*5 years old*
Kindergarten is fun, especially because Blake is in my class again. Also my new friend Claire is in my class too. She doesn’t live near me though so I don’t see her as much. I still have a lot of play dates with Blake though and we still have our spend the night parties. They’re so much fun. We are even having one today!
Our mommies are taking us to go apple picking first though.
Jackson is at a friend’s house but Blake’s older sisters Nicole and Ruth are coming. Nicole and Ruth are even older than Jackson so they don’t play with us much, but they’re really nice and pretty.
The car ride to the farm isn’t too long, but for two five year olds and two 10 year olds, it couldn’t be any more boring. Blake’s mom teaches us how to play the “license plate game” where you point out all the different license plates from other states aside from Oregon. Not many tourists come to Oregon though, so that game gets old pretty quick. The next game is more fun. It’s the alphabet game. You take turns going around the car picking out something that has a letter of the alphabet in order.
For example, the person who starts has to find a sign or license plate with the letter “a” in it. Then the next person has to find something with “b” and so on. This game is really fun and takes up the rest of the time in the car.
I hold mommy’s hand as we start to walk up and down the isles with our white buckets to put the apples in. I am a little taller this year, but I still can’t reach most of the branches to pick the apples, so mommy puts me on her shoulders and Blake’s mom does the same for him.
I make sure to pick the prettiest and best rounded apples I can find. Most of them are at the top and I have a lot better reach from up here. Mommy holds the bucket for me and I have to hold under mommy’s chin so I don’t fall. Blake and I try to have a chicken fight with each other, but our mommies put us down before we fall.
Instead, we chase each other through the spaces between the trees all the way down the rest of the isle. After we finish picking the apples we go into the barn where there are giant pots with caramel and chocolate, then other buckets with other types of candies and nuts. It’s like a make your own caramel apple.
Thankfully, there is a stool for Blake and I to stand on as we dip our apples. Our mommies sit down at one of the booths and talk while we make our snacks. We four kids have so much fun dipping and rolling our apples, then take a bunch of pictures before having them cut up so we can eat them.
Blake and I hold up the wedges of apples up to our mouths and make funny faces before each bite leaving us in a fit of giggles the entire time. Nicole and Ruth just shake their heads at us like they’re “too cool” for our antics. Our mommies just smile as they carry on a conversation above us.
When we go home, mommy says she needs to rest for a bit, so I go back with Blake right away and we play in his back yard before dinner. He has a new swing set with a tree house at the top. We love to play in the tree house and anybody who wants to enter needs to know the secret password that Blake and I made up.
We sit up here and play with our action figures and just talk a lot with each other. “Lake, did my mommy look tired to you today?” I ask, picking at the little tab of wood poking out from the floor.
“Um, I don’t think so. Why?”
“I dunno, she just takes a lot more naps during the day now and she doesn’t play with me as much. … Do you think she doesn’t like me anymore?”
“What?! Mere, that’s crazy talk! You’re mommy loves you. If she doesn’t she’d be in trouble. My mommy told me that mommies have to love their kids, it’s like a rule.” Blake tells me.
“Best friend secret swear?” I ask, more excited now.
“Best friend secret swear” he confirms and holds out his pinky to me to start our secret hand shake. I link my pinky to his, then our other one on top, then bump hips.
“Okay, enough of that. Let’s play more” Blake turns the conversation back to the game we were in the middle of. I smile at him and go back to our game. We play for a while longer before his mom calls us to come in for dinner.
We wash up before dinner and then come back down to the whole family waiting at the table. I love being over at Blake’s house because he always has family dinners every night. Both his parents work, but they always manage to make time to have a nice dinner together. It’s really nice.
The dinner is homemade mac and cheese, my favorite. When Blake and I take our seats at the table, his dad starts the conversation of how our day was and how apple picking went. Immediately, we gush about how much fun it was to dip all our apples and play in the fields. Ruth and Nicole ignore us mostly still, but that’s okay because they’ll have their turn later.
After dinner, Blake and I help clear our plates, then go to pick a movie for tonight. After a heated battle, I win and pick Finding Nemo. Blake’s mom makes us a bowl of popcorn and brings it up to us as we get into bed to cuddle and watch the movie. His mom gives us each a kiss on the forehead before leaving and saying she’ll come back to shut off the TV after the movie.
Half way through the movie I start to get kind of tired, but try to stay awake the whole time. Blake falls asleep by the end of the movie, facing me and I lay facing the ceiling for a while. Mrs. Todd comes in to turn off the TV and I pretend to be asleep too until she leaves. Then I turn and situate myself under the covers to face Blake.
I poke his nose a couple of times, “Blake… Lake, wake up.”
He stirs a little bit, but doesn’t open his eyes yet. “Laaake” I whisper and poke him again.
“What?” he mumbles.
“I can’t sleep.” I tug the blankets up to my chin and curl my legs up into a fetal position.
“Just close your eyes and it’ll come.”
I try to do just that, but sleep just doesn’t come. “Not working” I poke him again.
He grumbles then holds out his hand. “Give me your hand.”
I fumble to place my small hand in his and he turns it over. “My sister would do this for me when I couldn’t sleep.” He begins to stroke lines on the palm of my hand.
“That tickles” I giggle and scrunch my fist together.
“Stoooop” he giggles and stretches out my fingers again to continue drawing lines.
The longer he plays with my hands, the sleepier I get. He falls asleep again before I’m totally asleep, but I’m close enough where I just let my hand flop onto his stomach and I curl next to him. I just like knowing someone else is there. He’s always there for me.
A/N:
Okay, I won’t do many more of these author’s notes just cos I find them obnoxious. So, I’m so excited to keep writing this story and can’t wait to see all that it will become.
All the love in the world, and that’s a lot of love.
~Bri
YOU ARE READING
Jewel
Teen FictionI'm just a girl trying to find a place in this world. After my parents died, life turned into a Cinderella story, but there was no prince that I knew of. Despite what my evil step mom tells me, my real mommy always told me I was a Jewel.
