Pieces of My Mother by Melissa Cistaro

sock across the top of my dresser. I keep my back to him intentionally because I want to be by myself this morning and really hate it when he starts telling me how to clean my room. I know how to take care of my things.
    â€œWhatcha up to?” my dad asks.
    â€œStuff,” I say without turning. I pick the root beer–colored glass horse up off the dresser top and polish its smooth body with the sock.
    â€œI was wondering…” He pauses. “I was wondering if you’d like to come down to the shop with me for a couple of hours.” My dad rents a store now where he has a business stripping furniture and selling antiques. He transforms shabby old chairs, armoires, travel trunks, and writing desks into pieces of furniture fit for a queen.
    I do love going to his shop, but not right now.
    â€œNo, that’s okay,” I say.
    â€œWe could go to Perry’s Deli for lunch. Get a BLT?”
    â€œNo thanks, Dad. I just want to stay home today.”
    I ought to tell him that I already have my Saturday planned. I have a hundred knickknacks that need dusting and rearranging, and drawers out of order. I need to get out the pink Twinkle polish and shine the brass knobs on my bed too.
    I continue to rub the root beer–colored glass horse, focusing on its delicate black hooves and the tiny bubbles trapped inside its see-through body. I silently chant to myself, Go away, Dad. Go away, go away. And not to be mean. I just want to be by myself in my room. This is the place where I can hear myself—a ticktock pulse inside me, the sureness of my footsteps across the floor. Here in my room, I allow myself to time travel and even become other girls if I need to. Here I become the grand-prize winner in the International Room Cleaning Competition, my own private game in my own private world.
    The IRCC is a very specific contest in room cleaning and, most importantly, design. The IRCC judges arrive wearing navy-blue suits. They carry clipboards with thick pads of yellow paper. They are immediately impressed with how I have so carefully arranged the things in my room. The striped bed quilt is stretched flat without a single crease. The window ledge is slick with Old English furniture polish—and each freshly polished brass knob on my bed practically winks at them.
    I hear the judges chat among themselves as they point to my glass animal collection. They like that I have allowed the wild glass tigers to mingle with the domestic fan-tailed birds. They turn and admire the old chandelier crystal that hangs on clear fishing line in the window and makes a thousand rainbow prisms dance around the room when the afternoon sun comes in. They peer into the glass cabinet that holds many of my most valuable knickknacks. They give me high marks on attention to detail and arrangement.
    One of the judges asks me to show them my most prized possession.
    â€œThere are so many,” I say. I look around, trying to remember what I showed them last time. I want to show them something they haven’t seen before.
    I open the lid of the leather box that belonged to my grandma Rita and take out a small red bean no bigger than one of my molars. I hold it up for the judges to examine. Attached to the top of the bean is a tiny rice-colored elephant. I carefully tug at the little carved elephant and the top of the bean comes off—revealing that it is hollow inside. Now comes the best part: I turn the bean upside down and spill into my palm seven of the teeniest elephants imaginable—all the color of rice and as small as typed letters. They lay flat, like sprinkled confetti in my hand. The judges nod their heads in approval over this herd of elephants living inside a hollow red bean.
    â€œShow us more,” they say.
    I feel certain that today is a perfect day to win another room-cleaning competition.
    â€œPlease…” I hear my dad say faintly. His voice is a whisper, a feather floating across the room