Say Hello To The Clouds For Me

                                    

                                              
By Paul Riches
                          
Because I am on Daddy’s shoulders, I know what I must do.  Bend myself way down, till my face is in Daddy’s hair, something I have always liked doing since it smells so nice.  Besides, it is only for a few seconds, just to get us through the door of the store.
                          
And now we are inside.

                          
“Okay Eli-Sweetie, you can stop smelling my stinky hair now.”  Daddy makes jokes like that with the most normal voice, which fills my stomach with giggles.
                          
“Eeeeww!  Your hair smells really yucky Daddy!”  I play along, just like Daddy likes me to, making more giggles pop up in her tummy. 
                          
“Well than, Elinor, sweetie, howsabout we get some nice, great, grand chocolate bars so that we can wash the foul smell of my hair from your mouth?”  Daddy looks up at me, and I can see the smile I love.
                          
I am up high, right where I belong, getting the royal treatment today, the great day, in which all other days will never be as good as.
                          
Forever ago of a week, or is it two?, Mommy and Daddy told me about a trip to see my new school.  I know all about my old school, the one I never ever went to, because of the move for Mommy’s job.  Now we live, with Daddy and Mommy and Laura and the promised dog we have not yet gotten, back to the place Mommy and Daddy came from.  It took a week for me to get my tongue used to the name of this new home, called Toronto, something my baby sister, who we just dropped off at Grampies, is too little to do.
                          
Daddy’s plan, that we high fived on, is to have a trip just for us.  Firstly is the corner store, which I like because of the chocolates and candy and comic books.  Daddy said we would need something from the sugar food group to survive the trip.
                          
I look around the store from way up high, and notice how different it is.  It was all exciting down below, but even more exciting from up here, with the potato chips looking like mountains.  Each aisle is so long before, but now seem like they go on forever.  I see the dust hanging from the lights and wonder how they sweep up here.
                          
Waiting in line, Daddy is at the chocolate bars, with hundreds and hundreds in front of us.  Finally everyone goes and Daddy picks our two, and I know right away which one is mine.  A nice man behind the counter takes our money and smiles.  I don’t remember him from before, but he sees me way up here.
                          
I like his face and his smile and his happiness.
                          
“Say hello to the clouds for me!”  The boy says to me.  I like that.
                          
“Okay I will!”  I tell him and start kicking my legs just because.  That sounds like a great idea.  Why have I never done that before?
                          
“Ouch, ouch, ouch ouch.”  Daddy says as he hands me my chocolate.  He said ouch every time I kicked him, because Daddy is funny that way.
                          
Bending my head one more time, we leave the store and see the bright sunshine.  Turning my head around from one side to another side, I try to find some clouds.  I spot one, floating away over some houses, and wave both of my hands at it.
                          
“Hello cloud!  And hello from the man in the store!”  I shout real loud, because the cloud is so far away and it keeps going.
                          
Daddy laughs.
                          
“Don’t ever stop taking things literally Eli-Sweetie.”
                          
“What does that word mean?”
                          
“Nothing.  Just keep being you.”
                          
We walk along to the school, my school, my new school.  Kindergarten is months and months away and I cannot wait.
                          
I rip open the chocolate bar and put as much as possible into my mouth.  I need a bigger mouth.