The Purple Dress

Pullip in purple dress (Photo credit: Hegemony77 doll clothes)

I am nine years old the first time I defy my grandmother.

Everyone is always saying how much they love her, what a kind and generous soul she is, always doing things for other people with never a thought for herself.  It’s true, no one leaves our house without produce from the garden, preserves from our cellar, a well read book, some little knickknack, a few cut flowers or a potted plant. Grandma gives and gives.

This particular day grandma decides to do something nice for my younger cousin Audrey. She rifles through my closet,  pulls something out and holds it up.  Audrey will look lovely in purple, she declares.

I am aghast.  It is the purple dress I love to death and haven’t yet outgrown. I try to protest but grandma isn’t listening. She tells Audrey to try it on.  If she likes it she can take it home with her today. Won’t that be nice?

I think it will not be nice at all. My head is suddenly black with childish rage. I scream NO, rush between them, pluck the dress from their hands and turn and run away with it.

I am clutching my dress and sobbing in the kitchen to my mother at the unfairness of it all.  And to top it off, now I am no doubt in deep trouble for being so selfish and for disrespecting grandma.

But mom surprises me and says I’m right.  Grandma should not have tried to make one person happy at the expense of another. The dress is not going anywhere until I’m ready to give it away on my own.

It’s the first time I’ve ever known a kid to be right and an adult to be wrong.  I feel empowered as I tell grandma how her thoughtlessness made me feel.

Well why didn’t you say something, she asks with a shrug.  Then off she goes to find something else she can give away.  This time with a little less drama.

Trifecta Challenge Week 105:  Between 33 and 333 words using the 3rd definition of the word “pluck”

1: to pull or pick off or out
2 a : to remove something (as hairs) from by or
as if by plucking <pluck one’s eyebrows>
b : rob, fleece
3: to move,
remove, or separate forcibly or abruptly <plucked the child from the middle
of the street>
4 a : to pick, pull, or grasp at
b : to play by
sounding the strings with the fingers or a pick