Friends Short Story – P.A.L.S
Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com
Friendship. Its a beautiful thing. Its like a rope. As the tenderness,intimacy,warmth, endearment and care increases, the rope of friendship gets knotted. The knots are so sturdy that it’s impossible to untie them. I truly believe in the rope-knot-friendship formula but in our case, there were severe crisis. One touch of those hard times and gradually all the knots untied. This is how it ended but let me tell you how it began.
*****
“Good morning”,I said as we walked to school.” ‘Morning”, Anna sped toward me, her pineapple jelly toast in her hand, habitually.
“I don’t know when you’ll manage eating breakfast in time Anna!”, I rolled my eyes.
“At least I manage to reach school in time but you never tell Leo off for having breakfast in first period under the desk”, Anna laughed.
“He’s an exception Anna! a person who wakes up just five minutes before the school starts can never reach on time. Leave the breakfast out”, i smiled helplessly.
“Hey Sam!”, Anna’s eyeballs slit open as she looked behind me.
“what?”, I urged.
“Turn over and look at number three”, she said wide-eyed. I let out a gasp as I saw a red headed boy speeding toward us from his house’s balcony,NUMBER THREE. NUMBER ONE was empty at that moment.NUMBER TWO was Anna’s,NUMBER THREE was Leo’s and NUMBER FOUR belonged to me. Our street was named KIDS BLOCK 4. I always wondered why it was called KIDS BLOCK. For the first time ever,since kindergarten,we saw Leo getting up early for school.
Before that it used to be only me and Anna limping slowly to school.”Hi ladies!”, he waved at us,smiling widely as he showed his sparkling snow-white teeth like a vampire.We used to consider him as a vampire due to his helplessly white sharp teeth. “IS WORLD GOING TO END?AM I ALREADY DEAD?”,Anna ‘over-reacted’ as Leo approached us.
Leo whacked her head hard,”you weren’t but now you are”, he grinned. I joined him impotently. “Hey Leo!what made you get up in time?”, i asked rather curiously. “Look Samantha dear!every year people turn over a new leaf. I considered it to be my time and decided to do something new on the FIRST DAY of our FIRST YEAR at HIGH SCHOOL”,he yelped,excitedly.
FIRST DAY,FIRST YEAR,HIGH SCHOOL?He framed those words with extra pressure than needed. Actually he was never one of those kids who were into studies instead he was a little too far from them. Maybe he was really changing for good as he said earlier.
“Leo how cheap of you to be excited to enter high school.”Anna said.Then she slapper her forehead.”Oh so sorry! i missed it. Students who barely pass the exam live on only one dream. Somehow to manage to get through high school entry exam right?hmm.. a big thing”, Anna said, keeping her expressions straight.
“Anna?you know what?I think your’e extremely in need of another slap.”Leo said as seriously as Anna did.I smiled as i tried keeping Anna and Leo at a distance as they were continuously trying to hit each other.”come on guys!everybody’s gawking at you people”,i yelled at them.”No your’e wrong Sam!actually they are gawking at Leo.”Anna said.”Why’d they gawk at me?”Leo asked,his eyebrows raised.”they are looking at a live eighth wonder of the world!Leo early in the morning.”she carried on.”Hey you”,Leo grabbed her silky brown pony tail.I remember clearly.They kept on squabbling till we entered our class and took our seats.
“Rise and shine high students!”,Mr.Winston entered our class,smiling like always.We were glad that he was teaching us this year too except Leo who was frowning.I smiled at him.He always had a bad side for Mr.Winston.According to Leo Mr.Winston was fake and unreal in some way.”Good morning Mr.Winston”,our class echoed.”Let’s start our first day with some well wishes”,Mr.Winston smiled as he pulled out a small yellow book from his worn out waist coat pocket.He started reading the book which went something like,”we will study hard all the year”,and so on.The yellow book of wishes was the book which Mr.Winston gifted me in third grade on my birthday.i remembered spotting the book in the Sunday Cheap Store.Not that i mind.Mr.Winston kept the same copy of the book with him all the time.He always read the well wishes to only those students who performed well in the class tests,so i was kinda tired of listening to the book all the time.
Anna nudged me with her green ink pen.I knew by looking at her face that she had also recalled the Cheap Store book.She smiled mischievously.”Behave Anna!Mr.Winston is looking straight at us”, i whispered,glaring at her.”He can never look straight Sam.”Anna chuckled quietly.Mr.Winston was squint.I completely forgot.I turned away from Anna and smiled.i didn’t wanted her to know that i kind of thought her silly joke was funny.”I know you are laughing”,Anna twinkled.”Ugh..She knows”,i thought.After the never-ending wishes,Mr.Winston continued,”Now i’d like to introduce a transfer-student.He arrived just now.”A tall boy,certainly of our age,with a baggy rough uniform,dark green hair but a sweet smile walked in.I never understood why boy’s liked to dye hair.Leo’s fiery red hair were natural.I couldn’t blame him for that.Anyway green hair looked good on the new boy maybe because it matched his dark green sneakers.
“Hello everyone!I’m Paul Bell from Orlando.It’s my first day here and-“he said nervously but was immediately interrupted by Leo,”And your’e fifteen minutes late.We pay fine here if we get late”,Leo smiled his unusual vampire-ish smile.”Leonardo!Its not good to interrupt others”,Mr.Winston scolded him.He always called me “Samantha” and to Leo ‘Leonardo’.I disliked that part of Mr.Winston.”Its okay”,Paul smiled.”Um.. Leonardo actually it was a little misunderstanding.I thought the school starts at 8:45″,he finished with his sweet smile.”Paul Bell please take your seat.And apologies from Leonardo’s side”,Mr.Winston smiled at him,squinting his eyes,the three of us went into our usual fit of giggling.
Paul had to unfortunately sit beside Leo as it was the only seat unoccupied in the entire class room.There were four rows in our room.Anna sat at the end of first row,Leo at the end of second row,I at the end of fourth row and now Paul perched quietly at the end of third row between me and Leo.Mr.Winston preferred quiet,calm classes so he made us switch seats.Now Paul was at the end of first row,Anna at the second,Leo at the third and i sat where i was sitting.Mr.Winston relaxed when Paul was practically quite far away from Leo’s reach.
This was the way we really did sat for the rest of three years in high school.The lecture started.I glanced at Leo.He was as usual playing tic-tac-toe with his imaginary friend Drake.Anna was busy reading the last chapter of the novel i gave her when we were shopping together.She had hidden the novel under her course book.One of those acts which she always repeated whenever she bought a book.Paul was also engaged in writing something.I bent closer to see that he was taking notes.That’s when i realized that the three of us should have been doing the same thing.”Leo!Anna!please stop doing what you are doing and do what you’re supposed to do”,I murmured in a hushed tone.They looked at me.Maybe they felt the concern in my eyes because the immediately started taking notes after i told them to.
__END__
