by Dee Holder

Created on: February 20, 2010   Last Updated: February 28, 2010

The painting was so beautiful I lost myself in it for a moment.  That feeling of calm and awe that only a great masterpiece can inspire filled me only to be broken by the familiar sounds of confusion, fear and authorities dealing with a situation they were not well equipped to deal with.  I swore under my breath, I could have only been distracted for a couple of minutes but I sighed, knowing full well that often that was all it took.  I should have been paying more attention, she was my responsibility for the day.  I had fought to bring her here, she loved it so much and if things went south we probably would not be allowed to come back.

She was only one room over, in the special exhibit we had been heading for.  A familiar scene unfolded before me, visitors stood around looking nervous and uncomfortable, but clearly curious about the strange girl rocking back and forth clutching a stuffed toy and moaning quietly to herself.  Guards stood around looking like they wanted to do something but clearly not sure quite what, and a group of official looking people moving purposefully towards my little sister.   I sighed and moved forward to confront whatever was going on and, to as much as possible protect, Sapphire from all of this and get her home as soon as possible.

I tried to explain that my sister was autistic, I tried to apologize for whatever she had done.  Unfortunately this had involved climbing over the cords surrounding the star exhibition, a stunning red ruby the size of my open hand called "Blood Red", and moving towards it saying over and over "Fake, fake, fake"  She was still saying this softly, but calmed visibly and stopped rocking when she saw me.   I was hoping that they would ignore what she was saying, consider it 'crazy' talk and let us leave.  I was hoping that for the first time in her life she was wrong, but I knew she was not, so now I hoped that they still thought the stone was real, or that they had put the fake on exhibit to protect the real one.

But they did not let us leave, with the excuse that they wanted to make sure she was OK, and that I was really responsible for her they herded us away from the curious crowds as fast as they possibly could, presumably in case someone got curious about what that odd young lady was saying.  I did not know how she did it, none of us did, a year ago, she had simply been been smart, a genius to be fair, despite her autism.  

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