Home To Mars

Brought to you by nishatalitha and the word 'cats'. 200 words precisely.

Home to Mars
They made Celeste wear her blue dress. She didn’t want to. But Great Auntie Mildred had bought it for Celeste, and it was only right she should wear it at the old woman’s funeral. The lace itched her wrists and neck and the sleeves pinched her underarms. Besides, she had a pink dress. She didn’t need a blue dress. So what if Granny called it ‘precious’?

She wouldn’t have minded so much, if her horrid brother Charles had had to dress up. But Mummy said that at 5, he was too little to wear smart things. She was a big girl now, and she had to dress properly. So Charles got to wear Bermuda shorts and a ‘Giant Robot Birthday Party’ t-shirt. It wasn’t fair!

During the wake, Celeste saw Great Auntie Mildred’s pampered cats, Princess and Highball, lazing in the overgrown garden, playing with something.

It was a mouse.

Celeste was inconsolable- she loved mice. Another funeral was therefore obligatory.

“Where do animals go when they die?” asked Celeste, holding the shoebox as her father dug a hole in the petunias. Charles snorted.
“Don’t you know?”
“Heaven?” she asked, lip trembling.
“No, stupid. They go back home- to Mars!”

© Ellen Couch, 2010