Lavender Soap and Calculus

The call of the rooster reverberated in the silent morning, waking up Ella as it did everyday. The sun had just barely risen over the horizon, signaling the beginning of a brand new day in the countryside. Slowly, Ella opened her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the sunlight that was beginning to stream in through her wide windows. She glanced over at the little clock on her night table: 5:25 am.

“Ungh…” she grumbled. The sun was rising earlier and earlier every day, signaling the end of Spring, and the approach of the long summer months and their accompanying days. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and hopped down to the straw-covered floor of the room she shared with her brother.

“Hey, Charlie, get up,” she said to the bottom bunk, nudging him awake. “We’ve gotta get started with chores.”

He turned over and went back to sleep. Ella rolled her eyes…typical. She went into the bathroom, her bare feet padding softly on the floor. Turning on the swinging bulb in the bathroom, she stared into the mirror, wiping sleep away from her eyes. Tying back her long, frizzy, hair into a ponytail, she washed her face with the homemade soap her Gran had made back in November. She inhaled the scent of the lavender embedded into the soap. She’d never get tired of this scent. It was the scent of the hard work that Gran put into the garden she’d tended for almost a decade—the garden that Ella had helped care for when she was little, and the garden that now belonged to her since Gran’s passing. She had always told Ella, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, so make the best of it,” a motto that Ella tried to live by, but felt she never succeeded at fulfilling. Each day was just as plain as the last. Nothing new ever happened to her, and each mundane task she completed, she had no doubt done a thousand times before, and would no doubt to a thousand times again.

Shaking away the frustrating thoughts, she wiped her face with a washcloth embroidered with her name in swirly cursive writing (another one of Gran’s gifts), hung it back on the rack neatly—her mother wouldn’t stand for any mess—and glanced back at Charlie, who was still sound asleep, same as everyday. Going back over to the bunk bed, she swiftly pulled the blanket out from underneath him, sending him flying to the floor.

“Wha—ELLA!!” Shocked, he leapt out of bed chasing after her, with Ella laughing at her brother’s antics. Collapsing into a fit of giggles, it was obvious to see that, though she was older by three years, and he was taller by four inches, they were actually quite close. Suddenly, a bell began to violently ring outside—the product of their mother’s impatience for dilly-dallying—ending this sudden burst of tomfoolery.

“Well…back to it, I guess,” Ella said as she got up, dusting herself off. It was, after all, just another morning on the farm.

Charlie quickly got dressed and they both trudged off to the barn, where the cows, laden with milk, awaited their daily milking. They made quick work of the arduous task, milking each cow and then moving on to the next, only stopping to empty their buckets into the large barrel they lugged with them on the morning chore run. Ella liked milking the cows; they might sometimes put up a fuss, but there was a certain rhythm that Ella found calming: milk, milk, switch. Milk, milk, switch. The same pattern, repeated over and over again. It gave Ella time to think; about the dreadful math test she had that week, about how much she missed Gran, about which college she wanted to go to next year, how she was going to pay for college, about Cody, the boy of her dreams…

“ELLA!” she was suddenly jolted from her own thoughts by Charlie’s voice.

“What?”

“Hurry up! We’re going to be late for school!”

And indeed, looking at the time, Ella found she was behind schedule. “Every morning!” she thought to herself. She always allowed herself ample time in the mornings, but no matter how early she got up, it was never early enough, and she was forced to rush through the rest of her morning. Getting up and nearly overturning the milking pail she’d been working on, she emptied her bucket into the barrel, rushing to help Charlie carry the now quite heavy barrel of milk over to the main house, for their mother to package and sell to the neighbors or at the daily farmer’s market. Finally, they stumbled up the front stairs into the kitchen.

“Where have you been??” their mother demanded. “Do you hooligans know what time it is!? You’re going to be late!” Always the proverbial overbearing mother. “Don’t forget your lunches! I made you both turkey sandwiches, just like you like them. Charlie, no crusts; Ella, no mayonnaise. You know I do this because I love you so very, very, very much, and I can’t help but do everything I can for you two. Golly, I remember how little you both used to be, running around here every day getting into all sorts of mischief…I remember one time—“

“MOTHER!” they both yelled, silencing her, at least for the moment.

“Well, all right, have a good day at school, and look out for one another. You two are all I have, and one day, you’re all the other will have!” her voice trailed off—the two of them had already begun to sprint down the lane, away from the house. They knew their mother loved them, but ever since Gran had passed, she never missed an opportunity to tell them so. Gran had always been the lovey-dovey, doting grandmother type, and their mother had decided that, since her passing, she would do her best to take Gran’s place in their lives. Ella sighed, knowing what a toll Gran’s death had taken on their mother, as Charlie and she slowed to a walk, grateful for the shade provided by the trees around them. The tall elms lining the lane leading to and from their house had long been trademarks of the area—tourists came in the fall to watch the leaves change colors and fall to the ground. Now, however, they were festooned with bright, healthy, green leaves, with the odd brown patch of leaves that had prematurely died preceding the hot, dry, summer months which were soon to come.

Up ahead, they saw the old, wooden benches that signified the school-bus stop, empty except for the Turner boys, neatly dressed, and sitting, staring blankly in the opposite direction, patiently waiting for the bus to arrive. Seeing them, Charlie ran up to the benches sat down next to Tommy, the younger boy, as they eagerly began to talk about their latest baseball card acquisitions.

Ella, however, had different ideas. Cody, who was engrossed in some book, was sitting on the bench next to his younger brother; Ella’s heart skipped a beat. She meandered over to him, same as every other morning.

“Whatcha readin’, Cody?” she smiled at him, hoping today would be the day that he realized how madly in love with her he was. He looked up at her inquisitive eyes, and smiled.

“Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

“Oh…that’s nice. What’s it about?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, looking back down at his book.

“Oh…okay.” She sat down next to him. The conversation was over, as far as he was concerned. For the past six months, Ella had been desperately trying to get her to notice him, but their conversations rarely lasted more than twenty syllables. “Maybe tomorrow’ll be the day,” she thought to herself.

The bus finally pulled up, and they clamored on, finding their rightful seats on the old, decrepit vehicle. Twenty minutes later, they were at the gates to the school. This was Ella’s last year, but Charlie’s first. Whereas she was tired of the unexciting activities of the schoolyard, Charlie was only experiencing them for the first time in a high-school setting. Drama over action figures was replaced with drama over girls. Friends were easily won, and just as easily lost, even those that had been friends since grade school. Ella was tired of it all, and she eagerly anticipated going off to college next year, hopefully in a big city. New York? Los Angeles? Who knew what was in store for this young girl. Everyday, Ella wondered what locale she’d be jetted off to next year, yearning to get away from the small town life, from the people who had known her all her life, to a chance for her to start anew. But for now, she had to just make it through the rest of high school.

She made it into her first period biology class just as the bell rang.

“Ellaaaa…” her teacher’s chastisement trailed off “Almost late again!”

“Sorry…” she mumbled, sliding into her seat and propping her book up so as to hide her face. Ella, though bubbly around her friends and family, was still not comfortable around her peers. Four years with them, and she still had not come out of her shell. Perhaps it was that she’d been waiting for something to happen: a film director, strolling around campus, “discovering” her hidden acting talents, or maybe a modeling agent seeing her and stopping, pleading with her to “please-oh-please” take some head-shots to send back to his bosses in Paris. But alas, Ella was just…Ella. And she was going to remain that way until at least next year. Poor, plain, unnoticed, unrecognized Ella.

Period two: english.

Period three: music.

Period four: lunch—her only retreat from the mundaneness of the rest of her school day. A time for her to reflect on the day in general, and a time to catch up with her friends on the goings-on of their day. Amber was going out with Dylan now? Scandalous.

Period five: calculus. The one class she actually understood. Numbers made sense to Ella—two plus two could only equal four; there was no arguing that. In english, the significance of the character’s language could be debated for hours, with each student emerging a victor from the discussion, no matter how different his or her view was. Ella couldn’t understand it.

Period six: french.

And just like that, the day was over; finally, Ella could go home.

Climbing back onto the bus, she made sure Charlie was aboard as well, and found an empty seat in the back. Leaning her head against the cool glass of the window, Ella watched the elms fly by as the bus accelerated back in the direction of the students’ houses. Finally, they were at the end of the road, and she, Charlie, Tommy and Cody disembarked from the bus.

“Well…see you tomorrow, Cody,” Ella said as she attempted to catch his eye. She was acknowledged with a swift nod and then he and Tommy were off in the path to their own farm, on the opposite end of the lane from Ella and Charlie.

Ella and Charlie meandered slowly back home, admiring the already cool evening air and reveling in the colors of the sunset. Purples and yellows reflected off of the green elm leaves, casting strange dancing shadows on the ground beneath them. They made it home as the final rays of the sun slipped behind the horizon, and were greeted by the smell of their mother’s “famous” home cooking. Another scent Ella would never grow tired of for as long as she lived. Walking into their home, they were assaulted with hugs and kisses and overwhelming motherly good wishes of “I missed you today, my darlings! Come, tell mommy how your days were over a nice bowl of vegetable soup!” Ella ran upstairs and quickly threw off her backpack and tucked her shoes neatly into the closet, at the same time pulling out slippers and putting them on. Dinner, as always, would be full of love from their mother and laughs shared between all three of them over delicious food, complemented with vegetables fresh from her own garden. Afterwards, she would do her homework, saving calculus for last, as always, so she would have something to look forward to after finishing the rest of her work. Then, tired, she would slip into her pajamas and climb up onto her top bunk, flip open a book, and read until she could no longer keep her eyes open (by flashlight, even, if need be). As she would drift off into sleep, letting the book slide out of her hands, Ella would quickly say a prayer, as she did every night, for her beloved Gran, hoping that all was well with her in Heaven, and that she hoped that Gran didn’t miss them as terribly as Ella and Charlie missed her. Her final thoughts as she slipped into unconsciousness would no doubt revolve around the day awaiting her in only a few hours, where she would start all over again. (2,193)