“What do we do?” Chuck asked.
“Put on the shirt silly!” Linda laughed at him.
Chuck smiled and handed her the bag. Sammi carefully placed her bag on the ground. She pulled out the blue shirt and held it up in front of her. Fred was pulling his right arm through the corresponding sleeve of his shirt. Chris was busy modeling his shirt for two laughing twin girls and David slowly shook his head.
“Here, David,” Linda said. “I’ll hold your bag, too.”
“Open or closed,” Sammi asked.
“What?” Fred looked at her with a strange look on his face.
“Should we button them or leave them open?” she explained.
“What difference does it make?”
Everyone turned and looked at the boy who asked the question.
“Who are you again?” Fred asked him.
“I’m Fred.”
“I knew I liked you the first time I met you!” Fred said. “You know we have the same name and that is a great question. Sammi, what difference does it make?”
“It just does,” Jill answered for her. “You are on a scavenger hunt together and you need to look like a team. I vote open.”
“Open it is,” Sammi declared as she smiled at Jill.
“What does the patch say?” Charlie asked.
“And who are you?” Fred asked the boy.
“I’m Charlie.”
“That’s right,” Fred said. “And don’t you forget it.”
“Don’t mind him, son,” Chuck said to his son. “He is crazy. The patch is for a place we know in town.”
“It’s an ice cream parlor, Charlie,” David spoke up.
“Wow, you guys really look like a team!” Jenny said nodding her head. “So, what’s the next move?”
“I just counted and there are ten of us,” Sammi replied. “We could all fit in my van.”
“Or we could just walk,” David volunteered. “We used to do it all the time.”
“Walk?” Jenny’s shoulders sagged while her sister beside her clapped her hands.
“Why not? The exercise will be good for us,” Fred said. “But, first, we have a problem we got to fix?”
“What to get first?” Chuck asked as he looked at his postcard.
“No, man! There are two Freds here. We need a way to tell the difference or we are both going to be answering all of your questions.”
“That’s simple. My mom calls me Freddy!”
“Good, now that’s solved, Fred, which one should we go to first?” Chuck asked again.
“The candle is mentioned first,” Linda volunteered.
“Yeah,” David agreed. “And there is only one place to get a candle in this town.”
—
Mike watched the group from his seat at the counter inside the store. He saw ten heads look down the street and he smiled to himself. He put down his coffee, reached across the countertop to the black phone sitting there. He removed the handset and used the rotary dial to make a call. He held the handset to his ear and waited. The phone connected and it rang only twice when it was answered.
“Hello.”
“Well, looks like they are on their way,” Mike said.
“All of them?” Libby asked.
“Yep, and then some.”
“And then some?”
“One guy brought his whole family and another just his kids,” Mike reached for his coffee. “Is that a problem?”
“No, I just didn’t consider that would happen. It will be okay. How many of them all together?”
“Let’s see,” Mike got up from the stool picking up the phone with its long wire following him as he walked to the window. “Looks like ten, Libby. Why should that matter?”
“It doesn’t. What are they doing now?”
“Looks like they are walking down the street.”
“Walking? Really? I thought they would be driving for sure. Oh, well, I got things to do, Mike, Thanks for the heads up.”
“No problem but Libby,” Mike asked as he turned and walked back to his stool. “What’s going on?”
The phone went silent. He placed the handset back into its cradle.
—
Outside, the group of ten had split into two smaller ones of their own design. Linda, and all of the kids; Jill, Jenny, Freddy and Charlie, walked across the street from the gas station to all the storefronts. The five remaining were the Candlelight gang. Sammi. Fred, and Chris walked slightly ahead of Chuck and David.
“So, it’s been awhile since we did this, huh?” David said as he trudged along, head down.
“It has and it looks like you have all been doing okay,” Fred stated as he turned his head toward David.
“Mostly,” Sammi answered.
“We can catch up later,” Chris interrupted. “The Candle Factory. Have any of you been in there?”
“Really/” Fred answered. “I am fairly sure we all of have been in there. We were all born here, remember.”
“I meant recently,” Chris grinned at his old friend.
“Why would that matter?” Sammi asked. “The postcard said to get a candle. That’s why we are going there.”
“Yes, but it would be nice to know what we are walking into,” Chris tried to explain why he asked.
“I am sure it hasn’t changed much,” Chris said as they just past the parking lot of the gas station and were strolling next to the woods beside it on their left.
“Hey, do you remember running around in there?” Fred pointed toward the trees.
“I remember,” Sammi said. “I loved riding my bike in there.”
“Me, too,” Chris said as his looked over his right shoulder toward the storefronts and stopped. “Where did they go?”
The other four stopped and looked across the street. The sidewalk was empty.
“I wonder where they are,” Chris said.
—
Linda led the four kids across the street. She looked at her two boys as they chattered with the twins. Freddy was the most excited and it seemed like one of the girls, Jill, she believed, although it was hard to tell, was the one doing most of the talking. Charlie bounced between and through each one, clearly not caring but enjoying that he was part of it. The remaining twin, shook her head occasionally and laughed easily. Suddenly, that one stopped in the middle of the street.
“You are crazy, Jill!” Jenny exclaimed as she stomped her foot in the middle of the street..
Charlie grabbed her and pulled her forward before Linda could remind them to keep moving. When she stepped on the sidewalk, she glanced over her shoulder at the group they just left behind. They were huddled together, and she could tell that they were falling back into the way they were when they were much younger. She turned her attention back to where she was and found her gang had moved on without her. She stepped up over the sidewalk ledge and joined as they had gathered in front of a storefront window. It was a bakery and the door was open to allow the wonderful scents of baked goods. There was a display of birthday cakes on the left and loaves of bread on the right leaving the center to allow a straight on view of the glass fronted counter featuring doughnuts. Behind the counter, a woman stood leaning on it, smiling at her. Linda smiled and waved. The woman waved back.
“Come on kids, let’s get a doughnut.”
—
“I wonder where they went?” Chuck started to cross the street when a group of young people and one woman emerged from a store, doughnuts in hand.
Chuck started to laugh and said, “They went into the bakery for a doughnut.”
He waved to his wife and she waved back at him. All the kids waved back then which got a similar wave from the five adults of the other group.
“Wasn’t there a fort or something in the woods,” Fred continued as he started walking again and the others started to walk with him.
“I think you are remembering the open space in the middle,” Sammi replied.
“That’s right!” Chuck added. ”All the paths led to that opening in the middle of the woods.”
“It was where we would meet up when we were kids,” David reminded them. “Until we grew up and started to meet up at the Milk Straw.”
“The Milk Straw,” Chuck said. “Ah, good times.”
“We’re here,” Sammi said as she paused in front of the building called The Candle Factory. It was a large building for the town of Candlelight, but it really wasn’t exceptionally large. It was really two white buildings, a smaller one resembling a small house, stood in front of a larger building that was as tall as the smaller one but as big as half a football field and square. The larger one had windows along each side, but the front had two regular doors on either side of a tall garage door. Over the garage door was a huge sign that stated The Candle Factory in huge black, block letters. Smaller letters, in black, fancy script letters said, “Founded a long time ago…”. Shrubbery strategically surrounded the building. A parking lot was to the right of the buildings and it front of it, facing the street another sign with the same lettering towered above it.
Chuck smiled as Linda and her entourage joined the Candlelight gang.
“It looks like a house with a big garage,” Linda said looking at it.
“Yeah,” Fred said. “Only it’s not. It’s amazing in there. Maybe we can get a tour.”
“Really?” Jenny blurted out. “A tour?”
“Shall we?” Sammi led the group up the sidewalk toward the front door.
The walkway led to series of three steps that leveled to a wide landing. From the parking lot, a concrete ramp joined the landing that was trimmed with a bright blue handrail along the front of it. The two boys ran to the ramp entrance and met the rest of them at the top as they climbed the three steps and stood in front of the door.
“Why is everyone acting so weird?” Fred said as he reached around Sammi and pushed the door open. “We’ve been in there before.”
A bell jingled as, one by one, the group stepped into a scented gift shop. Opposite the door, about 30 feet, a desk sat in front of a mirrored wall proclaiming ‘Welcome to The Candle Factory. A high back chair was on the other side of the desk. It was empty.
“Wow,” Jenny whispered as she walked toward to the tall, glass fronted, cabinets that wrapped around the room. “I’ve never seen so many candles!”
“Look Mom!” Charlie exclaimed pointing to the ceiling.
The group, as if one, looked up to see five chandeliers, one in the middle of four. Each one had three arms that held a lit candle.
“Oh darn, one of them has gone out,” a voice interrupted.
The ten people looked at a woman with shoulder length blond hair dressed in a white, long sleeve blouse and blue jeans standing next to the desk.
“Good morning,” she said as she nodded toward them. “Welcome to the Candle Factory. I’m Mary. May I help you?”
“Where did you come from?” Freddy blurted out.
“Freddy!” Linda scolded. “I am sorry, Mary. I thought I was raising him better.”
“That is perfectly fine,” Mary smiled and turned to Freddy. “There is a door right over there. You don’t notice it because It has mirrors on it, too. Sorry, I wasn’t here. On Saturday we have a small crew, so I don’t sit out here all the time. How can I help you?”
“We understand,” Sammi stepped forward. “We are interested in buying some candles.”
“Of course. Well, as you can see we have many candles you can chose from,” Mary gestured around the room. “Simply choose what you want and bring them to my desk, and I will ring you out. If you want more of a certain one, I can get whatever you need from the backroom. Questions? OK then have fun!”
As Mary walked around the desk to sit down, the rest of them broke into smaller groups and began to explore. Chuck and his family walked to the bookcases that ran along the wall to right of Mary’s counter. The first one they paused at was filled with tall candles of all shapes of all the colors of the rainbow. Chuck noticed an engraved placard at the top of the cabinet said, “Long Candles”. He smirked to himself.
“I like to bright green one,” Freddy said almost to himself.
“Which green one, honey?” Linda asked her son.
“All of them,” he whispered back. “How do they do this?”
“Do what?” Charlie was standing beside him.
“Make so many colors.”
“Let’s go. We have so many to look at,” Chuck tried to hurry them along to the next cabinet.
—
Sammi and Fred headed toward the cabinets to the left of Mary’s counter, stopping at the first one. This one was filled with hanging, shimmering, pastel colored candles. Sammi giggled in amazement.
“How did they do that?” Fred carefully pulled open the doors of the cabinet labeled “Falling Stars”. He stuck his head inside to look at the top of the inside of it.
“Get you head out of there, Fred!” Sammi pulled him by the arm. “It must be some kind of string construction, silly.”
“You’re right,” Fred emerged from the cabinet. “Sort of. It’s more like wires attached to circles of clear plastic so the candles can slip inside and hang. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Actually,” Sammi stepped back from the cabinet. “Come here by me to see something pretty cool.”
Fred did and together they looked through the cabinet windows. The shimmering candles, top to bottom, mimicked the colors of the rainbow from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo and, finally, to purple in soft pastels. As the candles slowly turned back and forth, tiny specks of light sparkled out from them.
“Cool,” Fred said.
—
Chris and his twelve year old twins wandered toward the front of the store. Jenny started to turn in a small circle.
“There’s too many, Dad,” she said as she stopped to face him.
“Yeah, it seems so, hon,” he said as he looked around the room.
“What kind of candles do you lie, Dad?” Jill asked him.
“Well,” he said as he started toward a cabinet to the left of the door. “I’ve always been partial to birthday candles.”
The twins joined him when he stopped in front of one of them. They looked up at the label above the cabinet door.
“It says “Birthday”.” Jenny said.
“Thank you Captain Obvious,” Jill teased. “Open it, Dad.”
—
David stayed at the counter with Mary. He bent to look at the counter’s window display then rose, tapping the glass of the countertop.
“I’ll take that one,” he said to Mary.
“Which one?” she asked as she got out of her chair to stand opposite him.
“Your favorite.”
Mary smiled at him and slowly stood from her chair and first walked to her left, looking down through the cabinet top. David followed her. She then started to walk in the opposite direction, head still down, looking at the variety of candles. He continued to follow her. She again reversed direction, finally bending down to slide a door and reaching inside the cabinet. David stood and waited. Mary placed in front of him, a white rose with perfect petals and long, white, thorny stem.
“That’s beautiful,” David reached out to pick it up.
Mary followed his eyes as he raised it, “You asked me for my favorite. That is it.”
“It hardly weighs anything. Are you sure it is a candle?”
Mary smiled and pointed to the tip of the petal on top at the tiny wick that had blended into the flower. David nodded.
“I think I’ll take this one.”
“Good choice,” Mary reached for it. “Do you know everyone here?”
“I do,” David answered as he watched her reach behind the cabinet again. “Well, I don’t know the kids but the adults, well all but one, we grew up here in Candlelight.”
“Really?” Mary had placed a long white box on the countertop. “Why are you back here.”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“We are on a scavenger hunt.”
“A what?”
My First Stories 