What Friends Are For

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER 14

"Friendship isn't a big thing. It's a million little things." -Unknown

I remembered when in fifth grade, Annabelle, Bella, Jacob, Alexis, David, Sofia and I would sit on the monkey bars during recess and sing our favourite songs. We didn't care if we sounded like dying birds, or if people were pointing and laughing. We just had fun together. We just had fun being ourselves.

We would do the silliest, weirdest, strangest things you could ever imagine ten-year-old kids doing, and we had a blast doing them. Singing songs off-key, playing strange games, spinning around for thirty seconds and then walking around with our eyes closed. Helping our class pet rock give birth to another baby rock (long story), Or even throwing funerals for dead erasers.

*

One year ago

"Where's openy?" Steve called in horror. Openy was our class' pet eraser. Openy had angry eyebrows and an open mouth which were drawn on with Sharpie by Steve. Steve's best friend, Evan, walked in front of him holding shreds of eraser.

"Mwahaha!" Evan cackled in an exaggerated evil voice. "My partner in crime, Closey the eraser, and I have killed your little pal! You shall never see him again!"

Everyone gasps in horror. "OPENYYYYY!" Steve cried out, also in an exaggerated voice. "I shall throw a ceremony for your service, my good friend! Everyone, meet at the 5H tree to attend Sir Openy's funeral! Sob! He was so kind!"

Everyone started fake crying and sniffling as the little pieces of the eraser lie motionless on the classroom floor. Recess came, and Steve created a tissue-box coffin which they put Openy's pieces in. Everyone gathered around the coffin and started crying hysterically, trying not to laugh.

Many people passed our little ceremony and gave us confused looks and a lot of laughs. Most of it was playful or nice laughing because, we have to admit, we were doing something very ridiculous. Although most people weren't trying to be mean, there were people who thought we were idiots and I'm pretty sure they thought we were total freaks.

But we didn't care at all. Why get upset over a few sour grapes? It's like a saying my mom would tell me. "You could be the juiciest peach in the world, and there will always be someone out there who hates peaches." It means that you could be super funny and awesome, but someone out there will always hate you. But that's on them, and it's not your fault.

Other students and teachers would pass us and ask what we were doing, and we would always answer, "Oh, we're just throwing a funeral."

"Oh, Who died?"

"Openy."
"Who?"

"Our pet eraser."

"Your...eraser?"

"Yep. He was killed by Evan and Closey."

"Who's Closey?"

"Another eraser. Like Openy, except he has a closed mouth and he's evil. He is also a criminal."

"Oh. Okay then. Um."

They would give us a funny look, then we would all just start laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Then we would remember we were at a funeral, and we do not laugh at funerals. So we would just snap back into being serious and start crying all over again. We buried Openy in the rocks, and sang a song called "O, Openy" which was sung to the tune of "O, Canada". And for that day, we were known as 'those fifth grade kids who threw a funeral for a dead eraser and sang a rip-off version of O Canada".

*

When I tell people that story, I usually get a reaction like a laugh or raised eyebrows that mean 'that's so weird, you threw a funeral for a dead eraser?' People thought we were insane for throwing a funeral for an eraser, but what mattered was that we had fun. We didn't have any worries then, because we were too busy having fun and enjoying our lives.