Jewel

Chapter 1

"What are you drawing?" I ask.

"A monster truck!" the boy says in a funny voice and holds up the paper so I can see. I giggle and show him my coloring of a monster truck too. "Woah, you like monster trucks too?!" his eyes bug out of his head.

"Sometimes when I play with my brover" I answer.

"You have red hair." He observes plainly.

"It's strawberry blonde" I correct him and look at my pony tail just to make sure.

"Whatever" he rolls his eyes. "What's your name?"

"Meredith Jewel. What's your name?"

"I'm Blake. It's nice to meet you Meredith Jewel" he holds his hand out over the crayons to shake my hand.

"Nice to meet you Blake No-last-name" I giggle and he does the same.

"I'm going to call you Mere because Meredith is a long name."

"No" I frown. "Only my mommy calls me Mere."

"But I like Mere."

"Humph, then I'm gonna call you Lake." I pout and cross my arms over my chest.

"Hey!" he mocks me.

I smirk at him until he takes back my nick name. "Fine, I'll only call you Mere sometimes," he concedes.

"Fine." I uncross my arms and go back to coloring.

"Are we friends?" he asks.

I look him up and down once before answering, "I guess so. But don't call me Mere" I wag my little pointer finger in his face.

He smiles and goes back to coloring too until Mrs. Murphy calls us to come for story time.

Mrs. Murphy is reading my favorite book, The Rainbow Fish and my new friend Blake and I make fishy faces at each other during the whole book. Blake is actually kind of funny.

Next it's snack time and I get my baggie of apple slices from my backpack and join Blake again on the rug. All the other kids have chips or cookies, but my mommy always made me eat healthy snacks. She says it's better for me. I don't pay the others much mind as I play with Blake's action figures and eat my apples.

Now it's naptime, but I never much like taking naps. I get my blanket anyways and curl into a ball on the floor with the other kids. Blake and I lay facing each other and we whisper back and forth for a while so Mrs. Murphy won't hear us. He doesn't like to take naps either. This is the longest nap time ever.

After naptime is singing time and we all sing the alphabet together. Then we have playtime, and then it's time for my first day of school ever to be over.

When I see mommy come inside the classroom to get me, I run so fast into her arms and she scoops me up with a big hug and a kiss. "Hi, Mere! How was your first day of school?"

"Great! I met a new friend!" I squeak and point over to wear Blake is still playing with his action figures.

"By any chance, is that little boy's name Blake Todd?" mommy asks me.

"Well his first name is Blake, but I'm not sure about the last part."

"Tell ya what, I met his mommy after I dropped you off this morning and they live right across the street from us so we can take him home and you two can have a play date today."

"Really?!"

"Yes! Why don't you go tell him" she smiles and puts me back down.

I run as fast as my little legs will carry me over to Blake. "Hey, Lake guess what?!"

"What, Mere?" I frown at the use of my nickname for a second before telling him that he gets to come home with me. He is excited too and we both race out of the room and to the car.

When we get back to my house, Blake points to the house across the street, "Hey! That's where I live."

"Yea, okay, come on. I want you to meet my dog Bruno!" I grab his hand and tug him inside. "He's kind of big, just so you know." I warn my new friend before my dog comes running to the mud room from inside the house.

"Woah!" Blake backs up against the door, scared and I run to give Bruno a big hug.

"He's really nice. It's okay. Mommy calls him a gentle giant." I tell Blake as I climb onto Bruno's back.

"You sit on his back?"

"Only until I get too big. But until then, he really helps me run fast because I have short legs. Come on, let's go play outside." I hug Bruno's neck so he knows I'm ready for him to run and we dash out the back door.

Jackson isn't home from school yet or I bet he would love to play with us. Daddy isn't home either. He works a lot and I usually only see him before I go to bed.

Blake and I play outside for a long time. He wears my sweater as a cape and he finds a stick that he pretends is a sword and chases me and Bruno around the back yard. He is trying to protect the kingdom from giants. I end up winning though and the game ends with Bruno licking Blake's hair. I think it is so silly.

"Can Bruno hold two four year olds?" Blake asks.

"I dunno. Prolly. Mommy says I can ride him until I'm prolly 7, so that's close. Hop on." I make Bruno lay down for Blake to get on his back too. Bruno can definitely hold us both which is so cool!

We play outside for a while longer before mommy calls us inside for some fresh chocolate chip cookies she made. When we both come inside, riding Bruno, mommy laughs a lot and takes a few pictures of us. We slide off of Bruno and climb onto the high top chairs by the table with our plates of cookies and glasses of milk. We can't stop giggling as we dip our cookies in the milk and some pieces brake off.

Soon it's time for Blake to go home and I give him a big hug before he goes. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mere!" He calls to me as he runs down the front porch steps.

"Bye, Lake!"

"Well that was nice, wasn't it? Looks like you two were having a lot of fun." Mommy smiles.

"Oh yes, we did."

"Okay, silly. Go wash up for dinner." I happily oblige and crawl/run up the stairs to my room. I still get lost sometimes finding the bathroom because it's in a secret place.

Dinner is nice, even though daddy isn't home yet and Jackson tells us about his day and I tell him about my new friend Blake.

Daddy finally comes home in time to tuck me into bed. I try telling him about my day and all the fun I had playing outside with Bruno and Blake, and eating cookies, and pretending we were protecting a kingdom, but his phone rings before I can even really begin and he says he has to take it but he'll see me tomorrow. ...Yea, tomorrow night.

Mommy takes his place though and she reads me a story before clicking off my lamp and giving me a kiss goodnight. I can't stop thinking of my first day of school and how much fun it's going to be. I can't wait for tomorrow.

A/N:

Hope you all liked the first chapter of "Jewel." I am going to try to figure out how to post pictures in the sidebar for this story because I think that will be super fun! If anybody knows how to and would like to shed some light, that'd be fantastic. Okay, hope you all have a wonderful day and I'll see ya soon.

Always much love,

Bri