A Bad Case of Freckles

By Jazlyn Lam

Danny sat on the front doorstep, lightly kicking the wall. 

‘What are you doing,’ Emma snorted, ‘trying to be homeless?’

‘Shush,’ Danny sighed, ‘I’m thinking.’

Emma rolled her eyes again. ‘I thought you were too foolish to think.’

‘Well, you’re wrong!’ he growled, ‘I’m a grown-up now and I’ll be even smarter than you.’

‘You’re only eight,’ Emma laughed.

Noon turned to dusk, and Danny continued sitting there. Danny’s mother walked up to him.

‘D,’ she said, patting him on the shoulder, ‘you’ve been sitting there for more than three hours. What’s up?’

Unlike Emma, Danny’s mum was … cool. She was very much like a teenager: she hated brussel sprouts, rode her skateboard, and much more.

Danny shuffled a little on the doorstep, seeming to be uncomfortable with his mom next to him. That was weird, because his mom was the only person he was comfortable with.

‘Well - uh, you see…,’ Danny stammered, getting lost in his train of thought. ‘Uh... there’s this dot on my face, which I’m not comfortable with.’

‘Dot? Dude, I think you’re talking about freckles,’ she replied, peering at his cheeks.

‘It’s over here, on my nose. That ugly speck of dirt,’ Danny answered, pointing to the middle of his nose.

Danny’s mom looked at it and grinned. ‘I think it’s very cute.’ she told him, ‘it’s nice.’

‘I don’t want to be cute. I want to be cool - like you,’ Danny whispered in her ear, trying to speak as softly as he would not trigger the attentive Emma, who was spying on them through the window.

‘Me?’ Danny’s mom wondered aloud, ‘Hmph, I give you brussel sprouts and you think I’m cool?’

‘Apart from that, yes,’ he laughed.

Emma ran out the front door and stared at Danny in disgust.

‘Ew. I heard you got those freckles,’ she said, eyeing the speck of brown on Danny’s nose.

‘Jeez!’ Danny thought, ‘She could’ve been nicer. I bet Ellie would’ve been.’

Thinking of Ellie made Danny feel uneasy. He missed Ellie so much. Ellie was in university. She was the person Danny looked forward to seeing again the most. Ellie and Danny had a somewhat special bond. The siblings were inseparable.

At school, Brisca Williams scowled even more than she usually did. She had broken the world record for scowling by approximately one year and three days. 

‘Squirt,’ Brisca pouted. 

‘What?’ Danny answered.

‘You’re such a baby.’

‘What? Why!’ 

‘I can see that freckle on your face. Baby.’

‘You’re so mean! I’m not a baby! See, I’m not even crying.’

‘Well, then what if I say you’re ugly and babyish?’

Danny growled in tears and huffed over to the school’s doorstep. He was thinking about going to the male bathroom, but there were too many boys there.

‘Hey, it’s not bad,’ his teacher Miss Lia told him, ‘it looks cute.’

‘But I don’t want to look cute! I want to be cool, like Brady and Blake.’

‘Who are Brady and Blake?’

‘Only the most popular, cool kids in the 4th grade.’

The day passed, and Brisca didn’t bully Danny anymore. Danny had another friend at school named Dorothy. Dorothy was very much like Ellie, humorous and kind. 

‘You got freckles? Oh, cute!’ Dorothy exclaimed, eyeing the freckle on Danny’s nose.

‘Stop it. It’s ugly, I know,’ Danny answered.

‘Oh, Danny!’

The next day, Dorothy came to school with a big smile on her face. Danny didn’t though. He was still miserable about the ‘freckle case’.

‘Hey, why are you laughing? Is it my freckle? Hmph.’ 

‘No! I found a cure for your - ‘freckle face’.’ 

‘Oi! Who are you calling freckle face?!’ 

Dorothy dragged Danny to the library and dropped him once something caught her eye. She tugged out a big black book with the words ‘CURES’ in bold gold letters. She flipped a few pages and turned to one with the words ‘FRECKLE FACE’. 

‘See, it says: “the best cure for freckles! Get the oldest leaf in your neighbourhood, a butterfly’s burp, and fog. Mix em’ all up and your freckles are gone!”’ Dorothy told Danny.

Danny’s face brightened up like a star, and he shot out of the library.

‘There is only one place to get the oldest leaf: Little Starfish Bay.’

Near the banks of Little Starfish Bay, Danny could be seen eyeing the leaves along the shore. If you asked him what he was doing, he would answer you with ‘saving my life.’

Danny found the one thing he needed, which was a leaf. That leaf was thirty three years old, found out by a famous scientist named Best Scientist (I’m not kidding, that’s his name.) 

Then, he clutched the mini-jar from his pocket and dropped the leaf inside. ‘Two more to go.’

The next place he needed to go to was Veggie Crops. Veggie Crops was a huge farm which grew veggies. And guess what - there were millions of butterflies there. 

‘Now, all I need is to find one full butterfly,’ Danny thought to himself.

He was sick of waiting, so he laid down some flowers on the grass. Very few butterflies came to eat, as they were suspicious of the strange boy. But one butterfly was particularly uncanny and didn’t mind anyone looking at it. The butterfly had a peach body and smooth pink wings filled with black dots. The butterfly’s stomach started to churn, and a tiny “burp!” came out of its mouth.

‘Why did the book say this was hard?!’ Danny wondered. 

Then, he slowly started to understand why. The butterfly’s burp was quick, and would escape through the air in less than two seconds, so he had to swipe it into the jar as fast as he could. After that, he was filled with sweat. 

‘Should’ve known earlier,’ he sighed.

Lastly, he needed fog. But, fog was a natural thing, he couldn’t get the sky to be foggy! Danny walked back home sadly, knowing that he might have to wait a few more days for foggy weather. Once he returned home, his head got hit by an idea. Emma was working on a science project for school. She was making “elephant toothpaste.”

‘Heyyy, Emma, gal!’ Danny said unconvincingly.

‘What do you want?’ 

‘Can I have a little of your elephant toothpaste…?’

‘No.’

Danny couldn’t wait any longer. He caught a whiff of foam and ran away.

‘Hmm. Such a peculiar kid,’ Emma thought.

Danny met up with Dorothy at the school library. She was reading a book. 

‘Hey, Dorothy,’ Danny called, ‘I’ve got all the ingredients needed to make the cure!’

‘Oh, that’s great!’ Dorothy answered.

She grabbed the jar and shook it. The ingredients merged together and formed a liquid. The liquid was kind of purple and bubbly.

‘Drink.’ Dorothy told Danny.

Danny hesitated for a moment, then drank it up. It wasn’t as bad as he thought - it tasted like orange juice. Danny went home with a smile on his face. 

‘Tomorrow when I wake up, all my nightmares will be gone! Be gone, freckles!’ Danny thought.

When he woke up the next morning, his face fell in horror once he had seen what happened to his face. That one freckle on his nose, turned into 10 freckles on his cheeks!

‘AHHHH!’

Danny walked to school glumly, expecting to be teased. But instead, everyone admired him.

‘Hey - isn’t that the famous kid with the freckles?’ Brisca said in awe.

‘Oh my gosh, yes!’ Brisca’s friend exclaimed.

‘Why aren’t they bullying me?’ Danny wondered in his mind, trying not to have eye-contact with them.

At school, Miss Lia looked shocked.

‘You don’t look too happy to be a Freckie. Everyone loves freckles, why don’t you? Answer my question,’ Miss Lia told him.

Danny thought for a while, then he understood, ‘Dorothy must’ve given me the wrong recipe. Instead of making my freckles disappear, it gave me more and made the world love freckles. I can live with this.’

Danny is now sixteen, he’s in middle school and still has freckles. The world still loves them. 

Photo by Brianna Swank from Pexels