"Daddy again did not make it, did he." The little girl asked.
"Oh Ami, you know that he loves you he just could not make the time to come today," Ami's mother explained, "he is very busy, but he send you this wonderful present."
Ami did not like that. Daddy was nice always sending her money and equipment for her experiments, but he was rarely there for her. She almost only knew him from the chess-by-mail they played. She missed him as he was one of the few people who would actually encourage her more dangerous research projects. Everyone else had been really angry after the business with the death-ray and the neighbors dog, but he had sounded really supportive in his letter.
Listlessly she removed the wrapping from the small box. It was a wooden box far to small and light for most of the things that had been on Ami's wish-list. (The plutonium wood have required a lead container for example)
Carefully she opened the lid only to be bitterly disappointed. Jewelry! The box contained a set of ten rings. Some of them were badly damaged and none looked even the least bit stylish.
"Your father writes that he acquired these rings from a business-rival and he thought that they would be just the thing for you." Her mother read from the accompanying letter she sounded puzzled, "Business-Rival? He must mean a fellow artist. He probably won them in a bet or something. Aren't they nice Ami?"
Ami did not think so. She strongly suspected that they were another test for her like the Chinese puzzle-box he had sent her last year. Her father was funny that way.
Ami's mother tried to smooth this disappointing moment over by moving on to the next present.
"This is from your great-uncle Blackie, you probably don't remember him as you were very little when he last visited. He sends you this for your birthday."
Actually she did faintly remember her mother's uncle Marc DuQuesne as the only adult not to go all gushy and emotional over the little baby girl Ami. She had approved of him. As far as she knew he was away on his travels most of the time.
The box from her vagabond uncle contained a set of shiny gem stones, that according to the accompanying letter he had picked up on his travels. There was a apparently a legend attached to them but Ami suspected that her Uncle had only included it for humors sake. He was to much of a logical scientist to believe in such superstitions.
They looked artificial, but were supposed to be irreproducible by mortal means, which Ami did not belive for a minute. Their supposed powers of focussing the wearers mental abilities like a lens of course only worked for their original owner, which would nicely explain why they did not work now; not to mention the restriction that they only worked for males. It sounded too much like the normal new-age trash to Ami. Even if they had any powers there would be a nice scientific explanation for them and anything that men could create, could be recreated by other men or women.There was no such thing as unforgeable.
While her mother was telling her how nice those 'lenses' would as accessories Ami was already planing on reverse-engineering the artifacts to disprove the legends attached to them.
Her mother must have interpreted her quiet musings as disappointment.
"Oh Ami," she hugged her, "I know that it isn't much, but you have to believe that your family loves you even if none of them are here today. We have always been a wandering lot and you have relatives and ancestors all over the place. So you should not think that you are alone. In fact I have something right here that will give you some connection to your heriatage. It has been in our family for some time and passed on from mother to daughter and I think that it is time to give it to you."
Ami was not very enthusiastic over the prospect of receiving another piece of useless Jewelry for her birthday even if it was a family heirloom, but she tried to smile eagerly for her mother's sake.
She was surprised at the strange blue stone on a string that her mother presented her and she suddenly felt a strange sort of feeling when she touched the octahedral gem.
"What is it called she asked." confident that such a remarkable gem surely must have been given a name.
"The Secret of Blue Water," her mother said almost reverently.
Ami smiled — maybe her fifth birthday would not be so bad after all.
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(Posted Wed, 29 Dec 2004 09:34)
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