder and louder. When they stopped Linden opened her eyes a crack to see Mama’s legs right in front of her. She looked up to see Mama smiling at her. She walked away, and came back throwing covers over her daughter and lifting her head slightly to put a pillow under it.
When Mama left, Linden got up and went to the loft, snagged a picture of her Pop and left the house. She knocked on her neighbor’s door, a coffee-addicted lady who Linden knew was named Jade.
“Jade, can you drive me to the airport?”
And soon, Jade, who kept saying “Can’t believe I’m doing this,” was driving Linden to the state’s international airport.
“Okay, my mind blanked. Why do you need to go to the airport again?” Jade asked for the third time.
“Because my royal rich family is on an island and I need to get money from them so Mama can not worry and feel good again.” Linden explained with a straight face.
Jade only shook her head. “Can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Linden couldn’t believe it either. She was a little scared of all that she was doing. She fought back her doubts.
Once there, Linden snuck on a plane headed to Coconut island, the island where her father’s rich family was from. When the plane binged and the lights went off, she whimpered with fear. People turned to her with wide eyes.
“Are you okay?” asked the lady beside her.
Be like Mama. you’ll figure this out. Be like Mama. you’ll figure this out, Linden chanted to herself.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Linden replied to the lady with a straight face. As the plane roared to life and took its slanted leap for the skies, Linden didn’t let one scream escape her throat.
When she landed in Coconut Island, she walked over to the first airplane staff she saw and said, “I’m Linden Yamier, and I’m looking for the Yamier family!”
“The Yamier’s? You're a Yamier?” The staff looked closely at little Linden, who nodded.
The staff called someone and soon they took Linden outside to a shiny black car with a silver lion on the hood.
A man with a golden watch walked out and began to talk to Linden, who explained why she was here and showed a picture of her Pop.
“Why, that’s my nephew!” said the man, and then Linden sadly told him the story of how her Pop had gotten into a plane crash while headed to the U.K.
But the man wouldn’t believe it. He sent two helicopters to search the Atlantic seas all over for Linden’s Pop, and eventually, news came back that they had spotted a tiny orange life raft in the middle of the sea. The helicopters rescued the survivors including Pop, and flew them over to Coconut Island, where Pop was reunited with his daughter.
“Linden, you brave little brave munchkin!” Pop kissed Linden a million times and asked where her Mama was.
When Linden explained that Mama was at home, Pop called Mama and soon Mama was running at Linden and Pop, kissing them both a billion times and crying tears of joy, asking how Linden had even got here.
“I traveled at night Mama!” Linden smiled and gave a sharp nod.
“Linden! That was very dangerous! How could you even go about all this!?”
“Because I acted like I was you! No matter what happened, I told myself I’d figure things out!”
Pop gave a smile Mama’s way, who looked down and then smiled at Linden.
Mama and Pop then embraced Linden, and Linden’s cheeks rose in happiness as she smiled and returned the hug.
Mama said, “Oh, Linden, promise me you’ll never do that again.”
Pop’s relatives on Coconut Island ended up giving money to Linden and her parents, enough to where Mama and Pop no longer had to work! Mama became her normal, joke telling, happy self again, just as Linden wanted.
The next morning, as Mama and Pop made pancakes, Linden told the story of her trip to Coconut Island.
My name is Shila Williams. I am 16 years old and I have been passionate about writing and drawing since I knew how to spell. I grew up in North Carolina, as well as living and traveling abroad. I write to inspire children's minds to imagine and take them on a fun and adventurous journey.
I am now a published author! Please support my debut book! Check it out here on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/Imagination-Shila-Williams-ebook/dp/B09YXKWZJX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=15MR85DQDQCA&keywords=imagination+shila+williams&qid=1651670532&sprefix=imagination+shila%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1
Take a look at my NFTs!
Meet the girls of Algo Green! Love for the planet and all its inhabitants, big or small. There will only be 50 green girls: https://t.co/yrwWL9ZJZI
my Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/restcity
my reading.effective: https://read.effective/@restcity