One More Summer

Chapter One.

JENNY FLASHBACK

AGED SEVEN.

ASHER SMILES AT ME, while I hold my mommy's hand and bounce up and down excitedly. We moved here a few days ago, so she introduced me to Asher, who's the boy next door.

"Go play sweetie, but stay away from the lake," she said, glancing at me. She doesn't want me to play next to the lake as I can't swim very well, so I think she's scared in case I fall in.

"I promise mommy," I say with a huge grin, pulling back from her hand, and I run towards Asher sitting on his step holding a really scary spider.

My smile drops. "I don't like spiders, they are really big and fluffy. They really scare me" he's much taller than me, with black hair that has pretty curls on the top. He has hair like my daddy.

"Itchy.. Bitsy.. spider" he giggles, and I watch the spider crawl from one hand to the other, and I shake my head quickly.

"I don't like spiders," I huff and cross my arms, frowning.

Asher stares at me, and then quickly runs inside his big princess' house. It's like my dolly house in my bedroom. It has lots of windows, and pretty flowers hanging from his door. Mommy likes flowers. She used to plant some in our back garden before we moved here from the city. I would even help her sometimes, that's if my daddy let me.

My Daddy used to always hit my butt when I was naughty. He would send me to my room and sometimes called me a brat. Daddy doesn't live with us now. Mommy said that he had to stay behind in the city. I don't mind. It means I don't have to listen to Mommy and Daddy yell at each other a lot as that made me cry as I didn't like loud noises.

"My name is Jenny," I say with a big grin, "and I'm seven," I tell him as he comes back out without his spider.

"I'm seven too," Asher said, and I sat beside him tugging at my Cinderella dress. I don't think he likes my dress, he hasn't said anything about it, and it's starting to make me upset.

"You don't like my dress? My mommy said I look like a real life princess and I have even got the princess shoes too" I giggle and stand "look they make a funny noise" I run up and down the path laughing as they hit the ground.

"Guess what my daddy does," he whispers, and I lean my ear next to his mouth. "He fixes hearts."

I gasp "hearts? So if mine gets broken, can he fix it?" My mommy doesn't fix hearts, but she has a good job too. She helps clean everyone's princess houses like Ashers and makes them all sparkly and glittery. Mommy said that one day I can go with her. I'm so excited for that as I get to help her clean real life princess houses and I can even meet them, like Cinderella and Ariel. I would like to meet Rapnzeal Rapunzel but she lives in a tower.

"He can fix yours too if it gets broken, but I won't let anyone break your heart Jenny" when we lived in the city I had friends in our neighborhood but they would pick on me. One time I was playing on the step with my Barbie dolls, and they ran over and pulled their heads off. Mommy said it wasn't nice of them, but promised to buy me a new one, and she did more than one too, I now have them in my dolly house.

"Can we play hide and seek? I'm really good at hiding." he nods, and offers me his hand so I take it and we run towards the bushes next to the lake. Mommy won't be mad as I'm not at the lake just beside it so she won't tell me off.

"I will count," he said, turning his back to me and I giggled running towards the bushes. I used to always play this with my daddy when he wasn't mad. He would count to twenty and I would hide under my bed, it took him ages to find me. Sometimes he would give up as I was too good.

"One..Two..Three"

I like living here, it's nothing like my old neighborhood in London. It was a horrible little flat and mommy had a lot of damp issues that the council wouldn't fix. Sometimes it would get stuck on my chest and Mommy had to ring the doctors.

"Four..Five..Six"

He's really good at counting, I can only count to twenty as my old school taught me how to. I miss my old school. I really hope that my new school is the same, my teachers were kind.

"Seven..Eight..Nine..Ten"

I giggle out loud, and he looks straight over to me shaking his head "I found you silly"

"That's not fair" I huff out, and stamp my foot "You cheated you weren't supposed to find me"

He shakes his head, and my eyes widen "I did not cheat"

Annoyed, he rolls his eyes. That's rude!

My daddy would have hit my butt for that.

"You did too"

"I did not" Asher lowers his head, and doesn't look at me, I think I've upset him which makes me sad. Mommy told me I had to be nice, because that would make people be nice to me.

My lips curl into a smile "I'm sorry"

I love my Mommy, and she always tells the truth, she said that when you're in the wrong you have to apologize so I did. Mommy and I spend a lot of time together. She braids my hair, paints my nails and my favorite thing is bedtime stories. She reads one every night until I fall asleep. I think Asher should read one of my princess books, he could be a princess too.

"It's okay" he says and it makes me smile.

"Do you want me to show you my Barbie dolls?"

"My daddy will want me for bedtime soon, can we see your Barbie dolls tomorrow?"

"Okay, tomorrow you can see my Barbie doll house, it's like your house with all the windows too" he opens his arms, and I smile as he pulls me in for a hug. It's a big hug. It's like the hugs Mommy gives me when I'm feeling very sad.

"I think we should be best friends forever" he asked

"Pinky promise" I raise my pinky in the air, and he curls it around mine, and smiles "best friends forever."