More Perspective Fiddling

Blue Cups

by P.H. Wise

“How many cups are there, Paul?”

I look at the cups. They’re clear blue plastic cups, and the kitchen is bright, because the sun is up and shining through the window. I look out the window. Big black birds fly around in circles way up in the air. I point at the birds and ask about them, and my mom says, “How many cups, Paul?”

I don’t want to count cups. I want to go outside and play. Mom is always having me count cups or dishes, and then taking some away and making me count again and asking me how many she took away. I like the glass cups better, but Mom doesn’t let me count them anymore because I break them. Andrew tells me that he knows how many cups there are, and maybe I don’t know because I can’t count them.

I count them. There are eight clear blue plastic cups. I tell Mom, and it makes her happy. She takes some away and makes me count again. Andrew laughs at me. I tell Mom that there are six cups now. She asks how many she took away. I count on my hands, and then tell her that she took two. Andrew says he learned that faster than me. I hate him. He took my A-Team van and threw it into the creek behind Safeway, where there are lots of blackberry bushes, but there aren’t any blackberries on them now. I want to go read about Aslan and Lucy and Mr. Tumnus, or find blackberry bushes at the creek below the big house where the mean old man lives, but Mom says that I can’t until I count more.

I hate cups.

END

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Child-narrator this time. I suppose that much was obvious.