Alice's Magical Journey of Discovery

"Alice, could you pass me the crayons?"

"Sure, Alice" I replied as I grabbed them off the coffee table. "Here you go."

"Thanks. You know, you really shouldn't have been so rude to that boy. He wasn't doing anything wrong."

"I know. But he keeps following me around and asking me questions. It's annoying. Plus he's always talking about how much better he is than everyone else because his dad owns a business."

"Well, what did you expect? Being an only child can make you feel isolated at times. It does for me anyway."

"Yeah, I guess so."

We were sitting on the floor in my room sketching away with our colored pencils in our books. We had just finished coloring a picture of some flowers and now we were working on a portrait of my family dog, Shasta. He was a Golden Retriever/Australian Shepherd mix and had bright blue eyes that seemed to pierce right through you when he looked at you. I guessed that's why my mom named him after the famous boxer from the early 1900s, Jack Dempsey. That dog could be vicious at times when it came to protecting us kids but mom could calm him down in a heartbeat by just looking at him with those big blue eyes of hers. Oh yeah, she had the magic touch all right! She was like that with all of us kids too. It was her gift from birth and she never had a problem using it to get us kids to listen to her or to each other when we got into an argument over something stupid like what TV show to watch that night or who got to use the red crayon first or whatever little thing it was that kids argue about back then like they do today too. They say parents don't know what their kids are really up to these days but they're wrong about that! My mother knew exactly what we were up to most of the time and didn't hesitate to punish us if necessary! She also made damn sure we knew not to try any of those things with our friends because she would be on them before they even knew she was double checking them! That was her gift too! The ability to see into your mind and thoughts without even having to ask you anything! Then there was my Uncle Marty who could read minds too but only when someone allowed him in like when he shook your hand or gave you a hug or something like that. At least that's what he said but mom told me once it was probably way more than that! I mean why would anyone let someone into their mind against their will? Anyway, Uncle Marty was pretty cool even though he was kinda weird at times. He lived in Florida now but would come up often for one thing or another and my cousins loved spending time with him whenever he came up because he could teleport wherever he wanted and them being young kids thought it was pretty cool being able to travel like that whenever they wanted. Of course mom told them it wasn't quite magic but rather science but they didn't care! As long as they didn't have to sit still while traveling somewhere they were happy! Aunt Lisa couldn't do shit worth crap as far as I knew which kind of pissed her off because she really wanted magic like everyone else in the family but instead got nothing except maybe a few special abilities here or there but nothing major like we did! She always blamed dad for not passing down his genes correctly or something like that when really it's just better this way since sometimes having too much magic can cause problems especially if used without caution which none of us ever had an issue with anyway! Well not until recently anyway...