London Underground; 1999.
“Excuse me?”
Carmen looked up; her big Siberian blue eyes scanned the face of the voice. It belonged to a boy no more than ten years old. He had curly brown hair that fell in front of his emerald eyes and distinctive cheekbones so that when he smiled he had a dimple on the left side of his face. Carmen pushed her red-brown hair out of her eyes and blinked. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I was sitting over there—” he pointed vaguely down the carriage and when Carmen looked she could only assume that he had to have been sitting five seats down next to a woman with blonde hair. They were the only people on the underground, for once. The other carriage had many people in; they all should – it’s London, but strangely this one only carried about ten people tonight. “—and I overheard your conversation.” The conversation that Carmen had been having with her mother about food and the lack of it she had in her stomach at the moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I being loud?”
The corners of the boy’s lips lifted. “Not at all. But I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”
“Oh.” The girl hadn’t known what else to say.
He cleared his throat. “I thought you might like my sandwich. It’s peanut butter and jelly. I don’t really like them but my mother gives them to me because Adam, my brother, he loves them.”
“Really?” Carmen asked. She was excited. Peanut butter and jelly was her favourite kind of sandwich. How weird was that?!
“Oh course.” He held a blue sandwich bag out.
Taking it carefully, she smiled. “Thanks…?”
“Ezra. Ezra Sparks.”
Now her conversation had finished, although it had been difficult to hear underground, Eleanor looked up and noticed that a little boy was standing in front of herself and her ten year old daughter. “Oh. Hello.”
“Hi.” He replied. “I’m Ezra Sparks.”
“Eleanor Bailey.” She replied. “Are you a friend of Carmen’s from school?” She didn’t recognise him.
He shook his hair, a few curls falling into his face again. Usually Eleanor didn’t like rogue hairstyles but it suited the young boy. “No. I mean, we’re friends, she’s cute, but I don’t know her. I just gave her my sandwich. I think that counts.”
Eleanor laughed. He was an adorable little boy. He reminded her of her own son, Carmen’s twin, Joel who had only died last year. “Where’s your mother?”
“Over there.” He pointed again vaguely towards a woman in a cream suit with un-natural blonde hair who was scrolling through a Nokia, her tongue poking out in concentration.
“Guilia Sparks?”
The boy seemed surprised. “How do you know?”
Mysteriously, Eleanor smiled. “I know your mother. We work together.”
“You’re a wig-law lady too?”
She laughed freely. She didn’t do that much, Carmen thought. Not for the past year. “A lawyer, yes. We work at the same firm. Say and have a word with Carmen, share your sandwich. I might go and have a word with you mother. I didn’t know Guilia got the train home.”
“We don’t usually.” He replied, climbing up onto the seat next to Carmen. The train stopped at the next tube-stop, but no one got on. Only a man in a suit on the other end of the carriage got off. “Just tonight.”
Carmen watched as her mother left and then silently opened the sandwich. Ezra watched her and she turned to look at him, feeling weird under his gaze. “What?”
“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered.
“Of course!” The excitement that Carmen was going to find something out that no one else knew was making it all the more enjoyable to have met the boy tonight. “What?”
“They say that when you give a sandwich to someone it makes them your best friend.”
“Really?” she replied. “I’ve never had a best friend.”
“Me neither.” Ezra muttered.
Biting her lip, Carmen threw her arms around him. “I guess this makes us best friends!”
“Forever? You and me, Carmen. A vow, a promise, always.”
“I promise.” She whispered.
“No matter what happens?”
“No matter what.” She replied.
Satisfied, the boy held out his baby finger. “Pinky promise?”
A pinky promise to a ten year old was the sacred way of making sure something stayed true. And Carmen wrapped her pinky around his, dead serious about the commitment. “Pinky promise.”
“This will be paradise, kid.” He said, shaking his head from his eyes. “You and me.”
“Never forget.”
“I won’t.” he said confidently. “Even if I remember nothing else.”
Little did he know that one day, this girl and this vow, it would be the only thing he would forget.
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As Much as You {completed}
أدب المراهقينEzra Sparks woke up one morning in a hospital bed with no recollection as to who anyone was -- unless he'd met them before he was nine years old. Unfortunately, Carmen Bailey didn't meet Ezra until he moved to London, at ten. So how come a boy who o...
