I crossed my arms over my chest and stared down the mean boy with hishorribledrawing of a skull and hisstupidthreat. He wasn't even cool enough to be an alien withthat dumb drawing; he was just astupid boy. Stomping over to my stack of sketchpads, I lifted up my largest one and thumbed through the pages until I found exactly what I needed. Grabbing a thick black marker from myFantastical Cup O’ Markers, I wrote the mean kid a little note back. And then I taped my own picture of a skull and crossbones to my window with the words:THAT’S NOT SCARY BUT THIS ONE IS!!!! YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME!!! Thief.
Oh, did I tell you I could draw? Like, really well. My skull looked like an actual skull; it even had blood dripping out of its empty eye sockets. And there was an eyeball rolling away in the background. The mean boy looked shocked at myAWEsomedrawing. Then he looked back at me. And that’s when I gave himmymiddle finger and shoved the curtains back over the window.
“Thatwas so badbutt!I bet you could beat him up if you had to!” Joey said, jumping on my bed.
I climbed up on my bed next to my best friendin the entire universeand started bouncing with him. “Well, I hope I never have to see him again, because I just might have to beat him up if he bothers us!” Secretly, I hoped I didn’t. There were two boys in our class that were always mean to Joey, Slate Marshall and Drake Fischer. I fought with Slate and Drake all the time, so they wouldn’t bother Joey. But I had never had to beat one of them up, so I didn’t think I really knew if I could.I hope I never have to find out, which made me kind of sad that the mean kid wasn’t an alien. I could really use the force or some cool Jedi mind tricks when people teased Joey.
We bounced on my bed for about an hour. Yeah, you definitely can’t ever get tired of bouncing on a bed, can you? No way. Never. The government should make it an Olympic sport; Joey and I would probably win all the medals for it. We stopped only because it was five o’clock, and we were hungry.
My mom was back to sleep on the couch with a completely burned down cigarette still between her fingers. There was a long line of ash that dangled from its tip—just about to fall. Joey and I stood over her, laughing to each other. I poked her in the belly. “Mom, when’s dinner?” I asked, loudly.
Blinking her eyes open, it took her a minute to focus on me. “Oh, sweetie, sorry. What time is it?” she yawned, flicking her cigarette into the ashtray that she kept on the floor.
“It’s 5:06. And my stomach is rumbling,” I said, watching the cloud of ash puff up from the ashtray.
Joey made growly rumbling noises beside me. He was hungry too.
She let out a long sigh and scratched at her scalp full of curls. “I don’t feel like cooking; I’m not feeling too well today. There’s ice cream in the freezer.” She lowered her voice and smiled, “It’ll be our secret, okay? Ice cream sundaes for dinner with all the fixings. You know where everything isCharlotte. Just make sure to clean up any mess, so your father doesn’t see. He’ll probably be working lateagaintonight.” Then, she rolled over and tucked her arms under her head, falling back to sleep almost immediately.
Ice cream sundaes for dinner. Like I was going to complain aboutthat! My mom rocked!
High-fiving each other, Joey and I ran for the kitchen and pulled out everything we needed for thebest dinner ever. All my thoughts of the mean stupid boy fell away with the excitement of secret ice cream sundaes, and my worst day ever quickly turned into my best day ever.
Five whopping scoops of vanilla ice cream landed in each of our bowls and were immediately covered with sweet, sugary, caramel syrup. Joey poured extra nuts over mine while I threw extra cherries on top of his. Rainbow sprinkles for me, chocolate for him, and some in both of our mouths.
Cleaning up quickly, we grabbed handfuls of napkins and ran out the back door and into my yard.
In the right-hand corner of my backyard, right next to the stupid mean boy’s back yard, stood the tallest tree on my block.Andup in the branches of the tallest tree on my block, was the biggest and best tree house to have ever been built by human hands. And it was all mine.
Joey and I climbed in and ate our delicious dinner, both getting brain freezes, and howling and laughing in the pain. It was okay.I’d rather have a brain freeze than be a brain fart like the stupid mean boy next door.
We spent the rest of the night there, like we usually did, looking for dragons and hiding from zombies and monsters, like Slate and Drake, and of course, Jason Voorhees fromFriday the 13th(the best movie in the universe).
∞
The memory was so real and vivid; I felt like I could just reach out and touch us. I could still feel the cool breeze that blew through the tree house windows, still smell the watermelon lip-gloss that I smeared daringly across my face, and still taste the blueberryHubba Bubbabubblegum that Joey and I both chewed after finishing our sundaes. Cue in a cheesy 1999 ballad, something along the lines ofIris by The Goo Goo Dolls, and the memory came to life.
Tears sting my eyes and my breath turns into a hard, thick knot in my throat. We were the best of friends, like Charlotte and Wilbur, Pooh and Piglet, Calvin and Hobbes, or any other amazing literary friendships I could have come up with when I was nine.
I wish there was a device implanted in our brains to record memories, so we could play them back and watch them whenever we wanted, like old home movies. Because sometimes, I think the things we remember pale in comparison to what was real, and I would love to see therealimages instead of just the thin, pallid ghosts of them.
It’s so funny to me as an adult, the things that I remember, or the strange things that spark a memory. A memory that had been buried deep under a lifetime of days that followed and left behind can suddenly spring to life on a whim. Once, I tried to write all the memories of my childhood down in a journal, but all I accomplished was to ruin them, making them cold and unfeeling.
Lifeless.
Sometimes, the memories attack me like a fever, and all I want to do is hide my mind from them, hide my heart; protect what’s left of it.
I’ve heard some people say that what you remember is not the whole truth; it’s our thoughts of what we wanted things to be remembered as. They believe that we change our memories, that we just fabricate them into pasts that we can live with.Do I believe that?
No. I believe I remember everything, every little detail.
My memories are true. They may be just from my point of view, but I could never embellish my recollections to make them more or less than what they were. My memories have a heavy, tangible weight to them. I’ve felt their burden for so long; they have become almost bearable to carry. They don’t pull me under any longer.
Not to say that they don’t still hurt
Or give me joy…
They have just become what’s made me stronger
