Free Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story by Charles Mcdowell

teacups, a humongous delighted mouse, an enormous wooden log sailing down a waterfall into a refreshing pool of water, and even a scary pirate steering a ship flashed onto the screen, taunting me. A life I’dnever known; I was Stevie Wonder now able to see. My sister and I both shared a look—the kid version of “WTF.” “Disneyland, where the magic begins. Come now and discover the perfect family vacation. Located in beautiful Southern California.” Then it vanished; I was blind once again. I turned off the TV, for what good is television to a blind kid? Without any spoken words, my sister and I jumped up and bolted toward our parents’ room.
    “We wanna go to Disneyland!” We stood there with our mouths wide open, catching our breath, awaiting our life-altering fate. My parents looked at each other with eyes that said, “Code red! Code red!” They had clearly tried keeping this incredible land from us for as long as possible, but did they really expect we would never find it? The name Mickey Mouse made so much more sense to me now. And he was clearly not the mascot for a pest-control service, as my dad previously claimed.
    My sister and I didn’t budge. We had them in the hot seat, in desperate need of answers before a hissy fit would ensue. My mom gave a nod to my dad, which I assumed meant “This is your department.” My dad reluctantly got out of bed and carefully approached his fiendish children.
    “Disneyland is closed on the weekends and you start school next week, so we’ll plan a trip to go there next summer,” my dad said with his cheeky British accent.
    This was bullshit. I knew it then as I know it now. “Why would it be closed on the weekends? Isn’t that when mommies and daddies don’t have to go to work?” I could tell my sister really wanted to give me a high five for decoding that one. “Perhaps next time you’ll think before critiquing my crayon choices,” I remember wanting to say.
    My dad glanced at my mother. He was in need of some major help, but she kept her head buried in her book. Smart move. Thepoor guy was walking a tightrope without a net. I sort of felt bad for him, but I kept my sympathetic thoughts in check. Disneyland was the priority. I was ready to knock him down.
    “We want to go to Disneyland tomorrow,” I said in a calm yet firm tone. My mom dropped The Mists of Avalon and hid under the covers. Lilly was proud to be my sister. And my dad had no fight left in him.
    “Disneyland it is,” he said with such defeat. My sister jumped up and down. Pretty soon it would be she who dressed like me; the student had become the teacher. I stood, anchored solidly to the ground in my Velcro shoes with my chest puffed out, showing my family who was really running things.
    It was later that night, through the right sequence of windows and doors left open, that I was able to hear my father’s true feelings about Disney. But as long as I was going, I couldn’t have given a shit how he really felt about it. We were set to leave at seven in the morning and that was all that mattered.
    I was up at four thirty because you’d have to be out of your mind to sleep in on a Disney day. I gathered the necessary essentials for my impending adventure. Luckily, I had a neon-green fanny pack my uncle Arthur had given me for my five-and-three-quarters birthday. These were the objects I placed inside:
    Half-eaten Jawbreaker.
    Strand of my dog Lucy’s hair in case she died while we were gone.
    Bag of Fruit Gushers.
    My entire collection of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.
    Thirty-seven cents in case my parents forgot their wallets.
    I was ready. The problem was the only people with official driver’s licenses were fast asleep. Fortunately for me, not them, I was much more effective than an alarm clock. As I leapt up and down on their bed, muffled sounds of agony came from their pillows.
    “Charlie, Disneyland isn’t open for another five hours. Go back to sleep!” my mom said in her most