Day: October 4, 2017

Lara first realized she’d forgotten something when she was walking to school.   She couldn’t quite remember what it was. But she knew that she was going to do something before she left the house, and she was pretty sure that she hadn’t done whatever it was.

She started thinking over her morning. She’d fed the cat and gotten dressed. She ate breakfast and brushed her teeth. She’d packed her lunch and made her bed. Had she forgotten to change out of her slippers?

Lara looked down. Nope.   She was wearing shoes. That was a relief. It would be awful to be stuck wearing slippers all day. Everyone would laugh.

Lara thought and thought all the way to school. But, she couldn’t remember what it was. She double-checked her lunch bag. There was her sandwich and apple and granola bar. She ducked into the bathroom and checked the mirror.   Her hair looked fine.

When school started, Lara still hadn’t remembered what she forgot. She worried about it during the math quiz and got an easy problem wrong. She worried about it during the spelling test and wrote remember instead of remnant.   She worried about it during silent reading and ended up reading the same page over and over.

During lunch, Lara ate slowly and tried to remember what she’d forgotten.   Her friend Emmy gently bumped their shoulders together. “What’s wrong?” Emmy asked.

“I think I forgot something,” Lara said.

“What did you forget?” Emmy asked. “Did you leave something at home?”

“I can’t remember,” Lara said. “I just know I forgot something.”

“Forget that you forgot,” Emmy said. “If it’s important, you’ll remember it later. For now, just don’t worry about it.”

“You’re right,” Lara said.

Lara quickly finished her lunch followed Emmy outside. They got in line for the slide and then climbed on the jungle gym and swung their feet. The sun was shining, and the sky was blue. It was a beautiful day.

After lunch, things went much better. For science, they watched how yeast could inflate a balloon. Then they wrote poems about fall leaves. Mr. Arden read Lara’s poem out loud.

The leaves are red, orange, yellow, and brown.

            They grew up green,

            But now they all fall down.

They did leaf rubbings to illustrate their poems.   Lara managed to press the crayons into the paper just enough to have a perfect image of her leaves come through.   “Wow Lara,” Emmy whispered. “That looks great.”

After school, Lara and Emmy walked slowly.   They picked long pieces of grass and braided them together and tried to make them into bracelets. The ends wouldn’t tie together and kept breaking.

“Oops,” Emmy said. “This one didn’t work either. I’ll try again.”

“Oh, here’s my house,” Lara said. “I guess I’m done. Bye.”

“See you tomorrow.” Emmy waved and kept walking.

Lara went inside and hung up her backpack. “I’m home,” she said.

“You forgot something this morning,” her mom said.

“I forgot!” Lara said. “I forgot that I forgot something, just like Emmy said.”

“Do you remember what you forgot?” her mom asked.

“I don’t,” Lara said.

“You forgot to give me a hug before you left. So now I need two hugs,” her mom said.

Lara felt like someone had just switched a light on in her brain. “That’s what I forgot,” she said. “Now I remember.”

She gave her mom two hugs. “I’ll remember tomorrow,” she said.

“If you don’t, I’ll remind you,” her mom said.