What Emma Left Behind

by Anne Spackman

  * * * * *

  The three girls slept late the next morning. Caera was up first, and at about eleven o' clock, they walked sleepily into the kitchen for breakfast. The twins' mother set three plates on the table and put a box in the middle of it. Caera recognized the brand immediately and pulled a vanilla creme filled doughnut and a glazed chocolate doughnut from the box. Claudia took a raspberry jelly and two powdered doughnut holes.

  "Wow, doughnuts for breakfast!" Caera said. "Kind of makes you wish the power would go out more often, huh?"

  They all laughed. Ana couldn't decide what she wanted, but she finally settled on a strawberry creme and a filled raspberry jelly doughnut. Typically, Mrs. Campbell insisted that they drink a glass of milk (and it was probably going to spoil if they didn't) before they went back upstairs. Ana's mother had asked Ana to be ready at eleven thirty, which only left twenty-five minutes. But Ana was ready in less than ten, so Caera and Claudia waited with her on the front porch. As soon as Mrs. Robinson's car was up the long driveway, Ana opened the back and tossed in her brown suitcase. Caera and Claudia waved good-bye as the car backed up and sped away.

  "We're lucky Ana can come out here so often to see us." Caera said.

  "Because we live so far away from town or because not many mothers will agree to have twins over instead of just one friend?"

  "Both. But I was thinking about our conversation last night. If we'd lived a hundred years ago, it would take an hour to get to town."

  "It still takes us an hour when we have to wait for Dad to find his keys." Claudia said, and they laughed.