"Okay, well, thanks. Maybe I will need this someday. Bye." I put the charmer in my jeans pocket. "Good luck, my dear." I turned around, and the old lady was not there. Everything was still normal though. I walked to the food court and saw Mrs. Souls at a table, so I joined her. Mrs. Souls handed me a cinnamon stick with a napkin wrapped around the bottom. I bit the top off and chewed it in my mouth, and it tasted sweet and warm. "So," Mrs. Souls asked. "you want to hear the answer to your previous questions, correct?" She inserted the straw in the hole that it said to put it in. "Of course I do." I bit the cinnamon stick again. "Can you answer it now?" "Okay, what was the question you asked?" She also bit into her's. "What if you like someone that also likes you back, but your age is very far apart from the other?" I was half finished with my snack. "Hum, well, I don't know the answer to that, but if you two are going to get married, just be sure that you're eighteen years or older." "So, you're saying?" She was done with her cinnamon stick, so she cleaned her mouth with the napkin. “I’m saying that your age difference doesn't quite matter, but if your going to have a serious relationship, be the age eighteen or older. Right now, you two are a couple, right?" "Yes, why do I have to be eighteen or older to be in a serious relationships?" I was finished with my cinnamon stick and cleaned my mouth. "What I mean by "serious relationship" is marriage. Well, I think it's the law that if your "partner" is an adult, and you're not, you can't get married. You are eleven, and he's twenty-seven, so if you two get married now, I don't think you can because it's like-" She whispered the rest in my ear. "Oh, I understand now! I'm definitely waiting till I'm eighteen-years-old to get married. So, our age doesn't matter?" "Yes, come on, dear, lets go. Bring along your drink in case you want to drink it." Even though she treats me like a child, I know she is just looking out for me. While we were heading home, we discussed about what happened in the past years. She made me laugh. Mrs. Souls told me her childhood. Some of it was hard to believe like when she accidently burned her older sister's hair, had a tongue piercing, was a model, dated George Clooney, and owned sixty-six dogs. "I always hated the smell of them, so I decided to sell all of the dogs." "Why did you have sixty-six dogs in the first place then?" "Some of them belonged to my great great grandparents. They put in their will to give them to me because I loved playing with dogs when I was six-yearsold." "How old are you now, anyway?" "Forty-six-years-old." "You really don't look that old, you know." "You remind me of myself when I was around your age." We stopped at a red light behind another car. "How?" "Well, you are a grumpy and nice person, have many friends that stick up for you, is good at ELA than math, is the third child, was tall for your age, and love to read."
139