Dear Emilie, it's Noah

The day we met

5 years earlier

I'm walking home from school, pretending I'm walking on a tightrope when it's really the edge of the sidewalk . I'm really not paying attention and that was my mistake.

At the other end of the street running towards me are 3 boys. Two of them chasing the other.

When they reach me the one being chased Rams into me. I go flying and so does he." Grab him" I hear one of the boys cry and the other does as he's told.

I scramble to find my glasses. Without them I can't see anything. By the time I doI'm sitting on my butt in the middle of the street watching this all happen.

The boy being grabbed has yellow hair. Not blonde where his hair has a whitish look to it. No his hair is the color of a banana.

He's holding a board up like its a shield. It looks like a checker board. All around his feet and the sidewalks are white and brown pieces of wood.

"Give it" the big boy growls. I recognize him but I can't remember his name. Casey? Collin? I'm racking my brain when banana boy growls too.

" not until you give me back my knight Kennicot!" Then it clicks. Conner Kennicot, the class bully. I look up at him. Oh crapples.

Conner pulls something out of his pocket. It looks like a small horse." Here!" he says and throws it into the street. I scramble to grab it.

Then banana boy pulls a baseball out of his pocket and chucks it at Conner. It hits him in the nose. Hard.

Conner's noes starts to bleed.That's when he starts to punch bandana boy and I jump in. " Hey!" I scream. Conners hand comes back and hits me hard on my cheek.

I stumble back, clutching at where a stinging bruise would soon be. All three of the boy stare at me. Then Conner and his friend bolt. And it's just me and Banana boy.

I look banana boy over and can tell he's worse off then me. He has a steady black eye forming, his lip is cut and so is his elbow.

He stands up and brushes himself off. "You ok?" He asks me and I just nod. I remove my hand from my cheek and pull his Knight,as he called it, out of my pocket.

I hand it to him and go to pick up the other pieces. Some of them are cracked or chipped . "Thanks" he says wiping at his bleeding lip.

" your welcome " I say quietly and hand him the rest of the pieces. He smiles a cocky smile and sticks out his hand " The name's Noah. Noah Bell."

I shake his hand." Emilie Scott." I say. Noah smiles bigger." Well Emilie, do you know how to play chess?" I shake my head.

" Well let me teach you." He says and proceeds to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk and begins to set up the board. I'm white, whatever that means.

For the next hour I learn all the pieces in chess by name, how they move, and how they can defeat each other. I have a blast and all in all, I get my first real taste of chess.