What Little Worlds

Eight

Amelie flew to the window and watched the entrance to her building. Once she saw Adrien exit and walk across the street, towards the train she closed the curtains and went into her bedroom. She reached under her bed and pulled out the box of childhood memories she kept there. She sifted through old drawings she had done of her family, a note from her mother, a picture of she and her father that was too blurry to display out in her apartment, but showcased one of his trademark I-told-you-so looks and she looked up at him covered in mud. Finally she found the folder of notes she had kept on Adrien's visits.

Ever the scientist, she had started keeping detailed notes about their encounters and comparing the years to look for any patterns about the mysterious boy. She flipped through them until she found the page she was looking for. The one from age fourteen. She scooted over until she was leaning against the frame of her bed and began reading.

The curling youthful handwriting made her remember writing this note so clearly. She was at Washington Square park and had written huddled up on the corner of the bench so she could shield her written words from curious eyes. She was re-immersed into the simultaneous fear and elation that came from sneaking out of school for the first time.

"I wanted to ask you....Would you mind meeting me downtown next year? We're going to Lancaster City but I can probably finish my task by eleven and I'll take the train out to Philly so we can meet at noon. That way we can spend more time together."

I remember him saying that. I wrote it down after last year's meeting. Just like I wrote down everything that happened after he came when I was twelve.

I still have the perfect map he drew for me of Old City, Philadelphia so I should trust that he's going to come. Yet, it's 12:30 and he still hasn't shown up yet. I shouldn't be worried, he's taken the train out to see me before, I should trust him. I should be excited to be out on my own in the city. Am I a wimp that I'm sort of terrified?

I'm also pretty excited, but I need Adrien to get here already so we can do something. I want to walk around and go down to see the river, but I should stay here until he gets here. I'm just so bored. And worried he won't come. I should have brought a book.

After that, there was a page just filled with doodles, and Amelie's poor attempts at drawing the dogs that were walking around the park. Amelie chuckled to herself.

The next page was filled with shaking handwriting. It was difficult to read and Amelie remembered she had written this on the train, not wanting to waste a second of time forgetting her day before she wrote it down. Such a good mini-scientist.

Adrien showed up at one pm! His train got delayed an hour.

I told him I wanted to walk by the water and he knew exactly how to get there. I'm not sure how he could know that, seeing as he's only been to Philadelphia a handful of times before. I asked him and he said cartography was a heavily emphasized subject in his weird school.

We walked along the water for a while and then found a stand that sold soft-pretzels. We took some pictures on my phone with the pretzels since they were the size of each of our heads. Then, because the pretzels were head sized, we made up a dialog for them. My pretzel was Urgen Von-Pretzelscieger, the owner of a fancy-pants art gallery that only sold art depicting other personified pretzels. He was Pretzelton Herbert III, a fancy-pants rich guy who was looking to buy art for his wife for the tenth anniversary of them 'tie-ing the knot.'

We spent so long exploring the world of pretzel related humor that by the time we finally began eating Urgen Von-Pretzelscieger and Pretzelton Herbert III, they were cold. He asked me what else I wanted to do and I said I wasn't sure so he said we should walk the Ben Franklin Parkway. I had never done that so I agreed.