This is not a cancer story

Jumping out of your skin

At school, there was six in our group. We weren't the fun five or secret seven. We were the "SUPER SIX!" But we dropped that name after year four.

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Before Elliot, it was just Jordan, me and Riley. He didn't always hang out with us, but he was close all the same. Riley had just started dating his first ever girlfriend, one of many more to come. With this new distraction in his life, Riley have even less time for us. But being eight years old, it wasn't such a strong relationship and after three days, they got bored with each other.

He was cute and popular, a candidate for many peoples' valentine.

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Jordan Sonna and I had been friends for years. We met on the first day of pre-school. She stuck red play-do in my plaited hair and then I bit her. Best friends from then on. Jordan was a bright student and very tall. Even at such a young age, it was visible that she wasn't going to be a normal little girl. Choosing skateboards over tutus, Jordan wasn't a lady in pink.

Our threesome was cozy, but lacked action.

That's where Zoe and Luke came in.

The terrible twosome, twins and havoc creators. When Elliot joined our gang, Zoe and Luke Tyke followed behind him. I swear they could read each others minds. They were always together. They were always playing pranks. They were ALWAYS ON MY NERVES!

Elliot didn't seem to mind them, their jokes and tricks amused him. Zoe was three minutes older and was the smarter of the pair. She was the one who planned the slime bucket, or the exploding locks and Luke was the one who set it up. Both were incredibly bright and could lie so well they could have been lawyers.

Together we were a mix of teachers pets, rebels, tom boys, man whores and trouble makers.

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The first time Elliot came over to my house, I was nine, and he was not invited. I had been laying on the lawn while the sprinkler dribbled water over the garden and me, trying to beat the summer heat. When the back fence swung open, I thought it was just my mother coming to rouse on me for not wearing a hat. Instead, nothing happened…

Dismissing it as the non-existent wind, or the weather causing delusions, I continued trying to cool off. Little did I know Elliot Carter had snuck in and was proceeding to fill a very large bucket with ice cold water. Today, it would be known as the “ice bucket challenge”, but then it was just plain annoying. I was just drifting to sleep when litres of freezing water and ice were dumped on my sweltering body. One second I had been burning up, the next frozen solid with water and shock.

Jumping a metre in the air, screaming my head off, I almost did a back flip with fright. Punching Elliot in the face, I shook with utter confusion and astonishment.

Elliot had a black eye for a week but the whole time he was laughing his head off at the thought of his prank.

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Most of the time all members of super six got along well, but when an argument did break out, the whole school knew about it. Our eyes would shoot daggers, our tongues spitting poison, our fists handing out free knuckle sandwiches. Our fights would escalate and ended in dentition or suspension.

One time, in year 6, the twins had a gigantic brawl, so big the principal almost called a holiday so everyone could recover.Their disagreement had been about a prank. Zoe had been writing the master plan as usual, but Luke decided to take things into his own hands, going forward with the unfinished plans without Zoe knowing. 

It was a disaster and there were two broken legs at the end of it. Even though it wasn't majorly Zoe's fault for her brothers miscalculation, both siblings copped the blame. Pissed at being left out then framed, she had lashed out at her brother. Luke started swinging punches and they ended up in hospital because they were squabbling so much they fell down the stairs.

In the mean time, Elliot had scored his first real girlfriend, Jordan made the soccer team, Riley got kicked in the nuts by his ex and I got my first D in Spanish.

When Zoe and Luke returned, Elliot had been dumped, Jordan's team was topping the score board, Riley's balls were healed and i had JUST managed to pass fucking Spanish.

Elliot and I had never had an argument on that scale and were probably the closest out of our group. We didn't have sleepovers or braid each others hair and gossip about couples, but we did talk ALL the time. 

Very regularly we were sent out of class for continually chattering. We didn't care, our conversations were far more important than any boring old lesson. Talking just came naturally.

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On very few occasions have I ever seen Elliot speechless, but the death of my mother was one.