Running through Sprinklers Page 2

  In the garage at night:

  The pot simmers on low. My hamster runs on his wheel. Then he gets off and goes into the middle of the cage. He stands up on his hind legs, sniffing the air and breathing in the medicine.

  Slowly, my hamster becomes . . . Super Hamster.

  Cookie is so smart. And getting more so with age. We put him in his plastic ball and he runs all around the house in it. But when we want him to appear, all I have to say is, “Cookie, come here!” And he does, a small plastic ball spinning toward us, his little teddy bear face inside.

  On the weekends during the school year, while I do my homework, I put Cookie in my left koala slipper to sleep. I even lay down one of Mom’s maxi pads just in case he pees. But he never does. He is the best hamster ever.

  Anyway, since it’s Friday night, it’s sleepover night, at Nadine’s house. But we are still at my house.

  Nadine: “Can we eat here, then go to my house? My mom’s making meat loaf.” (For the record, I actually like her meat loaf. But I think you always like someone else’s mom’s food.)

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s eat here.”

  Mom, from downstairs: “I’ll make you bibimbap!”

  Us: “Hooray!”

  In a bowl: Steamed white rice. Different kinds of namul on top: spinach, thinly sliced carrots, radish, spicy bean sprouts, mountain fernbrake, beef, and fried egg. I mush it all up: a rainbow in my bowl.

  After dinner, we help Mom put everything away, and I watch Nadine stand at the sink to do the dishes with my mom. “You’re so lucky,” she once said. “I wish your mom was my mom.” Which is funny, because I wish hers was mine. It’s more fun at her house. Mrs. Ando is so relaxed, and we do whatever we want without her getting mad at us. Plus she’s always making cookies. My mom is stricter, like Nadine’s father. Nadine and I often think that my mom and her dad should be married and that my dad and her mom should be married instead. But it’s good to have balance, I guess. A bit of both.

  Cookie will be sleeping over too. I grab the cage and we start walking across the street. It’s dark outside and the streetlights cast a big spotlight on us and Cookie’s cage, like we’re movie stars. Or prisoners.

  In Nadine’s room:

  We stay up late, lying on her bedroom floor in our sleeping bags and talking about what we’re going to do the last few weeks of summer. Like go to Crescent Beach when the tide is out, play hide-and-seek in the forest, and research new looks in magazines for grade seven. I’m secretly excited for summer to be over. I can tell Nadine is too. We can’t wait to be the oldest and rule the school. Hey. That rhymes.

  Moonlight streams through the window, between the blinds, and onto our faces.

  The shine of Nadine’s retainer and my headgear match the shine of the wire on Cookie’s cage. As Nadine sleeps beside me, a strand of hair is in her face, and I lightly brush it with my fingers and tuck it behind her ear.

  In the mall, I buy a gold pendant in the shape of a heart that says Best Friends. You’re supposed to break it in half and give half to your best friend and keep the other for yourself. I’m going to wait for the right moment to give Nadine half of the heart.

  I’m waiting for her to finish her ballet class.

  I buy two chocolate bars from the vending machine, one for me and one for Nadine. But I eat mine right away, I can’t wait.

  Through the big glass window: A wooden floor that stretches under pink satin slippers, and when you look up, there is Nadine, in her pink bodysuit with her black hair coiled on top of her head, and her leg stretched out further than the rest.

  After, when she’s walking out with her pink bag over her shoulder, I give her her chocolate bar, already partially unwrapped for her convenience. She takes a huge bite and puts her arm around me and we walk down the hall and out the door together.

  I love Nadine Ando. I love the way she spreads peanut butter perfectly on bread for me after school without making the bread tear underneath, and how she always smells like vanilla lip gloss because she applies it, like, every ten minutes, and how she walks with her feet slightly pointed outward kinda like a duck because she’s permanently stuck in first position.

  It’s only ever been Nadine and me, her family and mine. And though we live in separate houses and have separate names, it’s never really felt like we have separate lives. It’s the way my shoes line up at their front door, the way my favorite snack sits on their kitchen table after school, the way I can still smell her house on my clothes when I come home. Sometimes, because we are together so much, it feels like we are one person. And I don’t think this will ever change.

  4

  ONE DAY, in the grocery store parking lot:

  He has blond hair and is helping his even blonder mother load grocery bags into the back of their green minivan. We are following our blond mother (Mrs. Ando) to the red minivan. Our vans are parked across from each other.

  He’s about half a head shorter than me and is wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey jersey. His cheeks are pink, as though someone smeared strawberry yogurt on them with a butter knife. Something about him reminds me of someone. Maybe he was on TV? He jumps up to pull the trunk door down, his flip-flops making a squelchy sound. He smiles at us quickly. I smile back with my lips closed because I don’t like people seeing my braces. Then he disappears into the van and they take off.

  I don’t think too much of it, but Jen is standing there shaking her fist in the air. “A Maple Leafs jersey?! Does he want to get killed here?” she says.

  Mrs. Ando: “Jen, can you take the cart back?”

  When we get home, Jen runs upstairs and immediately puts on her Vancouver Canucks jersey.

  After that, she wears it for a week straight, hoping she’ll run into him again.

  Jen Ando. Okay, before we go on, there’s some more you should know about Jen Ando. Besides being probably the smartest person any of us have ever met, even though she’s a whole year younger than me, you gotta know how much she’s into this whole save-the-world thing. So much so that some nights she can’t even sleep because she’s that worried about the situation in the Middle East. I guess that’s what happens when your favorite TV show is the six o’clock news. When there was an earthquake in California, Jen wore her red bicycle helmet to bed every night, but her parents snuck in and took it off her so she wouldn’t choke to death. Yup, that’s my girl. And one time, at recess, when Scarlett Davies asked her if she wanted to try her eyeliner, Jen just said: “No. ’Cause I’d look like you.” Booya. I liked her for that, too.

  After dinner, James and I play with the Ando sisters in the patch of Green Timbers Forest that is closest to our cul-de-sac. It’s our favorite place to play. We keep saying we are going to explore the forest further to make a fort, but we haven’t done it yet. The forest stretches across a highway and many more streets and Dad once said it was over five hundred acres. It’s kinda strange to think how there is this massive forest in the middle of all these cul-de-sacs and houses and basketball hoops.

  Soft beams of evening sunlight come down through the trees at different places, highlighting certain parts of the forest: some leaves, bark, and moss. The dirt feels like sponge under my feet.

  I’m It.

  And I run down the trail, whip around stumps, crawl under fallen trunks, looking.

  Where is everyone?

  “Guys?”

  I get really quiet. I hear someone behind a blackberry bush. It’s Nadine. She’s making noises I recognize. I think she’s eating blackberries.

  “Boo!”

  She just looks up, her mouth stained purple. “These are pretty good, actually. Have some.”

  James and Jen emerge from the trees and we all start picking and eating the berries and totally forget about who’s It and what game we are playing because of the sweet berry bombs exploding in our mouths.

  Then everything around us becomes a shade darker. It’s funny how it suddenly happens like that.

  “Maybe we should go back. It
’s getting pretty dark,” Nadine says.

  In single file, with Nadine leading, we poke out of the dark forest like a needle, onto the street and into our cul-de-sac.

  We look up: The moon has come out. We run in different directions for a while, seeing who the moon follows.

  “Look! It’s following me!” Nadine says.

  “No, it’s after me!” I say.

  “You’re all liars! It’s coming this way!” says Jen.

  “Look at how close it is!” says James. “It’s, like, right here.”

  As though through a microphone, Mom’s voice: “Get inside now!”

  That night, as I lie in bed and watch the moon fill up the entire window, like a giant marble glowing at me, I think about how school is starting soon. I am so so so excited. I know, I know, it’s weird.

  Nadine and I are sort of known in school. People call us “the twins” even though Nadine is six months older and three inches taller. Plus, her hair is darker, longer, and shinier. Plus, she’s skinnier. I’m a little rounder, everywhere. “But boys look at you more,” she says. “You have boobs.”

  This year, we are going to have Monsieur Tanguay. He’s the teacher everyone makes fun of. He’s pretty old, like forty, and drives this funny old Volvo and wears tennis clothes to class. Anyway, apparently (this is what someone told me), the thing to do in grade seven is to order pizza to his house and then prank-call him at, like, one in the morning and burp repeatedly on his answering machine. I can’t wait.

  5

  NADINE AND I are riding our bikes around the cul-de-sac. Round and round and round, pink streamers on Nadine’s handlebars floating back and weaving into her hair, looking like highlights.

  Our green minivan is backing out of the driveway and Dad rolls down the window and James leans toward us. “Wanna come to my baseball game?”

  “I don’t like baseball, sorry,” I say.

  Dad: “If you come, we can go to that hamburger joint on the highway you like.”

  Me, Nadine: “Okay!”

  We hop in the van. Nadine doesn’t bother to tell her mom because she’ll figure it out eventually.

  At the game:

  Next up to bat on my brother’s team is that blond kid from the parking lot. His hair kind of sticks out from under his helmet, like golden wings. He hits the ball to left field and makes it to second base.

  Now it’s James’s turn. He’s the smallest kid on the team and the only one wearing glasses. The metal bat looks kind of heavy for him.

  The pitcher squints at my brother in the most evil way and violently throws the ball. But James remains steady and . . . BAM! Over the fence and into the preschool playground! Home run! The blond boy crosses home plate and James touches all the bases. Everyone rushes to my brother to hug him and carry him like a champ.

  James and Dad slowly pack up equipment, chatting to everyone, taking for-friggin’-ever. I make Nadine walk to the car with me, thinking it’ll make things move faster, but it doesn’t. We just stand there locked out of the car. I’m so hungry for hamburgers, I think I’ll die. Please, everyone just hurry up. Nadine knows how I get and says, “Here, have some,” and hands me her water bottle. I quickly take a swig, hoping not to give her any backwash, but I know it’s okay, she doesn’t really care if I do.

  6

  I’M AT THE bank with Mom, who is waiting in line, staring at an empty doughnut box at the customer service table, when someone comes up behind me and says, “Crap.”

  It’s Nadine.

  It’s strange to see your best friend somewhere in public by chance, like she’s just a random person you ran into and not someone you’re always with every second of the day.

  “Hi,” I say, stunned that she kind of swore.

  “I really wanted one,” she says. “Want a coffee?” She pulls two Styrofoam cups from a tall stack.

  “Sure?” I say. “I didn’t know you drank coffee.”

  “I’ve always liked coffee, since I was really little, actually. I take a few sips from my dad’s cup when he isn’t looking. I think the trick is to put a lot of cream and sugar in it like this to make it taste good. Apparently it suppresses your appetite too.”

  “I thought it just made you hyper.”

  “That too. Here.” She hands it to me and I take a sip of my first cup of coffee ever.

  The next morning:

  I love the color of coffee with cream in it. It looks like caramel.

  “Since when do you drink coffee?” Dad asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Haven’t I always liked coffee?”

  “Coffee Crisp, maybe.”

  Kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to the mall with Nadine,” I say.

  “Need a ride?” he asks.

  For some reason, when Dad drives, it’s better than when anyone else does. He’s patient and calm and he makes the most beautiful curves around corners. And I swear if there were a pencil dragging behind the car and someone were looking down from above, the most intricate drawing would appear.

  Nadine and I are sitting on the floor of the pharmacy, flipping through fashion magazines. I’m looking for a dress for grade seven prom. It’s going to be a big deal, graduating from elementary school, you know. I’m super excited.

  Nadine should be looking at dresses. Instead, she reads a teen magazine and can’t stop laughing. She’s reading the embarrassing stories section. I remind her why we’re here, on the floor, with all these magazines.

  “Sara, it’s only elementary school,” Nadine says. “Wait till grade twelve prom. That will be way more exciting.”

  I quickly flip through Vogue. Different perfumes waft into the air.

  “That magazine kind of stinks,” she says.

  One year, I think we were eight or nine, Nadine and I were in my garage looking for roller skates or a hula hoop or something, when we found an old packet of forget-me-not seeds on a shelf behind a toolbox. The packet was stained, as though it had been soaked in tea for a couple of years and left to dry out for a couple more, so we were unsure if they were any good. But once we stepped outside, onto the small patch of grass between the garage and the gate, Nadine suddenly ripped open the packet with her teeth and threw the seeds on the ground in one motion. We laughed. I mean, whatever, right? Months passed, possibly even years, then one morning, when my dad was out of town for work or something and I had to drag the garbage bins out of the garage across that patch of grass, I saw them: little blue flowers everywhere. It was such a surprise.

  But the truth is, that patch of earth was changing all along, we just couldn’t see it. Once Nadine threw the seeds onto the grass, the seeds found a way to germinate because of the right temperature, amount of water, oxygen, and light. All these things had to come together for the flowers to bloom.

  7

  I’M IN THE washroom. Mom, downstairs, yells: “Sara! Telephone. Sara! Sara! Sara!”

  “I hear you! I hear you! I hear you! Jeez,” I yell. I run to my parents’ bedroom. Belly flop on the bed. I know who it is because only one person ever calls me.

  “Hello?” I ask.

  “Is your mom mad at me?” Nadine asks.

  “No, she’s just kind of louder today,” I say.

  “I see.” She laughs.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re the one who called me. I’m just calling you back.”

  “Right.” I laugh. “I forgot what I was going to say. . . . Oh yes! So my brother and his baseball team are going to the movies tonight, you want to go? We don’t have to sit with them if we don’t want to.”

  “Oh, cool. Okay. Jen may want to come too.”

  “Sure. My dad can drive us,” I say.

  “Great. Also, I have something to tell you, something crazy.”

  “Cool. Well, I gotta go practice piano now. Bye.”

  I hang up and roll over, staring up at the ceiling. All the white bumps look like some sort of skin disease. I think about a couple of random things, like how I should ask Mom to
give me money for popcorn and pop and whether I should clean Cookie’s cage today or tomorrow. I decide on tomorrow and go downstairs to practice piano for a bit.

  Later, the four of us (me, Nadine, Jen, and James) are sitting in the minivan waiting for Dad to get in to drive us. I’m wearing a navy sundress with yellow flowers on it and a jean jacket. Nadine is basically wearing what she wore to dance class: a pink bodysuit, but with jeans over it. Jen is wearing her Vancouver Canucks hockey jersey with cycling shorts, which are too short, so it looks like she is wearing the jersey as a dress, even though she wouldn’t be caught dead in one.

  8

  IN THE MOVIE THEATER:

  We all sit in a row. Us kids from the cul-de-sac sit together: Nadine, me, Jen, James, then it’s a bunch of the boys from the baseball team, including that boy. Thirteen of us in a long line.

  My brother says his name is Daniel Monroe and he just moved here from Toronto. He’s the same age as James and lives on the other side of Green Timbers Forest, like way over on the other side of Fraser Highway and down some.

  Anyway, I bought the biggest bag of popcorn and the largest pop with the money Mom gave me. I just have to make sure I share with my brother, which I will, but I plan to mainly share with Nadine. There are two straws in the pop: one pushed down to be shorter (for me), the other pulled up to be taller (for Nadine).

  Honestly, Nadine and I aren’t really watching the movie much. Once we eat as much popcorn as we can, we are mainly concerned about sending the big bag of popcorn down the line and getting it back. Sending it down and getting it back. Every time Daniel gets it, he gives us a thumbs-up. Anyway, we do this the whole movie until it’s gone. I also pass my pop to James a bunch (he knows which straw to use), even though he already had a massive pop to himself, and will totally have an accident tonight. Anyway, Nadine and I just giggle and point at the couple making out in front of us. It is kind of funny but super awkward. They are definitely missing the movie, but then again, I guess so are we.