Ring…Ring…Ring… With a heavy sigh, I click the pause button on the movie that I was watching and push myself up off the couch.

“Coming…” I say when I get to the door and start unlocking the locks. I open the door and there stands my best friend dripping in blood. I let out a small gasp and put my hands to my mouth.

“Can I spend the night?” Edgar asks through his bloody t-shirt that he is holding up to his face. I don’t even say anything; I just move to the side and watch him limping into my house. Behind him I relock the door.

“Come with me.” I finally say. I put his free arm over my shoulder and lead him toward the bathroom. My parents are gone once again so of course he can stay the night. He always does anyway.

“Thanks Ann.” He says when I sit him down on the toilet. I don’t even look at him I just instinctively open the drawer under the sink and grab two cloths, that bottle of cleaning stuff and cloth bandages. I know what to do; this is kind of an everyday kind of thing.

“You know I don’t mind.” I reply. Of course I don’t mind! He’s been my best friend since pre-K. I make him take away his hand and his now bloody T-shirt drops. I wet the cloth with water first, so I get rid of some of the blood and also the dry blood. He flinches in pain, but I continue. After that was done I open the cleaning stuff bottle and soak the other cloth. At this Edgar closes his eyes.

“Can’t you just skip this part?” Edgar asks, squinting his eyes tighter. A small smile comes to my lips; he always asked that question. Very slowly I put the cloth to his nostrils and right when I do Edgar makes small whimpering sounds.

“I’m sorry.” I say pulling the cloth away; that’s as good as it’s going to get anyway. I put the cloth in the sink with the bloody one and then grabbed the cloth bandages. I take it out of the package and unfold it. When I look back up I can tell his nose is starting to bleed again. Quickly I hold the cloth bandage up to his nose

“Thanks.” He says putting his hand over mine. I smile and pull my hand away.

“It’s no big deal.” I say and get put to put the stuff away. I look into the sink; seeing blood everywhere. Great cleaning up blood; my favorite. “I can help with that.” Edgar said. I look at him and just smile. He is so sweet. No other guy



























































11

his age would treat me the way he does; though sometimes I feel like he shouldn’t be my friend. His friends are always making fun of him for hanging out with me; I mean I am two years younger than him. The only way we met was that he is right across my house.

“Na, I can do it later. Come on we can finish the movie I was watching.” I say grabbing his free hand and leading him back to the living room.

“Wait a minute, let me guess. You’re watching the Goonies, right.’ I stopped and turned to him smiling.

“You know me too well; you know that, right.” I say and then continue walking. When we reach the couch I let go of Edgar’s hand and jump up onto the couch, Edgar just plops down beside me.

“Uh, you just started.” Edgar says when I play the moving. It’s right when Chunky is at the gate asking the rest of the gang to let him in.

“Shhh…” I turn to him and put my pointer finger to my lips.

“You’ve seen this movie like a million times.” He says laughing; it’s true though. I have seen this movie so many times that I’ve lost count; not that I’ve been counting.

“There’s popcorn in the cupboard, if you want.” I finally say. Without even looking I can tell that he is smiling from ear to ear. He right away gets up a wakes toward the kitchen. He doesn’t even have to ask where it is; he knows how I set it up. That’s right I set it up; actually everything in this house I set up. “And don’t forget to put it in a bowl.” I say when I hear the popcorn starting to pop in the microwave. He always doesn’t put it in a bowl and then I have to listen to the annoying sound of the crinkly and crackly of the bag. I hate those noises.

“No problem. Beside why would I want to annoy you?” He says. I turn and he is giving me one of those evilly smart-ass grins. I just shake my head and turn back to the movie. It doesn’t really bother me that much if I miss a line or two; I know everyone by heart.

“So what’s next on the stay up all night movie list?” Edgar asks when the movie is done and the credits start coming up. We do this too much. Whenever my parents are gone (which is all the time) and after Edgar’s dad gives him a beating or his parents are fighting. Edgar comes over and we stay up all night watching movies.

“’The Breakfast Club’; what else?” I smirk at him as I get out of Edgar’s arms. I know you are probably thinking ‘weirdoes,’ right. Well no, we are just really good friends. I mean he is like my brother.

Ring…Ring…Ring… Who is up at this time of night? I question as I walk toward the door. I unlock the door, but pause before opening it.





























12

“Who is it?” I ask giving Edgar a worried glance as he walks over to me.

“Oh my god let me in Anastasia. It’s freezing out here.” I hear my girlfriend’s voice. Anastasia is my full name, but Edgar is the only one to call me Ann. As quick as I can I open the door and there is Sally standing in her white flowery house coat and pink bunny slippers.



“Sally! What are you doing here?” I ask stepping aside to let her in. She steps in right away; I close the door and relock it again.

“I wasn’t going to miss my only girlfriend’s birthday, now was I?” She says smiling one of her smiles. Sally has one of those smiles that as soon as you would look at her you would fall in love with her. I turn toward her and she is holding out a neatly wrapped gift. Edgar had already given me my gift this morning at school. Sally went to school with us, but she missed a lot of days, because of her dad. Her dad would go out and disappear all the time and as always sally went out looking for him.

“You know you didn’t have to get me anything.” I said smiling at her. We had been friends since 2nd grade, she didn’t live that close to Edgar and me so I only saw her at school; since we are the same are we are in the same grade. She pushes the gift into my hands I tear it open; there inside is a small framed picture with Sally and me in it. We are about nine years old and we are standing in front of our school playground with our arms wrapped each other.

“Oh my god… Sally.” I finally manage to get out of my mouth. I quickly wrap my arms around her and give her a very tight hug.

“You know it’s no big deal.” Sally says to me returning the hug. We break and I just smile at her, feeling so lucky to have such great friends. I don’t know what I would do without them.

“Okay, love birds. How about we go for a walk?” Edgar asks. I know he doesn’t want to watch ‘The Breakfast Club.’ Though even then it is late; I mean to go out at 11:30pm is kind of late for a (now) 11 year old.

“Uhhhhh… Are you sad because I got Anastasia a better gift than you did.” Sally says smiling at Edgar. Whenever it is one of our birthdays we always compete with each other to get the other the best gift. I just shake my head and leave to go to my room to get my coat.

“Ann! Who got you the better gift? ‘Amazing Me’ or ‘Her’.” Edgar says when I get back with my coat and shoes on. I know keeping shoes in your room, total weird right. Well what if there was a fire in the middle of winter.

“Are you two still fighting over this?” I said walking toward them and picking the keys off of the hook by the door. Edgar had got me a whole volume of ‘Ducktales’, pad of graphing paper,





























13

and coloured pencils.

“Yes!” they both said in sync, while I just rolled my eyes at him.

“You guys tied.” I said unlocking the door and opening it. “Are we going for a walk or not?” I ask them. Sally steps outside and Edgar puts on his shoes. When we are all ready to go I close the door and lock both locks.

“You say that every year.” Edgar said when we started walking along the sidewalk.

“And I mean it every year too.” I said smiling at him. I walked in the middle of the two and put my left arm around Sally, while Edgar put his arm over my shoulder; since he was taller than me. I can see that he is still holding the cloth up to his nose.

We continued to walk for some time. Soon I realized that we were making our way to our school playground. No big deal though I loved play at the park, actually we all did. And yes even Edgar though we were the only ones that knew. I could see the park ahead.

“Race you birthday girl.” Edgar said and before I could say anything he dashed off. I don’t even say anything I just start running after him.

“Hey! Wait up!” I hear Sally yelling from behind me, though I soon feel her running right behind me. I turn to look at her and we smile. I turn back to the front to see how far Edgar was, but I didn’t see him. I park was right in front. Then I smiled again, he must have turned the corner and would try to scare us.

Edgar was not waiting behind the corner to scare them though. No, he was on the floor with a man covering a cloth over his face. He was tall and looked to be in his thirties. He was waiting; waiting for the others. And while he waited for the short amount of time he was stuck with his thoughts.

‘Finally! They would fall right into my trap. I have studied all three of them. They are perfect; so alone, with no one that will miss them. That is why I will take them. Take them far from here and test them, hopefully they won’t be stupid like the last boy I brought. I guess it wasn’t a total lose, I mean I did find another one shortly afterward. Now I was two that are both succeeding and these three will too. Well either that or they will die.’

“Sally, turn the corner with me. Let’s scare the pants right off of him.” I said and Sally smiled from ear to ear. She then ran past me. I guess she was more excited about the idea then me, not that I was excited too. I was so I picked up speed and I soon reached the corner, which I abruptly turned. Right away I collided with something and then everything was black. ‘What happened??’ Those seemed to be the two words that I remember before all that I knew and had was taken from me. Not just me though, but Edgar and Sally as well.