The Sun Shines Brightest in June (Completed) gxg

Sunday, August 11, 2002

Time was running out. It was nearly the middle of August, which meant only one thing. School would be starting up soon. Anna and Alice didn't mind, because they were both excited to be starting school for the first time. The rest of us kids were dreading it. We didn't want to go back to homework, waking up early, or colder weather. We especially didn't want to leave our new friends. Sure, there were other friends that we had in school, but they weren't the same.

We'd be hundreds of miles away from each other and that just didn't seem fair. It wasn't like we could just pop into each other's houses for the weekend or anything like that. We wouldn't be able to hang out again until next summer.

The 11th always stuck out in my mind as a particularly good day, because that was the day that Klara and I decided we all needed something to remember each other by. She pulled a box out from underneath her bed and lifted the lid.

"What's that?" I asked.

We were sitting across from each other in the middle of our floor. She slid the box over so I could look inside. It was a box full of what looked like thread. A lot of thread. In all different colors. I gave her a curious look.

"I'm going to teach you all how to make friendship bracelets," she told me. "It seems a little cliché, but it's all I've got."

"I'm in."

We rounded up the other kids and brought the box of thread, along with pieces of cardboard we acquired from my father, out to the picnic table. Klara only knew how to make the basic candy stripe design, but that was good enough. They were pretty and fun to make.

For mine I chose a deep purple, a pretty baby blue, and white. Klara chose aqua blue, dark blue, and purple. The twins chose purple and pink. The boys chose dark blue, black and grey. For a long time we sat in silence, as the task required quite a bit of concentration. Every once in a while, though, I would look up to see how the others were doing.

The twins struggled, the boys were messing around, I was about half way, and Klara had hers almost done. Her hands moved quickly, and with ease, like she had done this at least one hundred times before. Watching her was mesmerizing.

"I think I'm making mine too short," Timothy complained.

He wrapped it around his wrist and the ends were just touching. There was no way he was going to be able to tie it. Klara noticed how sad he looked and offered to help him out. She tied another string onto the end and taught him how to make a slipknot so he could make it smaller or bigger depending on what he wanted. Timothy's face lit up once his problem was fixed and suddenly everyone else wanted to know how to make one.

When we were all done we put them on and held our wrists out next to each other.

"Awesome!" said Caleb. "I'm gonna wear mine everywhere. It's manly enough, right?"

Klara laughed.

"Yes, Caleb. You picked the manliest colors you could."

Anna and Alice ran off to show our parents the pretty bracelets they made, even though theirs were curly and a little uneven. They were still proud.

To be honest, I don'tthink I ever took my bracelet off after that day. How it held up so long, Inever know. I wore it to school, to bed, in the shower, and at formal occasions.My mother even tried to get me to take it off several times, but I always toldher that wasn't an option. I think it irritated her sometimes, but eventuallyshe did give up.