“Oh, Lizzie-bear. I want you to meet our new neighbor, Freda,” my mom says to me motioning for me to step forward and shake the lady’s hand. Freda bends down holding out her hand to me, but instead of taking it I gracefully curtsy.
“Welcome Lady Freda. I am Princess Elizabeth, ruler of the magical forests beyond,” I announce regally while pointing toward the backyard.
Freda’s face lights up in amusement and it’s then I notice her eyes as she looks down at me. They are light and metallic looking like the shiny quarters I get for my birthday.
“It’s so nice to meet you Princess Elizabeth. You are a very pretty princess in a very pretty dress.” I beam at her and give another curtsy.
“Your mom was just telling me all about you and your sister.”
I look around again and don't see the two boys I saw from my window. I start to get a bit sad that maybe they aren’t going to live here with Freda and be my neighbors. Maybe they live somewhere in the neighborhood and were just taking a walk with their dad or something.
Freda continues talking to my mom. “My husband just took the boys to grab something to eat. They should be back soon. It would be nice to introduce them to your daughters and make new friends.”
My ears prick up at her words and a happy dance rolls through me. “My princes live here? I saw two boys earlier. They really live here?”
“Princes? Oh, yes, Princess Elizabeth. I have two twin boys, Prince Jayson and Prince Julien. I am sure they would really like to meet you when they get back.”
Freda and my mom are grinning at each other while looking like they may burst into laughter.Feeling much better about things now, I turn and start racing down the steps towards the forest.
“Tell my princes to come rescue me when they get home!”
“Do not go far young lady. Dinner is in an hour!” my mom calls after me.
I reach the fort built among the forest trees that Hailey and I started making at the beginning of summer. Our fort is made out of anything we find on the ground along with some ply board daddy gave us, and is a hodge-podge of dead tree limbs, pinecones, and rocks. Mommy bought us a glitter blanket that we use as a cover to our fort and daddy chopped some firewood that we use as benches to sit on. Hailey and I try to work on the fort every day. We have made paths along the ground by taking sticks and scraping aside fallen pine needles, and we made ladders up the trees by nailing broken tree limbs or sticks in the bark.
Since I love collecting things I find along the creek, we have a collection of glass jars in our fort along the back wall. Each jar sits atop its own stump and I made labels of what’s inside. One jar has colored rocks we find along the creek bank. Another jar has freshwater shells we collect from the creek bed. We have empty jars we use to collect fireflies in the evenings. Hailey and I pretend the fireflies are twinkling stars.
Wanting to impress the boys when they come find me, I look around to make sure everything is in place and then decide to sweep the floor with a pine branch to get rid of the pine straw that has fallen to the ground from the loblollies that stand at the corners of our fort. I take out the bag of fruit candies I grabbed on my way out of the house and place it on an empty stump. I’m wondering what is taking my new boy neighbors so long when I hear a noise outside the fort. Could it be them? It’s probably Hailey or deer or a brown rabbit. I adjust my tiara on my head because it’s beginning to slip sideways and walk out of the fort. I give a startled shriek when I come face-to-face with two upside-down heads giggling at me. Dangling from their knees, upside down from the tree branch that hangs in front of the fort’s entrance, are two brown-headed twin boys with silver-grey eyes.
They’re here! I smile a huge grin that shows my two missing front teeth and they mimic me also showing they are missing two front teeth. I suddenly become shy.
“Hi,” I say while moving my right foot back and forth along the dirt on the ground.
One of the boys grabs the tree branch he’s hanging off of and flips over to land on his feet.
“Hi. I’m Julien.”
The other boy swings up and over to sit on top of the branch and starts to swing his feet.
“I’m Jayson. Our mom said we had to come rescue Princess Elizabeth. You her?”
“Yep,” I say, popping the “p” at the end of the word.
The boy named Julien grabs my hand and starts to run off in the direction of the creek. “Ok. You’re rescued.”
Jayson jumps down from the branch to run over and grab my other hand. I start laughing like a loon as we all run and stumble along weaving between the trees until we reach the creek.
Jayson declares, “This is so cool!” before proceeding to jump into the creek, fully clothed with his tennis shoes on, taking me and Julien with him since we are all holding hands.
The creek isn’t deep, the water only coming up to our ankles. But that doesn’t stop us from yelling and laughing and jumping up and down, kicking water everywhere. Jayson suddenly stops and looks upset.
“I am so sorry! Your dress is all wet.”
I look down at my muddy, soaked dress and shrug. “It’s ok. Me and Hailey play down here every day and always come home dirty. Mommy doesn’t care.”
Jayson still looks unsure, so I decide to cheer him up.“Here. Help me lift this rock.”
I bend down to a large rock that is submerged under the water and try to tip it up. Julien and Jayson immediately squat down to help. As they hold the rock tilted at an angle, I see what I’m looking for. Reaching down with my right hand, I pick up the crawfish that is hiding under the rock and hold it up to Jayson.They both let go of the rock with a small splash and I place the crawfish in Jayson’s hand. He uses his thumb and middle finger to pick it up, and Julien puts his face right up to Jayson’s hand to get a closer look at the squirming little creature.
