The Cherry Trees

Chapter Nine: 2012

"This is Turtle to Blue jay, do you copy?" crackled the walkie-talkie.

I shoved it under my pillow quickly, just before my parents came in. They didn't know about my secret communication with Lexi. After both my mom and my dad kissed me on my head and said goodnight, they closed the door so that the only light that could escape into my room was from the small crack under my doorway. I pulled out my rhinestone-covered walkie-talkie, and pressed the button on the side. There was a small beep, and I spoke into the microphone.

"This is Blue jay to Turtle, I copy," I said. We used our favorite animals as our code names. It was winter break, so every night this week Lexi and I had slept in the BFFC clubhouse. Except of course, tonight.

"Have you seen Santa yet?Over." Lexi asked.

"No, not yet, over," I replied.

"Listen carefully for the reindeer on your roof! We can not fall asleep tonight, hear me? Over," she statically replied.

"Oh shoot, I think I forgot to put the cookies out. Over," I said. I swear I heard Lexi sigh all the way from her room. Then I heard it over the walkie-talkie.

"Anne! How could you forget that?Over!"

"Sorry, but it is too late now, over."

"Meet me in the tree house! Over," she said.

I hated when we had to have emergency meetings. It meant that I either had to sneak downstairs and go out the backdoor, or I had to sneak out of my window. Either way, it involved sneaking, which I hated.

Since the light was still on downstairs, and since Santa might be down there putting gifts out, I decided to go out my window. My room was on the second floor, but there was a fire escape ladder in my closet, so I could easily climb down that. I pulled my coat on and stepped onto the ladder, carefully climbing down. Then, I ran as fast as I could to the clubhouse.

"Password?"

We had a weekly password so that nobody could get into our clubhouse.

"Lilac," I whispered through the floor.

The trap door opened, and I climbed through. Once I was up, Lexi handed me a brown paper bag.

"Here are some cookies. All you have to do now is get them downstairs," she said.

"Thank you!" I said.

Then I sprinted all the way back to the ladder and climbed into my room.

I woke up at 2:30 to the static of my walkie-talkie. Shoot, I had fallen asleep. Lexi was going to be mad.

"Did you get the cookies downstairs? Over," she said.

"Yeah. Over," I replied.

"You fell asleep, didn't you? Over," she said.

"Yeah. Over," I said.

"It's okay, I did too. Over."

Later that morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn to go open all my gifts. I had gotten a lava lamp, an mp3 player, and an alarm clock. It wasn't the best Christmas I had ever had, except for that I got to spend the rest of the day with Lexi at a Christmas Tree Festival. We decided that next year, we would sleepover, since it was kind of hard to stay awake with just walkie-talkies.