Looking for Sunshine

This is the story of how type-A control freak, Alaina Cooper met her lifelong best friend in the very excitable, unruly, and excentric, Cherry Carter.

The summer sun was just lowering itself behind the old Levittown-styled houses of Park Creek. The pinkish-orange sky painted a beautiful backdrop for the dull neighborhood. The Cooper’s lived in one of these bland houses, 3 bedrooms and 2 and a half baths with no standout features, but tonight this house stood out. Every night that the Cooper parents weren’t home you could always tell. The music from the building roared almost as loud as the noise made by guests at Bethany Cooper’s unauthorized house party. The smell alone could destroy one’s liver and the state of the place, unsightly.

Despite the lack of parental presence, there was one set of disapproving eyes on Bethany from her sister, Alaina.

Bethany stood in front of the mirror in the upstairs bathroom, retouching her makeup. Next to her stood Alaina, glaring at her.

“What do you want?”

Clearly annoyed, Bethany stopped for a moment to look at Alaina in the mirror. 

“You need to stop the party.”

Bethany rolled her eyes in response, catching a glimpse of the now purple-painted sky.

“They’re loud, messy, and make the whole house smell awful. It’s just disgusting.  I can’t live in this filth!”

Bethany not listening began to drag Alaina out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. Alaina stamped her foot in defiance. 

 “Bethany Lyn Cooper!”

 Bethany locked Alaina in her room, but Alaina just kept yelling at her through the door. Bethany knocked loudly on the door to get Alaina to shut up before yelling right back at her.

“Just stay in there, okay!”

“I’m calling the police!” but Alaina’s empty threat couldn’t be heard as Bethany rejoined the festivities.

Alaina, now locked in her room with seemingly no chance for escape, tried to find something to do to distract her from the party, but nothing worked. Reading a book, watching YouTube, playing video games, turning the volume on her headphones so loud she felt that her eardrums were about to burst. The noise from downstairs just got louder and louder. Nothing was working and, nothing seemed like it was going to work. Looking around her room for an exit her gaze landed on the door. For a moment she glanced at the window but immediately looked back at the door. It was obvious that any banging at the door wouldn’t be heard, so she’d have to break the door down.

Alaina, chair in hand, was just about to make her attempt at the door, but she figured that any mess made in the house would be blamed on Bethany. For as stupid as the party was, Bethany wasn’t the type of person to let a door get torn down. Putting down the chair, Alaina looked back at the window.

Not wanting to be reckless about this she decided to look up how to properly escape. She found a wikiHow called “How to Sneak Out of Your Second Story Window” which seemed pretty reliable.

After having tied four bed sheets and blankets together, she tied them to the foot of her bedframe. The moonlight shone down on Alaina as if whispering to her Climb down. So she did. Alaina carefully climbed down her makeshift rope ladder, but the material for the final blanket was a little too velvety causing the whole thing come undone. She fell three feet to the ground, but Alaina had to be quick, she wouldn’t want to get caught up with any of Bethany’s “esteemed guests”. She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and began towards the quiet moon.

Before long Alaina found herself deep in the woods behind the suburbs of Park Creek. The “woods” were just a large plot of land in between the two main sections of the neighborhood. Usually, there was a bunch of contractors and construction worker’s surveying the area because the land was recently sold, but right then it was quiet, peaceful, and . . . dark. Too dark for Alaina to see anything, especially with the moonlight being blocked out by the tall evergreens. Scared, Alaina turned around to see if she could go back the way she came, but there was no path and all the trees seemed to meld together. She began to get anxious as she tried to find a way out of the woods, wandering towards any source of light she could find.

Once she noticed a warm glow in the trees, she immediately ran towards it. Following it she found a clearly man-made clearing in the trees populated by a bunch of fireflies. She decided to stay in the only lit area among the trees to stop and catch her breath. 

After a minute she heard a quiet rustling of leaves and Alaina’s heart rate picked right back up.

“Is somebody there?”

Alaina was replied with only more rustling, louder rustling. She looked around and picked up a sizable stick to protect herself. As the rustling noises got even louder. Alaina began to hear the faint sound of a voice. She called out again.

“Whose there?

Alaina waited anxiously for a response as the rustling continued.

“Just me.”

Alaina tightened her grasp on the stick. 

Then from the bushes appeared Cherry Carter with a lantern. Alaina didn’t really know much of anything about Cherry aside from the fact that she was new to the neighborhood. That explained why she wasn’t at the party, but not what she was doing in the woods.

“Are you ok? What are you doing out here?” Cherry pointed at the stick in Alaina’s hand.

Alaina snapped back. “What are you doing out here?”

“My family owns this land. And you?”

“I . . . ran away from home.”

Even in the dim light, Alaina could see the worried look on Cherry’s face. 

“But not it that way! I was running away from my sister’s party. She locked me in my room and it was so loud I couldn’t even hear myself think.”

Cherry laughed loudly, “I was wondering where your bags were?”

Alaina laughed too, an awkward laugh. She dropped the stick, embarrassed.

“But what are you doing out here, late at night?”

Cherry walked a bit closer to Alaina. Close enough that the shadows from Cherry’s lantern cast a shadow on Alaina’s face. 

“Do you really want to know?”

Alaina slowly backed up a bit before nodding.

“I’m looking for Sunshine,” Cherry whispered with a smile.

Alaina was confused. Cherry explained that, as kids, the former owners of this land had buried a chest of Sunshine somewhere on their land. They had a map and everything but lost it years before they put the house up for sale. Still, that didn’t seem to make anything clearer for Alaina.

“What’s Sunshine?”

“I have two guesses it’s either actual light from the sun that they gathered up and put in a chest or whatever the opposite of moonshine would be?”

“So Mountain Dew?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, Mountain Dew was created as a mixer for moonshine in the mountains of Tennesse.”

“That’s so cool. How do you know that?”

Alaina and Cherry went back and forth like that, talking about anything that came to mind. What the Sunshine might be and a plan for how to find it, which led into a conversation about waffles, Mountain Dew (of course), their personal lives, and even Bethany’s name popped up. They were in the clearing so long that the fireflies had put out their lights before they noticed it was dawn. Alaina looked up into the sky seeing that there was a faint bright light shining on them from between the endless pine leaves. 

“I think the sun’s up?”

“Oh wow! We didn’t even get a chance to look for the Sunshine.”

Cherry got up from where she and Alaina were sitting around the lantern. Alaina did the same, not caring about the dirt on her clothes, picked up the lantern and handed it to Cherry.  

“I guess we’ll have to come back here later today to begin our plan of attack.”

Cherry blew out the light of the lantern as they started in opposite directions back to each of their houses. 

“Don’t get lost on your way back.”

Even with the minimal amounts of sun peeking through the trees, Alaina could see easily find her way out of the trees and into the soft light of dawn.