The time was summer of 2007.
As a preteen, I loved to sing, dance, and act. I took part in all kinds of school and church plays, and every summer I looked forward to a two-week theater camp at a local middle school. The camp lasted all day, and we'd put on a musical from start-to-finish in just two weeks. I went three times; when I was ten, twelve, and thirteen.
In my last year of camp, we were putting on a comedy production of "Phantom of the Opera" known as "Phantom of the Op'ry." Again, I was going for the lead role, which I didn't get, but I was really excited to have a speaking part with more than a few lines, and I even had a few lines in one of the songs to sing. I was so excited because I was finally playing a character that had an actual name instead of someone in the background. I was Felicity, a goofy critic.
On that first day, which were our auditions, I was sitting in the seats of the middle school's auditorium, chatting with some girls who were there the year before and going over lines. We were all looking at each camp member coming through the door, our excitement building with every person that was back from the year before.
I immediately noticed a set of identical twins that came in the door, who were brand-new. The first was AJ, who wore hearing aids in both ears. The second was Sonya, who had bright magenta crutches and patterned leg braces that looked like they had pink and blue fireworks on them.
Like the previous years at camp, everyone had their own friend groups. Even though she was ten and I was thirteen, Sonya became my best friend at camp that year. We were always together when we weren't rehearsing our roles. We even had our own section of seats in the auditorium which Sonya called "headquarters."
When we were sitting in headquarters, which was outside of the main area where the rest of our camp sat, Sonya and I would have all kinds of conversations. She was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. We talked about fun things like games or Neopets, to more serious things like religion or scary ghost stories.
We even started our own little project, which I called the "camp yearbook." It was a book of lose leaf paper with rectangles drawn and names underneath them. Sonya and I went around to as many people as we could to get them to draw a picture of themselves in their rectangle. For some reason we didn't finish it, but I wish we did.
With camp coming to an end, Sonya and I were trying to figure out ways to stay in touch. She didn't have a cell phone, and back then, my parents didn't pay for me to have texting on my little flip phone anyway. We gave each other our Neopets account info and enjoyed our last day at camp, which involved popsicles and watching the video of our show from the previous night.
After camp, Sonya and I did manage to stay in touch for a little while through Neopets, but lost touch after a few months.
Since then, I wondered over the years what happened to Sonya and AJ. They were both about to start middle school at the time, and now they're in their 20s, like me. I love writing stories from diverse perspectives, and for a while I've thought, "I'd be interested in writing a character with Cerebral Palsy, like my old friend Sonya."
In spring of 2022, while dining at my local Panera, I saw a little girl who had crutches and leg braces like Sonya. I took it as a sign to write this book, still incorporating the teen drama my readers love. I did as much research as I could about teens and parents with Cerebral Palsy, then wrote this book, which is my 30th and one of my top favorites.
Now that the book is completed, I thought about possibly even looking to find Sonya, seeing if we could reunite if she's still in the area. I wish I could remember what her last name was, but it's been so long. I have no doubt she's out there doing something amazing, and I'm just over here working my little office job and writing teen pregnancy stories on Wattpad.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading! As always, I'll see you over at the next book.
-Jess