(Origninally written by a friend a few years ago, I cleaned it up and hope you enjoy! =])
The sky is brilliant and the sun is blazing. I sit in the sunshine, my dark hair whipping around me in the wind. My Math homework sits before me, finished, with the corners constantly being blown. The beautiful weather is taunting me; my soul is aching and although it is such a nice day, inside my heart it is raining.
I twirl a sterling silver locket between my fingers and a deep sigh whispers through my lips.
“What will happen next?” I wonder aloud.
She loves him--Linda loves Joey--I still can’t believe it or accept it; maybe I just don’t want to. Using the fingernail on my index finger, I open the locket and with silent tears in my eyes, I gaze at the photograph within.
She’s so beautiful...her golden hair shining like the sun above me today, her crystal-clear, sky-blue eyes as entrancing as the shockingly vivid sky. I love her. I truly do. Not only because she is so lovely, but because she is also intelligent, friendly, lovable, sensitive, caring, unique and simply the most amazing individual that I have ever had the luck to meet. Now she'ss slipping away from me and there is nothing I can do. I hope Joey can make her happy, but if he hurts her, so help me God, I will make the remainder of his life a living hell. It is bad enough that he hurt me and everyone else all the times that he did, but he ought to do nothing but make Linda untroubled from now on.
“Sarah!” I heard two happy, gleeful voices shouting. I looked up just in time to have all of the wind knocked out of me by an over-enthusiastic glomp. I closed the locket and it shut with a snap.
“Hi, Sarah!” My friend Mary exclaimed with an excited wave. She then pulled the other girl, Rishi, off of me, “Look! Look, it’s Kenney!” She thrust her arm out and pointed at the boy she liked, Kenney, as he and the rest of the Track and Field team ran three laps.
“What’s wrong, na-no-da?” Rishi asked inquisitively. Rishi had pale skin, tawny hair, blue eyes, braces and an infectious laugh and smile. Alisha had gotten injured when she was really small, but that hardly had any effect on our friendship. It was her cheerfulness, optimism, cleverness, outspokenness and friendliness that draw us all together. Rishi is very original--she has strange nicknames for all of her friends, she calls reading to ‘swee’, she calls hugging ‘glomping’ and she uses the small phrases of Japanese that she knows even when there is no reason to.
“Whaddya think is wrong?” I asked her, sounding a little irritated.
“Oh, Linda and Jou-Joe? C’mon, Sarah-Chan, Rishi knows what’ll make you feel a little better.” Rishi jumped back, readying herself to perform. She cleared her throat loudly, “Oooooooooh! I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner! Yes, that is what I’d truly like to beeee...”
I couldn’t help but smile as Rishi walked like an Egyptian, discoed, Bunny-Hopped and did the twist in about 30 seconds flat.
Mary and I found ourselves singing along and laughing. Mary had straight, nut-brown hair, a narrow face, greyish eyes and a longing to be loved quite like mine. Mary was a total romantic and she, like I, wanted desperately to be cared for. Kenney didn’t return her affection and she didn’t know how to make him understand the depth of her devotion. Then she stopped laughing, “Where’s Kenney?
Rishi shrugged and I said that I didn’t know. Mary gave a sad little whine, “Kenney!”
“Maybe he’s in da’ Porto-Potty!” Rishi said humorously, “Want Rishi to go see?’
“Huh?” Mary said, bewildered by Rishi’s offer.
“Rishi will go check!” Rishi began running down the hill to where the portable toilets were.
“Did she just say that she would check?” Mary asked me.
“I think so.”
“Hey look there he is!” Mary said, pointing happily, “He just took off his sweatshirt so we didn’t see him.”
“Oh. What about Rishi?” we looked down the slope where our friend was knocking on the wall of the toilet.
“Oh my GOD! What is wrong with that girl?!” Mary cried.
The door opened and a large boy looked out. Rishi hid. The door closed and she threw herself against it. Another boy from the lacrosse team had heard the banging and he came to see what it was. The kid who was trying to go to the bathroom came out again. He saw the lacrosse-player and he pushed him--thinking that he was the culprit--but then he pointed at Rishi who then pointed somewhere towards the field. She ran back up to us giggling uncontrollably.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Mary said, “Who did you say did it?”
“Kenney.”
“What?!” Mary shouted, “Nice!” She hugged Rishi.
“Yay! Glompy glompy glompy glomp glomp a googa glomp!” Rishi chanted, “Glompy glomp da’ Sarah!” She pulled me into the hug too, hitting my head and Mary’s together by accident.
“Ouch.” I rubbed my head, but I was smiling. My sadness had melted away and I was so thankful that my friends had come and swept me out of the pit of despair and self-pity that I was wallowing in before.
People you love may stab you in the heart
People that you call your friends will stab you in the back
But the people that are you’re real friends won’t stab you at all
Because they don’t even carry knives.
Somewhere, a Bird Sang
“Big Brother, look!” Hani exclaimed.
Neji glanced up. His “little sister”, Hani, a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes that normally wore overalls and a green shirt, crouched under a large tree.
Neji stood up. “Hey, what is it, Hani? Did you scrape yourself?” he asked, briskly walking over to where the child was kneeling.
A small brown bird was nestled in Hani’s palm. The tiny thing had its eyes closed and was not moving. Neji’s heartstrings tugged at the sight--the poor thing was dead.
“What happened, big brother? Why won’t the bird wake up?” Hani asked, looking up at Neji. “Hani found the bird sleeping under the tree, but it won’t wake up.”
Neji knelt down next to Hani, gently taking the bird from her. “It won’t wake up, Hani.” He said softly. “It’s dead…the bird must have fallen out of the tree.” Neji looked up. There was a bird nest about fifteen feet above them.
“The birdie is dead?” Hani asked, shocked.
Neji nodded silently.
Without warning, the small girl burst into tears. “Hani’s sorry!” she sobbed. “Hani’s sorry, big brother!” Tears rolled down Hani’s soft face. She hiccupped, than wiped the tears away, only to produce more. “Hani’s sorry…”
Neji stared at Hani in astonishment. “Why are you sorry, Hani? It wasn’t your fault.”
“Hani knows that.” Hani hiccupped. “But the birdie--maybe if Hani didn’t find it, it wouldn’t be dead…!”
Neji’s heart ached. “Oh, Hani…it wasn’t your fault. Come on. Stop crying.” Neji wiped Hani’s face with his long white sleeve. “Don’t be sad. The bird is…in a better place now. I’m sure it’s singing in Heaven.”
Hani sniffed. “Really?”
Neji smiled. “Really. Now, let’s bury the bird, all right? We can come back and put flowers here later, and pay our respects.”
Hani looked at Neji and smiled. “Uh-huh. Okay.” She said, nodding. “Han and Big Brother will make a grave for the birdie and put flowers on it.”
As the two worked diligently, somewhere in Heaven, a bird sang in joy.
“Tell Hani a story.”
Yuuki, a girl of about fifteen or sixteen with long, dark brown hair and quiet brown eyes, looked up at the little girl who stood before her—six year old Hani. Hani rubbed her eyes with her bandaged right hand, than climbed onto Yuuki’s lap. “Tell Hani a story, please.” Hani repeated in, with what Yuuki had come to get used to, third person. “Hani’s tired…Hani always has a story before her nap.”
Yuuki sighed contently, hugging Hani’s warm body. “She rocked the tiny tot for a moment before starting her story. “Once upon a time…there was a little girl who owned a bird.”
“What was the girl’s name?” Hani asked, squirming into a more comfortable position.
“Her name was…Hani.” Yuuki said after a pause, stroking Hani’s rough, light brown hair.
“Anyway, Hani loved her little bird. She played with him and fed him and loved him every single day.” Yuuki paused again. “But one day, she noticed that her bird was sad. When Hani asked the bird why, the bird told her it was because he couldn’t fly like all the other birds outside.”
Hani rubbed her eyes and rested her head onto Yuuki’s warm chest.
Yuuki continued, “ ‘I wish I could fly free, outside this cage.’ The bird told her wistfully one day as she went to sleep.
“As Hani lay in bed, she thought about her precious bird. She knew if she let the bird go outside, it would never come back, because that was the nature of birds. But she loved her bird, and she wanted the bird to be happy.
“So the next morning, Hani opened the cage and let the bird fly away.”
“That’s a sad story.” Hani murmured quietly, her eyes half closed.
“That’s not the end.” Yuuki replied, a twinkle in her eye. “The next day, the bird came back. When Hani asked why the bird hadn’t gone with his new bird friends, the bird told her ‘I missed you. I want to stay with you forever.’ So Hani and the bird lived together happily ever after.”
Yuuki looked down at Hani to catch the adorably soft smile on Hani’s sleepy face. “That’s nice.” Hani said contently as she closed her eyes. “They lived happily...ever...after.”
