Written for the Youngadultreads profile's December 2016 picnic prompt contest. First place winner. Companion piece to Magic Included.

In which a father and daughter eat among the stars...

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Peneloper Auttsley had once been asked if she ever wished upon a star. She hadn't. She'd grown up and away from such childish things. But now, as she sat alone under the night sky, in the clearing that had been their clearing, she thought of a wish.

"I know what I'd want," she said speaking to the stars, the crickets, and a few sleepy eyed bluebirds.

"I'd wish for the same old. Star eating with my dad."

And so here's a tale of a what-if-but-never-was of a girl who wanted nothing more than to have one more day with her father. And here's to you, to us. Let us never take for granted the simple delights of the same old.

☆☆☆☆☆

Nighttime. My favorite time.

Dawn was for lazy breakfasts of mushy cereals, tart juices, a little sister's squawking and the smell of horribly strong dark roast coffees. Noons held math class and the promise of more lectures, chiding teachers, and squawking peers. Evenings welcomed dinners of roasts or casseroles, leisurely talk, bad jokes, and the smell of delightfully calming chamomile teas.

But Nighttime, glorious Nighttime was for conversations, creating, and constellations. Many months ago, my father had promised me a picnic underneath the stars. And tonight was the night I would finally feast under their brilliance.

I waited patiently in my room, tapping a pencil beside a worksheet I had gotten from Mrs. Mildren, my sixth grade teacher. It was math- the drollest of all the subjects- and I couldn't help but sigh at the sheet filled with long divisions and algebraic equations. What purpose did these things have other than to be learned in school?

Underneath the worksheet was my notebook. My beloved notebook. It was hidden, yes, because my mother liked to come up and check on me every now and then. She thought she was clever, leaving the door open a crack and walking past it slowly, her slippers chafing the hardwood floor out in the hall as she passed, hoping it would seem natural. It never did.

My little sister, Carmichelle, had finally gone to sleep and there was a quiet in the house that I appreciated. School had been loud, too loud, and all my teachers today had sought to enlighten me.

"You'll never get anywhere without hard work, Miss Auttsley," they had moaned.

How could they, of supposed age and wisdom, consider sheets of math and vocabularies, hard work? They were wrong, of course, to think so poorly of me. When it came to matters of the heart, I was the hardest worker. My story, for example, written in the dying art of cursive stroke, held inside my notebook, housed fifty full pages of pirating adventure featuring the handsome Captain Ire Stormholden.

As I ran a hand over my notebook, the leather lovely against my skin, I looked out my bay window. The orange had come and while it was nice enough, I wanted it to be hurried away by the black of night. Star gazing, and star eating (that's what my father and I called our nighttime picnics), were things that only he and I did.

Today had been the perfect day for one of our treasured outings. The weather had been most agreeable with a delightful breeze that held the scent of cut grasses, and a clear, cloud-less sky. I usually preferred my skies with Nimbus but for nights when the stars where what you sought, clear blue was the best sign you could hope for.

Muffled footfalls brought my attention back to the desk that held all my unopened schoolbooks and unanswered homeworks. I quickly sought to look as if I had been working on the task my mother had given me between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m. But as the footfalls approached, heavy weighted clicks on the hardwood, my heart elated and I let out a sigh. It wasn't my mother coming to check on my progress. Father was coming to rescue me.

"You could try a little harder to look like you're doing something," a deep voice said at the entrance of my room. His blue eyes stared into my own; dark blue, the color of evening, reminding me of the night itself.

"Mom doesn't come into my room when she checks on me," I reminded him, shuffling the papers up and putting them into my book bag.

All that was left on my desk was my leather bound notebook. Father had gifted it to me when I was five and it was the best gift I'd ever received.

"You really think your mother doesn't know what you're doing. Or not doing. Oh Nep," he said, taking my room in stride, plucking a pillow off my bed and chucking it gingerly at me. It landed a few paces to my right; he had terrible aim.

"So she knows," I said, mulling this information over as I got up and went to my sock drawer. Clothes, to a young girl who fancied herself rather plain, meant little. But socks? I delighted in socks. And my dedication to the myriads of patterned and colored cottons showed; a whole drawer had been dedicated to the lot and filled to the brim.

I studied them, the way my teachers wished I studied for my tests, and settled between two pairs; a light green pair with cute ripe strawberries or the all black constellation socks my mother had gotten me last Christmas. The latter were appropriate yes, but strawberries were just so tasty. I decided on the strawberries.

"Of course she knows," father said, ruffling my blonde hair. Speaking of hair, mine was the odd-man-out among the Auttsley clan. Everyone in my family had chestnut brown locks, robust and housing a slight curl. But not me.

I, Peneloper Auttsley of 1809 Melbourne Way, had hair of the whitest sand, straight and lifeless, clinging about my ears. I asked about it once but my mother went into a lecture on recessive genes. I'd stopped listening well before she produced pen and paper and started to diagram the whole miserable process.

"If that's the case, than she's a more dangerous creature than I thought," I said, slipping on a pair of converse over my socks. He laughed and moved to sit on my bed.

"What're you doing?" I asked, urgency in my voice. "I'm all ready now. Let's go dine underneath the stars."

A smile pried open my father's lips. The blue housed in his eyes sparkled.

"How about something a little different this time?" he asked the way a mischievous sort would do. My eyebrows arched in surprise and caution.

What did he have planned?

☆☆☆☆☆

We had to drive a bit to get to the clearing outside of town where we star gazed. The ride had always been the worst part for me. Waiting, anticipating, waiting, anticipating. The cycle continued for thirty unrelenting minutes. How my father remained so calm stayed a mystery to me. But adults were each their own enigmas. Maybe I would understand someday when I was older.

Finally, I sighed, relaxing in the passenger seat as I saw my father pull off the main road, taking one poorly constructed of the most pointed gravel to ever exist. The road was encompassed on all sides by evergreens of spruce and fir. Dad hated the pine trees; they always sought- and succeeded- in scratching his skin. The bumps along the gravel road- of which there were many- were welcomed; each seeking to punctuation my excitement.

The car stopped and I got out, stretching my limbs and hurrying to find the clearing. My father lagged behind, carrying a basket my mother had prepared for our outing. You may think it cruel that she was not with us but trust me, she was very content in our house, sipping coffee, relaxing in the quiet it offered. Our excursions weren't just for us, they were for her too.

As I ran through ankle length grass, I felt a cool wind hit my face, the smell of lavender filling my nostrils. And then I saw it. Our spot; filled with wild growing lavender and crab grass. It was perfect for napping, imagining, and of course, star gazing. I ran to the center of the clearing and looked up; there they were, waiting for us, orbs of light floating above.

"No clouds!" I yelled back as my father meandered toward me. He was much too slow for such an occasion.

He stopped, mid-way between me and the edge of the clearing, and smoothed a checkered blanket over the ground, bending but never breaking nature's beauty. I ran over to him, cheeks flushed and slightly winded, and waited for him to reveal the basket's contents.

Two roast turkey and Gouda sandwiches, a mixed salad with pecans and cranberries, a small jar of homemade vinaigrette, a thermos of spiced cider and peach cobbler with a side of homemade whipped cream. My stomach screamed in delight. All our favorites were in the basket. My mother was an extraordinary (if not sneaky) woman.

I took a seat next to my father, taking a sandwich and plopping it on one of the paper plates my mother had also saw fit to put into the basket. He piled most of the salad onto my plate- he hated salads- and I drizzled some of my mother's raspberry vinaigrette over top. The flavor was amazing, I was certain, but I was too busy cramming the food into my stomach to really take note of the flavor. Dessert was calling my name and peaches made for the best desserts.

"Where's the telescope?" I asked, a piece of turkey sticking out of my mouth.

"I didn't bring it," my father replied, heavily sipping on the cider. My mouth was agape at his reveal and the poor piece of turkey fell from it, landing in the grass, food for another.

"What-" I screamed, offended he would be so forgetful on such an important night. He broke into laughter at the joke I hadn't been privy to.

"I said we'd do something different, so let's do that," he said, rising to his feet, his eyes becoming bluer, fiercer. All around me the ground writhed with an electric blue, forming an intricate design all around us, buzzing with a current I couldn't quite place. Before long, I was no longer sitting on the ground. I was floating above it, blanket and basket following suit.

Father was there beside me and the blanket, floating on nothing, a smile lighting his face. Higher and higher we went. Wasn't the air supposed to be thinner at this height? Shouldn't it have been harder to breathe? It wasn't. It was comfortable and warm. We were a few hundred feet into the air when we finally stopped.

"What? How? What?" I muttered.

"We tell mom none of this," he mumbled, running a hand through his hair, joining me on the blanket, gulping down the leftover cider.

"Tell mom what? That we floated?" I spewed, dessert now the furthest thing from my mind.

"That's one thing I'd like for you to keep to yourself."

He sat, cross-legged, taking the turkey sandwich to his lips. I stared at him in disbelief, eating so casually after floating.

"You keep staring at me and you won't see where you are."

That's right. Where I was. In the sky. Among the stars and with my father. I looked around, and up, and saw the balls of burning gas brightly glowing in the distance. Corvus. Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. They were all wrapped around us, more beautiful than I'd ever seen them before.

"Happy Birthday," my father whispered.

☆☆☆☆☆

Peneloper Auttsley's leather bound notebook remained her favorite present throughout all her years. And if her father had still been alive, star eating with him among the stars for her thirteenth birthday, I'm sure, to this day, would have been her favorite memory.