"Shhhh!" my annoying little sister Ann whispered to me from our hiding spot behind to the outdoor toy bin.
"Oh stop, they wont be able to find us behind here," I retorted angrily. Naturely I would have smacked her in the arm but I was too afraid she would start yelling at me, giving away are position.
It was the fourth of July and the sun seemed to beat down extra hard on this particular day. At the moment, my sister and I were playing a very intense game of hide and seek at our neighbors Alex and Ben Brooks house. Their mom decided to have a barbaque with us for the day, which in my eyes was like any other day.
Ever since I could remember, my sister and I have been spending practically everyday with Alex and Ben. My sister, who is in kindergarten, is the same age as Ben. I, on the other hand, am in the third grade and the exact same age as Alex. Being the same age made getting along between the four of us very easy. The only difference between us two siblings is that my sister and I are enrolled in public school while Alex and Ben are home schooled.
"Come on Kathryn," my sister muttered beside me, "Lets move to a new spot!"
"Why? We're perfectly fine were we are."
"Please!? I heard someone coming close," she said sounding more and more stressed with every word she whispered.
"Would you just shutup-"
"Found you!" Alex yelled as he jumped into our view with Ben quickly following in his footsteps.
"Told you we should have moved," Ann said irratated.
"What took you guys so long," I taunted, ignoring Ann's snide comment.
"Hey, we knew were you guys were the entire time!" Ben sqeaked from beside Alex, "We were.....well um....we were just eating dinner!"
"Ya, thats right," Alex confirmed, trying to back up his little brother.
"Kids!" I heard Alex and Bens mother call from the back yard door, "Dinners ready."
Sitting up from my position on the ground, I helped Ann up before turning around to face the boys too say, "Dinner, huh?"
Before eithor of them could say anything however, Ann shouted wide-eyed, "Oooooo! You guys lied, I'm telling on you."
Ben looked like he wanted to tackle Ann while Alex just grinned mischeiviously, more than likely conjuring some kind of scary story to freak my sister out of tattle-tailing. Within the last one-two years Alex and I have been trying to freak our younger siblings out with as many made up stories as we could. The last one we told them was over the winter when we were watching a movie at Ann and I's house. Ben and Ann kept infuriatingly grinding popcorn kernals loudly in their mouths and slurping hot chocolate. Alex and I got sick and tired of it so I ended up telling them that if they ate popcorn kernals and then drank something hot, the kernals would explode in their stomach. The two of them started hysterically crying while Alex and I just laughed at their reactions.
"I wouldnt do that if I were you Ann," Alex said in fake horror, "Have you ever heard of No-Nosed-Tony?"
"W-who's that?" both Ben and Ann asked shakily.
Joyed that he had both of thier attentions, Alex continued, "Way back when, Tony and his friend were playing on the swings at school when Tony accidently pushed his friend to hard, causing him to fall off. Tony's friend tattled on him and his parents ended up cutting off his nose!"
"No! You're telling storie's!" Ann cried.
"Oh no I'm not, and you wanna no why?...because he still lives in this town to this very day! He hunts down all the tattle-tails and takes their noses in revenge for his nose being taken!"
That was it, both Ann and Ben lost it. Runnning back towards the house they screamed, "MOMMY!" and when reaching it, swung the door furiosly open, bolting inside as fast as they could.
Alex and I simply burst into a fit of hysterical giggles as the whole scene unfolded before us. We stayed like that for a few minutes and gave one another a high five after our laughter had died down. Helping each other up, we began to walk back to the house for dinner.
"I'll race you!" I exclaimed to Alex, already in a sprint.
"No fair, you got a head start!" he yelled from behind me.
Even with the head start, Alex beat me by a few inches. He had very long twig like legs with knobby knees that gave him a huge stride compared to me. I always made fun of his scrawny build but he would always retort with, "Atleast I can run!"....it never failed to shut me up.
"Beat you again," he jeered as we entered the house.
"One day I'll be able to beat you," I muttered.
As we walked into the kitchen, I could see my sister clinging to my dad as she badgered him with questions about "no-nosed-tony" as he just looked completely clueless. Ben on the other hand had grabbed his star-wars light savor and was now carrrying it around for protection. His father, Dave, just looked at him curiously as he dragged the plastic toy at his side all around the kitchen. Giggling to myself, I jumped over to my mom and hugged her leg until she looked down at me.
"Hi sweetie, you ready to eat?" she said, smiling sweetly.
"I'm starving," I replied as my stomach began to growl.
"Good, then lets get started," Alex's mom said.
For the rest of the night we all sat outside and filled ourselves with potatoe salad, chips, hot dogs, fruit and hamburgers. I tried several times to flick a piece of pasta at Ann's head but I hit my dad instead, quickly ending my efforts. As our parents talked, Alex, Ben, Ann and I tried to figure out what we were going to do tomorrow.
"We could have a huge water balloon and squirt-gun fight," Ben suggested.
"No, we did that yesterday, remember?" Ann replied matter-of-factly.
"So..." Ben said slightly disappointed.
"Why don't we just-"
But before I could finish, Ben and Alex's mom spoke up and said, "Well everyone, I have some good news. We are moving to Florida!"
"That's so great," my mother excalimed cheerfully.
"We are moving at the end of the month, Dave got a promotion in his job."
"Congrats man," my dad said, giving Dave a pat on the back.
"North Caralina?....." Alex said gloomily.
"Weres that?" Ben asked openly oblivious.
"It's a very long way away," Alex said, answering his question.
"What?! I don't want to go then," Ben cried to his mother.
As this exchange continued, I couldnt do anything but sit in my chair with a blank face. My to best-friends were moving too far away. Who was I sopposed to hang out with now? It deffiantly wasnt going to be Ann thats for sure. On top of it all, we only had till the end of the month to hang out and make more of what my mother called "childhood memories". This day had just gone from perfect to absolutly horrible.
"Honey, were moving no matter what.. I'm sorry," Ben's mom said with a certain finality to her voice.
"Fine....But we better visit whenever we can," Alex said a bit dryly.
"Of course we will," Dave said as he took another bight of his burger.
"Plus we still have until the end of the month," my mom added.
Even though we were promised by our parents that we would see each over the years, and that we still had a month to see each other, I knew that this month would feel like in never happened and we more than likely wouldnt keep in touch that much.
---As the weeks passed, Alex, Ben, Ann and I tried to hang out as much as possible, only stopping when they had to pack. Before we knew it, the end of the month was here and it was time to say goodbye. The morning of August 1st was very warm with the sun's heat already hitting us strongly. The dew on the front lawn of the Brooks house covered my feet, causing grass to stick everywhere it could.
"Have fun down in Florida," I said to Alex and Ben.
"Ya, we'll miss you guys a bunch," my sister added.
"Every summer we'll come and visit you guys, we promise," Alex replied forcefully. Making it seem like if he said it hard enough, it would come true.
"I hope so, I still need to beat you in that race," I teased, trying to lighten the mood
"Come on kids, its time to get going," their mom said with tears in her eyes. Her and my mom must have had an emotional good-bye because my mother was equally as teary eyed.
Giving one last good-bye hug, Alex and Ben climbed into the back-seat of their car. As they pulled out of the drive-way, their mom rolled down their window so they could yell, "BYE!!!" as they drove away. As their car bended the corner of our street, I had the sinking feeling I woudlnt see them ever again.