Tap, tap, taptap. I wake up and squint into the dim glow of the morning sun coming through my off-white window shades. Taptap. Taptaptap. I realize that I was woken up my by that small sound and not the sun, but it’s so quite that I can’t really tell what it is. Tap. Taptaptap. Taptap. It’s getting louder. My toes curl under my feet for warmth when they touch my bedroom’s wood floor and I drag my blanket off my bed with me as I stand, preceding to slowly make my way over to the windowed wall of my room. I wrap my hand around the bottom of the blind, pull down, and then let go sharply. The blind springs up fast and my eyes have to take a minute to adjust to the newly reveled sunlight, no longer filtered through the opaque plastic of the window coverings. There is something falling from the sky and tapping on my window. This tapping has become steadily and I can now see that it isn’t rain; it’s too clear outside and it’s not coming from above, but rather at a Westward slant. As my eyes recover from sleep, I notice all the little objects soaring through the air are a bright, almost neon, green that’s comparable to a tennis ball. They have started to accumulate on the laws and streets in the neighborhood and, as I look around, I can see others peeking out their windows. Mr. Keonye across the street is even slowly pushing open his door, although he is being careful to keep himself safe under his porch’s small peeked roof.
Riiingggg. Ring Ring. The sound of the home phone made me jolt fully awake, my eyes quickly coming into focus as they shot wide.
“Hello?” I hear my grandma’s croaky voice through the floor. “Oh, okay.” She answers. “Yes, you have a good holiday as well. Goodbye.” The phone clicks as she sets it back into the receiver and I hear her footsteps coming through the house and up the stairs. She knocks on my door, opens it a crack. “Snow day!” She happily exclaims, her eyes still visibly recovering from sleep. I hear her walk down the hall. “Snow day!” She repeats to my brother, who I hear give a groggy “whh?” in response. “Snow day!” Grandma says to wake my sister. She then makes her way back down the hall and descends the stairs.
My eyes snap back to the window. But it’s not snow, I think.
“Hey, that’s not snow!” I hear my sister yell from her room at the end of the hall.
“What?” My brother repeats again, this time sounding more awake. “Does that mean I still have to go to school?”
I drop my blanket to the floor and run down the stairs, through the house, and into my grandparent’s bedroom, where my grandma has already joined my grandpa back in bed.
“But it’s not snow.” I state, somehow sounding calm, even though my heart is beating and my mind is racing.
My grandma turns over, squinting her eyes at me. “What?” She asks.
“It’s not snow.” I repeat, taking great care to put emphasis on every syllable. “Look outside.”
She gets up, goes around to the window on grandpa’s side of the bed, and pulls the sheer green curtains aside. She stares out the window for a long moment. The curtain drops, but her hand stays in the same place. Slowly, her head turns and her eyes lock with mine.
“What is it?” She asks.
Both of our faces are blank and we look at each other over the sleeping body of my grandpa.
“I don’t know,” I answer her.
Thud thud thud thud. We hear the rhythmic thumping of my sister coming down the stairs followed by the snap snap snap of her bear feet slapping in quick succession, coming towards the bedroom.
“It’s not snow,” she says as she opens the door.
“No,” my grandma and I say in unison.
“If it’s not snow, what is it?” She asks, looking at us like she hopes very much we will have an answer for her. Her brows knit together and her mouth stays open even after her words leave it.
“We don’t know.”
