"A Friend For Life": The Writers' Spotlight

A Friend For Life

By: Anonymous

“Tag! You’re it!”
“Ring around’a rosie…”
“Wheee!!!”
Everywhere Lea looked, kids were playing with their friends and having fun either going down the slide, climbing the monkey bars, or playing Lava Monster on the playground.
“I want to play Lava Monster too.” Lea thought to herself, “but I don’t know any of those kids. What if they don’t like me?” She sat on the bench, twirling her hair around her finger.
Lea didn't look like the other girls. She had frizzy brown hair that was always in a ponytail, shirts that were too big and socks that reached her knees, short nails that she always chewed, and no pretty earrings in her ears. None of the girls at school talked to Lea because she was “too weird for them.”
Lea had always been the person that occupied the park bench in the corner where no one could see her. Ever since the first day of school.
But today, somebody did see her.
Lea heard footsteps coming her way, and as she looked up, a girl sat down on the bench next to her.
“You don’t mind if I sit here do you?” asked the girl
“N-n-no… not at all.” Lea stuttered. She looked down and chewed fingernail.
“My name’s Alice. What’s yours?”
“I’m...Lea.”
Alice didn’t say anything else. Lea looked at her quickly, but then looked back down.
“Uh…why are you sitting here instead of playing on the playground like the other kids?”
Alice studied Lea for a bit, then smiled.
“Because you look like more fun than them.”
“Me? But I thought I was weird,” Lea scoffed.
“Yeah, what's wrong with weird? It’s better than being normal and boring,” Alice said, then she smiled again and rolled up cuffs to reveal mismatched socks underneath.
A smile spread across Lea’s face too.
“So you don’t mind me being weird?” She said, looking Alice in the eye.
“No, why would I? Friends don’t mind each other.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yup. Friends. And we can be weird together!”
“Weird. Together.” Lea repeated.
The two girls looked at each other for a moment and then they shouted, “Weird together!”
The other kids turned to stare at them, but Lea didn’t care, they both just laughed it off. For the first time, Lea didn’t feel left out. She knew deep down that finally, she had a friend for life.