The summer she turned 14 her aunts gave her a gift. It was the best gift she had ever received and might be the best gift she ever would receive.
She was going to be going in to high school in the fall and was feeling very grown up at the time. During the last year of middle school you were tested for high school class placement. She had placed in all of the advanced classes and was feeling very smart and very smug about it. That feeling did not fade from the end of the school year to the summer visit at the Aunts.
"Did you want to go to the library and read? I believe your Aunt Perry is there right now."
"Not right now. I am trying to figure out the trick."
Her Aunt Gloria looked puzzled, "What trick?"
"The trick to how this works." she was following the circle of the sundial and looking for a hidden light source.
"I believe there is a book in the library that explains how sundials work, Stacy." Aunt Gloria smiled a teasing smile at her.
She sighed, "I know how they work. That's why I'm looking for the trick for this one. There is a ceiling blocking the sun when it's overhead. It should only work when the sun is low in the sky. This can't be a true sundial, it shouldn't work."
Aunt Gloria came and stood near Stacy. She looked at her watch then looked at the shadow from the sundial. "It's 1:30. Seems like it works just fine."
She rolled her eyes. "It seems like it, but it can't really work."
"But it does work, so it seems like that's enough."
She just kept walking around the tiles that were laid in for the sundial and looking up and around for a light. Aunt Bets was a very clever craftswoman and Stacy was sure she had made something that would make the sundial work without the sun. And she did it so well that it had taken her two years to even question it.
Aunt Gloria just kept smiling,"How far are you along the walls in the library?"
Stacy stopped and thought, "I think about halfway through."
"And when you are finished will you have read every book in the world?"
She laughed, "Of course not! I will have only read every book in that library. There are always more books. There are books printed everyday."
"And so right now you have only read half of the books in that room which isn't even close to half of the books in the world. Just like you have only learned half of what your Aunt Bets knows about making sundials. If that much."
"It still shouldn't work."
"Should or shouldn't doesn't stand a chance against does."
Aunt Gloria starting walking around the edges of the sundial with her. "Maybe we will put in a labyrinth next. They are very relaxing to walk through. You might enjoy that."
Stacy kept walking and looking. Aunt Gloria walked next to her singing a song just under her breath. Finally she said, "I should get back down to the kitchen. The bread is ready to take out of the oven and I don't want your mother to think I've forgotten her. Your Aunt Bets is about through listening to your father tell her why the house shouldn't still be standing as well." She had stressed the shouldn't in a meaningful way.
Aunt Gloria kissed her on her forehead and then walked to the stairway to the library. "Don't stay up here too long, you still need to unpack before dinner."
She had sighed again then. To be honest that was part of why she was so determined to find the secret to the sundial. She was feeling a little mad about her room. It was plain this time. The walls were unpainted. The bed was just a normal bed with a white comforter. The window looked out onto the tree outside. Her aunts hadn't even taken the time to do something special. It had disappointed her. Then it had made her realize she was too old to believe in the magic of the birthday cake house so she was determined to find all of its secrets. Starting with the sundial. But later. She did have to unpack.
She walked the stairs down to the library, skipping the playroom altogether. There was no mystery there that needed solved and really she was too old to spend time sliding around in her socks. As she walked to the center of the library to slide down to the bedroom level she looked for her Aunt Perry but she wasn't here after all. She must have gone with Aunt Gloria to the kitchen. She took a moment to see where her mark was and was feeling a little smug that she was actually more than half way through the room. Even better than she had thought.
She slid down the pole and walked into her very plain room. She tried to reframe her disappointment into thinking that her aunts knew she was growing up now and had no time for fish murals or spaceship shaped beds. She sighed. She would have to try harder to feel as grown up as her room looked.
While she unpacked she started to hum. The song her Aunt Gloria had been singing had gotten stuck in her head and she hadn't even realized it. She stopped and turned around slowly. The blank white wall was now blue. She was certain it had been white when she walked in.
"Keep humming. If you remember the words, try those out." Her Aunt Perry was standing in the doorway.
Stacy started to hum again. Trying to remember the way the song went. The blue in the wall deepend. "...ummm....something...something...And the stars in the sky shine down...." she sang what she could remember and as she sang more colors started to ripple across the wall.
"Do you know any poetry? You could try that."
She tried to remember one from school. "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree."
Aunt Perry motioned to the window. The tree outside was now covered in blooming flowers.
Stacy laughed with pure joy. And her bedspread went from white to gold. "How is this possible?"
Aunt Perry smiled, "It shouldn't be able to happen should it?"
Stacy shook her head, "No, it shouldn't." The blossoms all faded from the tree and the room went white and stark again.
Aunt Perry shrugged her shoulders and then started to sing. As she sang the patch of carpet under her feet became the blue of a mountain lake with a ripple circling out from where she stood. As if she had been a stone tossed into the middle of the water. "Should or shouldn't never stands a chance against does." Then she stepped out of the room and the blue faded away. "When you are done, come downstairs, dinner is ready."
Stacy stood for a moment looking around her bare room. Then she started to sing and recite poetry and quote lines she knew from movies. As the colors filled her room again and again she felt the magic of the house and of her Aunts all around her.
That summer she made it almost 3/4 of the way through the library. She set her watch by the sundial. She spent part of everyday sliding in her socks in the playroom. She laughed every time her father lectured her Aunt Bets about the addition they were talking about and most importantly, she learned that should or shouldn't never stands a chance against does.
It was the best gift anyone ever gave her.
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