Remember When...?

So the other day, Kyleigh (my bestestest friend since, like, KINDERGARTEN), Emma (My 6-almost-7-year-old cousin), and I had an impromptu funeral for what we thought was a dead frog, because Emma was horrified that it was dead.

Well.
It wasn't a frog.

It was a piece of gum.

But that kind of got me thinking about kindergarten, and how we always got married on the playground (so many times... Like, everyday. Even if the "couple" didn't like each other. Haha), and how we would have little imaginary pets and stuff.

Because, I mean, think about it: We just had a funeral for a piece of gum.

So I go home, thinking about this, and out pops something close to the longest prologue I've ever written (I haven't written many, ha, ha). It's also the only thing I've ever written with little kids in it, told by a little kid. But I think it could have a nice story along with it, with the narrator older.
:)

Anywho, it's a bit rough, seeing as how it kind of came up on a spur, but I think the jist is there:

In the dark of a June night, the Oklahoma heat radiating from the outside into the house, I opened up a small side window, the only window in my room, and spent twenty minutes trying to climb through it.
It wasn’t sneaking out that I was afraid of - Itwas being too late. Back then, child molesters and murderers weren’t something that many people worried about, let alone considered before installing a window in their eight-year-old daughter’s room, facing the backyard.
Lucky for me, my parents were still in the early days of their marriage, and happiness radiated all fear of anything away. The window was all mine, and completely unmonitered; all the better to sneak out of. Not that I really knew this. Before then, I’d never snuck out. But this; this was important. This was something that nothing, not even a very heavy, very tall window, would keep me from.
After painstakingly stacking all of my books one by one onto my Tinkerbell nightstand, I boosted myself through the small opening, not even thinking about my landing until I hit the ground on my back.
I cried for a minute, getting over the shock of the fall, but using the hem of my Thrift-store Barbie nightgown, I wiped my eyes and stood up, being careful to avoid looking at my knees, where they burned. They were most likely scraped up, and that it’s self would cost me another ten minutes of crying before I could continue my adventure.
Night sounds filled my ears, crickets, owls, and locusts all giving my walk a more ominous soundtrack. I crawled through the hole in the fence that Jammer, our old, senile, weenie dog, kept escaping out of. Brushing off my hands and gown, I continued down the sidewalk to the end of the cul-de-sac, into the trees in-between houses 691 and 693. I never understood why they skipped a number.
“I like your dress.” Mickey said shyly. “It’s pretty.”
I smiled at him bashfully, stopping just under the cover of the little wooded area at the end of the neighborhood. “Thank you.”
Mickey grinned momentarily and took my hand. “Come on! We’re gonna be late!”
Dressed in Batman pajama bottoms and matching long-sleeved shirt, he led me through a series of trees before we reached the bank of the creek at the end of the tree-line, where Lyla was waiting for us, her young face solemn, her own pudgy body dressed in a one-peice footed pajama suit with whales on it.
We gathered around a small mound of dirt that had just been dug up and replaced, our hands behind our backs.
“Put your head down, like this.” Mickey whispered, bowing his head in example. We mimed his movement, our eyes on that little mound of dirt.
“Dear God,” Mickey prayed, “Please let Beka go to heaven. We liked her a lot because she didn’t poop on us.”
He paused, and Lyla started. “I’m sorry that Becker bit her up even though he was ‘posta be her brother.”
I watched my tears fall on the dirt. “I loved Beka so much. Please let her sit in your chair for a little bit, God, and finally be able to talk and walk and eat and play games.”
Mickey reached out and held my hand again, while I wiped at my tears with my other fist. “Please tell Beka that we love her, and that she was the best gummy bear we ever met.”
All of us were crying now. It was a time of mourning that only age would ever rob us of. It marked the time of our innocence and complete friendship towards each other.
Beka the red gummy bear, killed by Becker, Lyla’s gummy bear-eating puppy, was dead. As the only pet any one of us had ever been allowed to have, it made since to have a private funeral underneath the biggest tree, by the best spot of the creek, for her.
“Amen,” We said together.


-- Lauren Renae :)