Nonofficial Love - Ace Merrill (Stand By Me) (New Version)

Prologue (under rewrite)

1949

Two girls stood barefoot on the grass. They swung a jump rope up and down, singing a rhyme, as another girl jumped over.

"Ice cream soda,
Delaware Punch.
Tell me the name,
Of my honey-bunch...
A, B..."

Just as Rebecca had gained momentum -getting all the way to the letter M - she mistook a jump, tripped and fell to the ground with a thud. Nancy and Donna giggled as they looked down at her legs all tangled up in the yarn.

Rebecca scowled; even at the age of seven, she hated defeat.

"Come on, Rebecca. Get up!" Donna gently tugged her piece of rope.

Rebecca didn't budge.

"It's my turn!" Nancy said. And, unlike Donna, she yanked her side as hard as she could.

"Fine," Rebecca grouched. "Go ahead and play the stupid game without me!" With her bare feet, she freed herself from the tangled rope. She stood up from the grass and stormed off, arms folded, full of frustration.

Donna and Nancy glanced at each other before they followed. After all, Rebecca had been calling the shots since pre-school.

They sat down beside her on the grass next to the bushes, where they had earlier discarded their shoes.

"What should we do now?" Nancy sighed. She wrapped her jump rope around itself and scrunched it back into her cardigan pocket.

"Anything!" Rebecca replied. "My mamma told me not to come home 'til dark."

"We could go apple picking?" Donna said, glancing at Rebecca for her approval. "Then we could rinse them down at the river?"

Deciding there was nothing better to do on a cool Sunday afternoon - and the fact that her mom could make a real mean apple pie -Rebecca nodded and the three girls began to put on their shoes.

Rebecca was buckling her left shoe when she felt something brush past her hair.

"Ouch!" Nancy cried. "Something hit me!" She then rubbed her throbbing shoulder.

Donna reached over and picked up the culprit from the grass and held it out in the palm of her hand for Nancy to see - it was a stone. "A bird probably dropped it."

Rebecca smirked about to slip on her other shoe when something struck the back of her neck. "Oww!"

"That wasn't a bird!" Nancy wailed, waving a finger at the bushes. "There's somebody in there!"

Rebecca turned around and looked towards where Nancy was pointing.

All three girls eyes widened when the leaves began to rustle. Suddenly, three boys charged out from behind the branches. Their faces were muddy, and their eyes were gleaming with mischief.

"ATTACK!"

The girls squealed as they scrambled to their feet as sticks and stones began to fly at them in every direction.

Rebecca dodged a 'bullet' and she picked up her other shoe; her mother would kill her if she returned home without one. She quickly ran after Donna and Nancy, hobbling slightly as the boys chased her.