The Fox and the Diamond

“I’m telling you,” I say in earnest. “It just . . . time traveled!”

“Uh-huh,” Father says disbelievingly from behind his newspaper.

I turn to Mother, who’s sipping daintily from a coffee cup, sitting next to my father on the swing on the front porch. “You believe me, right, Mother?”

“What can I say, dear,” she says with a sigh. “A time-traveling fox is a little . . . hard to believe.”

Crestfallen, I look down at the fox in my arms. Its coat is a beautiful bright red, purer than any I’ve ever seen.

“It’s true,” I mutter, pulling a heavy object from my pocket. “See? The fox brought this back.”

“John,” Mother breathes, grasping her husband.

Father looks up for the first time, and the newspaper drops from his hands.

I hold up the giant diamond; the afternoon light catches it just right, refracting the light in a rainbow of colors.

“Is that . . . ,” Father sputters, “the Florentine Diamond?”

I dunno,” I say with a shrug. “It’s huge, though.”

“One-hundred thirty-seven carats,” Father whispers. “It was lost in time . . . how did you—”

“That’s enough for us to buy a city mansion!” Mother says, jumping up and dropping her coffee mug in the process.

“It’s enough for us to travel the world and back!” Father says, standing as well and hugging his wife.

“But isn’t a mansion much better than getting motion sickness all the time?” Mother asks.

“Dear, we can flaunt our riches everywhere, not just in some silly city house,” Father says.

“Silly city house?!” Mother gasps.

I slowly back away from my parents, and when the front porch is far enough away that I can barely hear the argument, I turn and race to the edge of the woods.
 
I crouch, setting down the fox next to the diamond. “Be free, little guy,” I say gloomily. “They still don’t believe me, so you ca go back home to wherever you came from.”

The fox nuzzles against my knee and barks softly. I smile as the fox and the diamond vanish into thin air, leaving no trace that they were even there to begin with.