Death isn't Peaceful (~discontinued~)

Death isn't peaceful

I tried unsuccessfully not to laugh at Maggie's joke. "A man had one foot in his house and the other out his house, what was his name? Hamish!!"

I shouldn't encourage her but that one was funny. Maggie had been my best friend as long as i could remember. On our first day of school after my mother had prised me of her leg and handed me screaming and kicking to the teacher Maggie had been the one to come over and show me her dot-to-dot picture of a dog. "What should i call him?" she had asked with such a child like innocence, even now we still made references to Rover the dot-to-dot dog.

I looked over at her now, her dark hair was as usual curly and untamed, there was even a leave stuck in it from god knows where. She was swinging her bag around her head and humming tonelessly. There was never a silence when Maggie was around.

"What should we do Elle?" she asked looking at me with her ginormous brown eyes.

"Go to the library and finish our Geography assignment? Like we planned?" i said with a sigh, Maggie never listened to a word i said. We never went to either of our houses. Mine was too big and empty, it smelt of fresh coffee and cleaning liquids, my parents are Lawyers who both work in town, I never see them and i don't know if they even remember they have a daughter. We've lived like that for as long as i can remember and to be honest i've given up wishing it was any different. They shower me with gifts whenever they're home to ease their guilt, i hate it.

Maggie had a completely different home-life, she had an older sister and two little twin brothers who always had some form of food smeared on their faces. Also her mum now looks after Maggie's baby cousin Rory because her aunt was declared unfit to look after a child. They all live in a semi- detached three bedroom house. It's always loud and noisy and messy and there is always something baking in the oven, how Sue has the time for baking i will never know. While i love it there though Maggie detests it and tries to spend as much time as possible away from there.

So we stay away from both our homes as much as possible, schoolwork gets done at the library where we're on a first name basis with the staff there while the rest of the time we just hang around town, getting in the way and generally being 'disruptive' apparently.

"Let's go to the woods Elle!" Maggie says now with far too much enthusiasm for a 14 year old to have. 

I agree, knowing that she won't give up till i do. Homework will have to wait. We have a spot where we go a lot quite far in the woods, it takes a while to get there so we probably shouldn't be going there now after school at half past four but Maggie seemed to be in one of those moods.

We trekked  for ages through the initial rubbish that surrounded the edge of the forest, crisp packets and empty bottles and god knows what else. Quite a few years ago Maggie and i found this really nice path, it leads past these huge trees that we used to pretend spoke to us and had names and faces. At the end of the path there is a huge tangle of bushes but if you push past them there is the most beautiful lake. In the summer is glistens in the sun and the water looks so fresh and clean.

Maggie threw her school bag down beside the lake and sighed, "Don't you love it here Elle, it's so peaceful"

"yup, our own little holiday resort" i joked. Just then the sun broke through the grey clouds and lit up the water and the surrounding Forrest. I picked up Maggie's bag and put everything back inside it and sat it against a tree. I honestly don't know how she would survive without me. I then lay down on the dampish grass and closed my eyes, trying to block out the world for a few minutes.

  Unfortunately silence is impossible with Maggie. I heard a crash somewhere near my right ear, i turned around to see Maggie hauling a huge length of rope up to a tree. She'd taken of her school blazer, shoes and tie and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. Never a good sign.

"Help me hang this up Elle, we can make a rope swing like the one in your garden." she said, her eyes sparkling with a childlike excitement. The rope swing in my garden was a present from my parents as part of my eighth birthday, they'd been away over my birthday so it was really just so they wouldn't feel as guilty for leaving me with my Aunt and Uncle. Maggie had loved it of course, she'd been saying for ages we should move it here.

After a lot of struggle and to me, to you we finally got the heavy rope Maggie had found up in the tree with a stick tied to the bottom. The branch it was on hung right over the water so you could jump of if you wanted into the water, when the weather was warmer though of course.

"Who's going first then?" Maggie asked with that familiar glint in her eye.