Chapter 1 - her mother, herself???

In the Land of Orange, lived a girl with the very appropriate name of Clementine. She lived in a small house with her mother, father, and two brothers. She did not like having to explain to the neighborhood kids that she was not named after a tangerine, so she wrote an explanation for her name and hung it on the doorknobs of every person in her town. Most people didn't believe her, but her story was true.

The truth was she was not named after the small citrus fruit, but rather a charming character in one of her mother's most beloved books from childhood. Day after day as a little girl, her mother would read from this particular book with fervor and diligence, never stopping halfway through a chapter, but always at the end so as not to bring misfortune upon herself. She was a wise girl, but superstitious to a fault, and anyone that is superstitious knows that closing a book in the middle of a chapter will bring 10 years of extreme bad luck. Not to mention that mid-chapter closing can also abandon any chance of finding a husband ever, not even if one is beautiful, and not even if one is wise. That was not a risk her mother was willing to take, so even if her eyelids began to close without asking her permission, she always, without fail, finished her chapter.

One cold afternoon, the kind that finds little girls reading under the covers instead of playing in the autumn leaves outside, and in-between sips of lukewarm peppermint tea, her mother came upon a most impressionable delicacy of a sentence that would stay with her for 25 years until she bore her only daughter. It was on the 11th page of chapter 8 which was aptly titled, Chapter 8, that her mother read these words:

When the sound of the trumpet quieted and Clementine was born, the world suddenly became a place of tranquility, where the sun rose a little happier, and people everywhere rejoiced.

Her mother read the sentence three times.  Images of her future daughter instantly came to mind. Instead of dolls, games, and merry-go-rounds, thoughts of all things "adult" filled her daily thoughts. While other girls played "mommy" with their babydolls, her mother at the age of 10 thought of who she might marry and just how they would raise their children. Would there be elaborate birthday parties to show the world that they can throw such festivities with grace and ease, or will the parties be low-key and subtle, so as not to appear overly fixated on such affairs? 

She decided that indecisiveness would definitely be a part of her adult world and she would just have to wait for the party planning when she got there. In the meantime, there couldn't possibly be a name in the entire world that would befit her future child than that of which she just read. She closed the book and went outside to contemplate her future in the cold next to the children throwing leaves nearby. Being 10 years old was boring to her; she knew that all the exciting events in life happened when one got to adulthood, and throwing leaves was just another way of showing off their ignorance. As if such time-wasting could be so fun as they pretend it to be! So while the other children played freeze tag and other games that children like to play, Clementine's mother waited on the sidelines to be an adult. The other children thought she was incredibly boring, but not because she was 10. No, they thought she was boring because she never played. 

But of course, there were more important things to do than play, and she never felt much like a child, anyway. Being a wise and superstitious 10-year-old allowed her the freedom to think beyond all the silliness and playfulness of other kids her age. It did not, however, prevent her from overlooking the fact that there were 15 pages, and not 11, in Chapter 8 of the book she just closed. 

She hadn't even noticed.