January/February 2008

The day of the eighth-grade picnic is beautiful and flawless, the sky a velvet blanket of blue. My mom drops me off in front of the school. A cheerful and colorful Goodbye Eighth Graders! banner greets me over the front door of the school. A big bouquet of purple balloons is tied to it. I go to Camden Academy, a small private school in New Hampshire with just fifteen kids in my grade. It is here where I’ve met my six best friends—Lilly, Elizabeth, Bridget, Charlotte, Sarah, and Caroline. I make my way to the playground where the celebration is taking place, past the boys playing kickball on the soccer field and little kids munching on cookies on the swings. My friends are clustered around a picnic bench, talking excitedly. The seven of us girls have been best friends since kindergarten and have been an inseparable group. But after eight years, we are splitting up. We are going in different directions for high school, which looms in front of us, a stretch of summer the only thing in between. “Hey” I say softly, squeezing my way onto the bench next to Lilly and Bridget. “What’s going on?” “We’re making a wish!” Sarah gushes. “A wish? What do you mean?” I ask. “Mrs. Peterson gave us a piece of paper to write a wish on that we’ll tie to the balloon string like a kite. Then we’ll each sign the balloon and release it into the air with the wish!” “What are we going to wish for?” I ask. Screaming laughing dancing we let go and wave it goodbye into the sky “I think we should wish for world peace!” Elizabeth yells. Everyone laughs. “No way! That I’ll marry Orlando Bloom,” Sarah says. “Yeah, you wish!” Bridget says. “A million dollars for everyone!” Caroline says. “How about, we wish to be best friends forever?” I ask. “Yeah, that’s sweet. I like that!” Charlotte says. “Perfect. Write it neat!” In large curvy letters Lilly writes, “We wish to be friends forever.” “OK, now everyone sign their name!” Elizabeth says. We each sign our names. We each had a different name, a distinct style, and different personalities, but still one love. “OK, ready for blastoff?” Lilly asks everyone, rolling the paper and tying it onto the string. We walk over to the end of the field by the fence. Seven fingers hold the string and seven voices shout, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!” Screaming, laughing, dancing, we let go and wave it goodbye into the sky. “Goodbye!” yells Bridget. “Have a great journey!” I yell. “Don’t forget to write!” yells Elizabeth. As it sails over the trees, climbing above the rooftops over town, I think about what great friends I have. It’s like a fairy tale, all of us being together, but what will happen in high school? Will we always be friends or will we drift apart? The balloon grows farther and farther away, from a ping-pong ball to a marble to just a speck in the distance. “Cake!” Mrs. Peterson yells from the picnic tables. The voice slices through my thoughts like a knife. “Cake? I love cake!” Bridget exclaims, already running off to the cake table. Everyone follows, but me. “Ash, come on! Cake time! Let’s eat, let’s go!” Charlotte yells. “Coming! I’ll be there in a minute,” I say and tilt my head back and look up at the sky. The balloon is nowhere to be found. Suddenly it’s important that I find the balloon. The balloon represents my friendship with my friends and I don’t want to see it go. I can’t let it disappear! I search the sky until my eyes hurt. I can’t find it. Maybe if I get higher up, I’ll be able to see it. I run up the hill, the long grass slashing against my legs. I get this crazy idea that if I can see it just one last time, our friendship will last forever. I reach the top of the hill, but I still can’t see it. “Higher!” I urge myself. I run back down the hill and stop below a towering maple tree. Its bark is hard and coarse as leather. I pull myself up through the tree branches, not looking down, only up at the ocean-blue sky. I stop when I get high enough. I can see mountains and ski resorts. Coursing rivers and puffy clouds. But I don’t see the balloon. It’s gone. I’ve let my friends down. Our friendship will just disappear. “Hey, Ash?” I peer through the leafy foliage. I see Charlotte’s face looking up at me. “Oh, hey Charlotte.” “Don’t you want cake?” “No.” “What are you doing up there?” “Nothing, just looking around.” “For the balloon?” “Yeah.” Her eyes narrow. “What’s so important about it?” “Nothing.” “Can you still see it?” she asks quietly. “No, not really” She stares hard at me. “I’ll be right back, OK?” I figure she’s going to get me cake. “Wait, I don’t want any cake!” But she doesn’t hear me, she’s already off and running. She returns soon, holding it behind her back. It looks bigger though and black. Is that really cake? “Hey Ashley, I’m coming up!” “OK.” The tree shakes as she climbs it. Suddenly she’s beside me, her cheeks flushed from running. “Here, I brought a present for you!” Her blond bangs fall into her eyes as she pulls a black bulky shape from around her neck. I expected cake but instead it’s binoculars. She places them in my lap. “They’ll help you see.” Words of thanks flood to my mouth but none of them seem to sum up how happy I actually am right now. I look through the lens. “Can you see anything?” “I can see Armando’s Pizza sign and a man washing his car.” Then, I smile. “Wait, I see the balloon! And the wish too!” I pull the binoculars off my face. “Do you want

“Imagine Ethan, right there: the Alamo!” Jack said, throwing out his arms at the blank patch of snow. “The Alamo?” said Ethan. “Sure! All you need to do is build a big, weird-shaped wall and put a bunch of windows on it.” Ethan and Jack had been arguing about what would be a cooler snow fort for about two hours. Seriously. Originally, they had decided to make their “Super Fort,” where they took a huge pile of snow and chipped out a gigantic structure, but there was obviously no huge pile of snow in Jack’s front yard. “How about something medieval?” said Ethan. “The Alamo would look way cooler though! Here, I’ll show you.” Jack began to construct a wall, packing up bricks of snow with a shovel. “Come on, give me a hand here!” But Ethan didn’t help. Instead, he stomped over to the other end of the yard and began to make a medieval castle fort. Jack just grumbled and continued making his Alamo fort. He’d show that stuck-up Ethan how cool his fort would be. He could just imagine his jaw dropping out of his face as he saw the true beauty of the Alamo. But twenty minutes later when Jack peered over his wall, it was his jaw that dropped. Ethan had built a ten-foot-long wall that went well above his head, complete with turrets and drawbridge, pieced together with a sled and a large rope. And he had just started. He was about to scream when Ethan walked over to his miniscule fort and made a long, low whistle. “Is this the grand Alamo?” “Oh, what is it?” said Jack, punching the ground with his glove. “Your fort is pretty good.” “Really?” Jack jumped up. “Sure! I mean, come over and I’ll show you how horrible mine is!” He dashed away behind his fort. Confused, Jack trotted after him. All he had built was a three-foot wall. Maybe Ethan’s fort wasn’t so cool after all! At that thought, he quickened his pace. But when Jack came around the corner to the other side of Ethan’s fort, he was nowhere to be seen. He checked the fort for tunnels and found none. It looked identical to the opposite side. “Ethan!” he said. No answer. “Ethan?” Thunk! Jack looked over the wall, wide-eyed. His fort no longer existed. In its place stood a triumphant-looking Ethan. “Is this the grand Alamo?” he said. “Why, you…” Jack’s face burned red with anger. He picked up a snowball and chucked it clean across the yard, right into Ethan’s face. Ethan screamed and fell over in surprise. Jack ran to the front of the yard, parallel to the street, and began to work on another fort, hurriedly packing chunks of snow on top of each other like clay to form a thin barrier. This meant war! Meanwhile, Ethan stomped back once again to his little haven, wiping bits of the cold, melted snow off his face. Hidden from view, he began to make a large pile of snowballs. It wasn’t Jack’s nature to stop at this point. Once he had a good-sized pile of what he knew would be his friend’s chilling defeat, he picked one up, stepped out from behind the wall, got ready to throw, and shouted, “Hey, Jack!” But Jack had been quicker to act. A second snowball hit Ethan smack dab in the middle of the face, knocking him to the ground with a thud. Ethan looked up to see Jack standing in front of a new three-foot wall, preparing for another throw. He was completely unaware of the snowplow looming ominously behind him, being driven by a man who seemed to think more about the color of the sprinkles on the doughnut he was eating than the safety of the local children. The snowplow made a loud groaning noise as it lifted its plow in order to dump a large snowbank over Jack and his fort. The driver, still oblivious to his surroundings, backed up and continued down the street. Ethan turned to the pile of snow that now hid Jack’s sneering figure. He could suffocate in there! He sprinted over as fast as his boots would allow and tore away at the bank with remarkable speed. But no sign of Jack. The snowbank had a very wide perimeter. In what area of it had he been buried? Ethan couldn’t remember. Frantically he dug to the left, then to the right. How long could someone last under something as cold as this? A day? An hour? A minute? Finally he felt a solid object under the snow, and grabbed it and heaved it with all his might. Out popped Jack, shivering from the cold, but very much alive. “Are you OK?” said Ethan. Half an hour later they both sat inside, sipping hot cocoa “Huh? Oh yeah, I guess… What just happened?” “A snowplow came. You were buried alive!” Jack’s teeth chattered. “Would you mind going inside for a little? I’m freezing!” *          *          * Half an hour later, they both sat inside, sipping hot cocoa and looking out at the hill of snow that the plow had dumped on the yard. “You know, Ethan, I’m feeling pretty warm again, and there is that new snowbank out front now…” he smiled and looked at Ethan. “Do you think we can build the Super Fort now?” Ethan smiled too. “Let’s get to work.” Adam Jacobs, 11Brooklyn Park, Minnesota Zachary Meyer, 12Shelby Township, Michigan