Young Writers Society

This is for Aqua's contest. It was for the prompt of my earliest childhood memory.

I sat in the circle at my kindergarten, staring across the circle to my best friend, Carol. It was the first day of school and I was already slightly mad, all because my last name meant I had to be in the “Yellow Group” and Carol was in the “Blue Group”.

My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Edwards, laid down a few rules, but I had no intention of listening. I just wanted to play with the dollhouse and the “play dough” and paint and eat snacks…

“Emily are you listening?” Mrs. Edwards asked in her gentle elderly tone.

I nodded and quickly stopped daydreaming. She explained that we would soon be leaving for a recess outside and then would come back in and start with letters. I let out a small sigh, learning on the first day? My older brother had told me Kindergarten was for playing! You barely did any work!

Carol and I linked arms as we ran into the cubby room and grabbed out jackets. It was slightly cold out, but not too bad. “Hi!” a voice said behind us and we turned around. There was a boy who was in my group, his name was Tristan as I recalled.

“Hi,” we said and turned away, heading towards the yellow and green playground. But suddenly I heard a “Rawr!” behind us and we took off running! Tristan was chasing us! We ran to the playground, but I was having trouble in my new shoes and jumper.

I felt like my legs were going to fall off, but Carol and I kept running until we reached the tower on top of the slide we called “the twirly slide”. But it was already taken by some big kids!

“Can we sit in here? A boy’s chasing us!”

“Go find your own!” one of them smirked. “Little girls.”

“Hey! Don’t be mean to my little sister!” I turned around and saw my older brother, Andrew standing next to me.

“Oh, Andrew, fine, whatever,” the big kids slid down and we hid in the slide. I told my brother Thank you and he ran off to play with some of his friends.

“Do you think Tristan’s gone?” Carol asked me.

“I don’t know,” I replied. Suddenly another loud “RAWR!” came from the stairs leading up to the slide. We screamed and noticed Tristan wasn’t alone, he had another kid with him, a boy named Eddie.

We ran from them for the rest of the recess, and by the end of the day Carol and I each had our first crush.

“He is cute,” I said, turning my gaze to Eddie. He had black hair and a darker complexion and very dark chocolate brown eyes.

“I guess, but he is shorter than you,” Carol snickered.

“Oh shut up!” I whispered. I had never really said those words before, except to my brother who wouldn’t tell on his little sister.

The next few weeks passed and my mom and Carol’s mom figured out a system. On Monday’s and Wednesday’s Charity would come to my house, while on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I would go to hers after school.

But one day after the weekend and I was getting off the bus I saw Eddie climb of his bus. I felt heat in my cheeks and butterflies in my stomach as he walked towards me, I quickly turned the other way and began walking.

“Emily!” he called and I turned around to face him.

“Yes?” I asked, trying to be what my mom told Andrew to be, “mature”.

“Emily, please don’t tell any of the boys this but…” he paused, the cold air making it look like white smoke coming from his mouth. “I love you,” he told me and then he ran off so quickly I couldn’t even reply.

I jumped up and down and felt my heart flutter with amazement. Had that just happened? I leapt up into the air and ran to the line where Carol was already there.

“Are you serious?” Carol asked me, me nodding, still out of breath. “That’s really weird, because Tristan told me he liked me when I was walking to school this morning!” she laughed. I stared at her wide-eyed, knowing that she was telling the truth.

“Hello!” two voices behind us said. We turned around and saw Tristan and Eddie standing there. “Hi!” we blushed, but it didn’t last long before a loud “Rawr!” came from their mouths and we took of running.