Welcome Back Maple Mehta-Cohen by Kate Mcgove
Normally, I’m not a morning person. On normal mornings, Dad has to wake me for school. “Maaaaaple. Rise and shine,” he says in a whisper at first. Then, when I barely stir, he says it again, louder. “Miss Maple, rise and shine! Places to go, people to see!” Mom says I was always like this, even as a baby, even though most babies are awake and screaming at five a.m. “We used to have to wake you for day care,” she says, shrugging. “You were a sleeper.” Not today, though. Today, my nerves are buzzing like an alarm clock. My eyelids don’t even feel heavy. From one of my bedroom windows, I have a beautiful view of a garage wall. It belongs to the next-door neighbors, who don’t even have a car anyway. They just use it to store things —air conditioners and bicycles they don’t ride, boxes of old books, toys their son has long outgrown. There’s nothing very useful about that view.