The Crayons II
In 2004, Emily gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Emily and her husband, Jonathan, decided to name her Angelina, inspired by her mother’s middle name, Angela. Angelina loved to draw and paint. By the age of 7, she had become extremely talented at art, especially using crayons and oil pastels.
In 2007, Emily had a second daughter. She named the daughter Libella. As soon as Libella figured out how to hold writing utensils, Angelina started teaching her how to draw. Libella loved to draw just as much as Angelina did. They had developed a very close bond, but everything changed very suddenly, soon after Angelina’s 10th birthday.
About two weeks before Angelina’s birthday, Emily told Angelina about her party. “Angie, come here, I have a surprise for you!” Emily said.
“Ooh, what is it?” Angelina said excitedly.
“We’re throwing you a pool party for your birthday!” Emily exclaimed.
“Oh my gosh, really? Thanks, Mommy, I’m so excited!” Angelina shouted as she jumped for joy. “Is it at the neighborhood pool?”
“No, it’s at Auntie Susan’s house. Remember, her new house has a big pool with a waterslide!” her Mom explained.
“Wait a minute…that means Mallory is gonna be there!” Angelina frowned. She does not like Mallory, her older cousin. Mallory is now 12, but when they were younger, Mallory refused to share her toys after Angelina lost one of her Polly Pocket dolls. They haven’t gotten along ever since, and they always mess with each other during family reunions.
“Oh, come on, Angie. She’s not that bad!”
“The last time I saw her, she pranked me! Remember?”
“But that was almost 3 years ago. How about this: if you give her another chance, we’ll give you an extra $20 to spend on a birthday gift of your choice!” Emily offered.
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“Deal!” Angelina said as she shook her Mom’s hand.
At Angelina’s birthday party, Mallory was surprisingly nice. “Angie, I feel kind of bad about how I treat you, so to apologize, I got you these crayons!”
“Wow, thank you! I guess I accept your apology,” Angelina replied.
“Yay! And from now on, I’ll let you play with all of my Polly Pocket dolls,” Mallory smiled.
They shared a quick hug. Emily saw a grimace on Mallory’s face as Mallory walked away. Emily was worried that she was up to something, but she kept quiet to avoid any conflict between the two girls.
For the first 30 minutes of the party, everybody hung out and played board games. Then they all had cake and went to the pool. Mallory and Angelina really had fun. They played Marco Polo and participated in a fun water balloon battle with the rest of the cousins and family-friends.
The day after the birthday party, Angelina tried out the crayons Mallory gave her. They worked amazingly, and she made a ton of drawings, but after about an hour of drawing, she started feeling extremely dizzy. She decided to go to bed early.
She woke up around 4 am, shivering and drenched in cold sweat. She assumed she had the flu. She got up and slowly walked to the bathroom. Her urine was all dark, almost black, but she was too exhausted to notice, so she just flushed and went back to bed.
The next morning, her parents gave her medicine and told her to rest in bed. They came in about every 30 minutes to check on her, and by 5 pm, her parents had noticed that her skin was unnaturally yellow-tinted, so they rushed her to the emergency room.
She was immediately admitted to the emergency room. After they all settled in, the doctors ran some tests and tried to figure out what was wrong with Angelina, and they said it was some kind of chemical poisoning. Emily was trying to think about what could have caused that, and it finally hit her: Angelina got dizzy after using the crayons for a couple of hours, so she went to bed. Then, in the morning, Angelina couldn’t even get up out of bed. Luckily, she had brought the crayons to the hospital just in case she wanted to use them.
Emily went to tell the doctor. “I think I might know what caused my daughter Angie’s sickness. My niece actually gave Angie these crayons, and the day she used them, she got extremely dizzy and went to bed. Then, she woke up with flu-like symptoms.”
The doctor took the crayons to a scientist, and about 2 hours later, he came in and said, “Ma’am, we don’t exactly know how to tell you this, but these crayons were infused with dangerous chemicals, and they were releasing arsine gas when your daughter was using them, which kills red blood cells. We’re afraid it might be too late to save her.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
