Puddle

Chapter One - Rain

Hey there.  Come on over here and let me tell you a story.  It’s a true story too.  Oh now, don’t go rolling your eyes and stuff.  Yea you did, I saw you!  I was young before, I know what you do.  Anyway, show some respect and listen to me a spell.  I got a real life horror story to tell you.  It ain’t one of them stories where somebody’s uncle’s girlfriend told it to your daddy neither.  It happened to me, so listen up…

Out here in the country, things are different.  In autumn, it’s even more different.  If you live in the city, you get rain and you may have a few puddles here and there.  Worse, you could get a back up of a drainpipe and a street may flood.  That don’t happen much in the country.   Not out here, anyways.

I’ve lived in this small town for a while.  Its got nice folks that see you and wave, even when they don’t know you, and dogs stay in their own yards.  People are just better; they care.

It’s nothing like in the city- where you got your mean city-types and them legal suits.  City people pass you up when you get a flat too; that ain’t neighborly.  Don’t get me wrong, country people have bad things too.  Happenings that people don’t really talk about; like what I’m about to tell you.

When I was a little girl, I had something bad happen to me.  Me? Oh, my name’s Quinn Beasley, nice to meet ya.  I’ve been a country girl for all my life and never wanted to live in the city.  Not even when I almost died and lost my best friend, Max. 

Her name was Maxine, but she didn’t take to people calling her by her God-given.  She was a tough gal, and she was my bestest friend on the earth!  I almost lost her underneath it; did I tell you?

Well in this town, we have something that happens every now and then.  I guess more like once a year, but you don’t always know it when it happens.  It’s one of them phenomenons.  It might right happen under your nose, but you don’t know about it till it’s done.  That’s when you hear about it., but I saw it up close.  Almost killed me too, but I had to look it in the eye for my friend.  If I’m lucky, I won’t never see it again!

I know, I know; you wanna know what it is, right?  Well I’m fixin’ to tell you- just hold your britches!  I ain’t as young as I used to be, but I ain’t old neither!  So… what was I saying?  Oh yeah, okay.  So when I was thirteen, I went to school with my bestest friend in the world, Max…

Chapter Two - Walking Home

“I beat her like poop on a stick!”

“Eww!  Why would you go and beat on poop?” 

It was a dumb phrase that Max used all the time.  I was one of those visual people.  When someone said something odd, I pretty much saw it in my head.  Whenever she said she beat something or someone like poop on a stick, I envisioned it.  I can tell you now, hitting a pile of doggy-do with a stick wasn’t a picture you wanted etched in your mind’s eye! 

“Well, it’s true!  I finished my last lap with her still at the dive block!”

School was over and we were walking home from swim practice on one autumn afternoon.  It had been a sunny and crisp sorta day, but when we left the pool, we noticed the sky had changed.  The clouds were a bit ominous and rushing across the sky, like a storm was coming.  We strolled along, like always, talking about up-coming competitions and challengers.

Max was a pretty girl.  I never met anybody like her.  Since I was only one of two black girls in our eighth grade class, I thought I’d only make two friends.  I was new to the area, and school had already started when I’d arrived.  Max took to me like white on rice, her personality shining as bright as her smile!  We hit it off during our first break and I was never alone after that.  Not until the puddle… but I’m getting to that!