We looked at each other, each of us wondering how the other felt. "Bye" she said softly, the strong summer breeze that day almost carried that word away. She turned around and started walking down the street back to her house. I told myself that it was the intense heat outside that was making my eyes water. "Bye," I whispered. .
Sandy and Molli were friends with me from kindergarten to third grade. They lived down the street from me. We all did everything together. During the summer we went to the pool everyday and came home to juice popsicles. We even had this system where every other day was a "junk food" day, and the other day was a "good" food day. Some how we always managed to be on junk food day when they were over. Sandy was in my class in first grade and we would always compete for everything. .
I remember one time in class we were coloring a calendar, our teacher passed them out and I snuck a glance at Sandy. I knew immediately that there was going to be a contest, for her face it was filled with cunning glee. I glanced again to see what kind of contest it was, beauty or speed. Sandy was scribbling away as fast as she could go, and I took off too. It was close at first, but by the time we were on June, she was pulling ahead of me, I scribbled faster. Oh no, she was on December and I was still on November. She finished with a last flick of her crayon, and walked up to the teacher's desk to turn it in. For December I was in such a hurry all I did was take a black crayon and ran it all over the name of the month. I ran up to the teacher and turned it in, just a few seconds after Sandy, there might still be hope for me yet. But alas, not all was that it seemed, for when the teacher took a look at my December page, she said, in a voice loud enough to carry to the entire class,.
"Nadine, you can do better than that, now go back to your seat and redo this.".
I stared at her shamefaced with horror, I dreaded to turn around and face Sandy.