Letting You Go

Prologue | When We Were Young

Summer of 2003

SPLATTTTT

"What the... ?"

Something red that looked like paint splattered on my notebook and dripped on my hair. I watched in horror as more and more of what appeared to be balloons flew rapidly towards me. Ugh! Another one hit me. I stood up and tried to clear the paint off of my eyes. My eyes caught what appeared to be Chase and Atticus going around from the side of my house into the backyard.

"What happened to you?" Atticus asked as I watched a balloon hit him and red paint splatter on his white shirt.

Chase thought faster than Atticus and I and started barking orders. "Go get the hose!"

"Atti pick the ones that didn't break and throw it back at her! Go! Go! Go!"

A balloon hit Chase in the head, and I watched as paint started dripping down on the side of his face.

"I hope this paint is washable or else we will definitely do more damage to her than filling up her treehouse with sand," exclaimed Chase. His body language told me he wasn't happy.

"This is war Erin O'Connor!" I shouted to my next-door neighbor.

It was only a week ago when my best friends Chase, Atticus and I had hauled buckets and buckets of sand from the beach and brought it to her treehouse next door. Erin O'Connor has been my neighbor ever since we were babies. Our moms had play dates when we were younger, but this prank war of ours started when we were in second grade.

I thought eating her lunch and leaving her lunch box empty was the perfect April Fool's day trick. I should have known better because  Erin doesn't go down easily. She waited and plotted for two weeks before she put a ridiculous amount of chewed gum, yes gum on my chair in school leaving me stuck. She did an outstanding job, that my mom ended up throwing out my favorite pants I wore that day. Erin didn't even care that she got in trouble in school for pulling that prank.

From that day on, I made sure my pranks are always outside the school so neither one of us gets summoned to the principal's office. I don't know why I do it, but I enjoy seeing her all riled up. It's like it became my favorite thing to do from that day on.

We are ten years old now, and that means we have been more creative with our pranks especially after Atticus and Chase have gotten themselves involved. I have to say it's hard to beat Erin even if she was just by herself.  She's always been very creative, and it's very clear that her game was a few notches above what the three of us can make up.

POP! POP! POP!

"Bottle rockets!" Screamed Atticus. 

"Run for your lives!" he added.

"Take that Jacob Anderson!" A muffled female voice says through the fence.

It's an all-out war. Chase ducked and tried to run for the water hose, but he couldn't seem to get a break. He kept diving for cover to avoid the balloons and the fireworks.

"Move! Move! Get the water balloons in the shed, Atti!" I said.

"I can't move! She outdid herself this time! Where did she get those bottle rockets?" He yelled behind the maple tree.

The bottle rockets kept coming, while dozens of balloons filled with red paint kept landing on us and on to the grass. My dad will kill us. Please let this paint be washable. How in the world did she manage to do this?  Does she have four arms? I give her credit; This was a well thought out plan. We were not prepared for this. 

Finally, I saw Atticus emerge from the shed with a bucket of water balloons that we had filled up in case of an emergency. THIS is definitely an emergency.