Devils

The old cracking sound of the chair in the Pham's kitchen made me think about all the old times on Barrow. We would sit on Anh's front porch and sing or dance. We would pretend we were Cinderella and her step sisters and mother. On Easter when I received the bin of chalk, we would colour the bricks on her porch all different colours.

But one thing struck me most. We only had one memory at my old place. Kirthana's surprise birthday party. We sat in the back yard drinking shots of no name brand Coke, giggling and the first to burp was out.

I won.

We had adventure games. We would ride the afternoons away on our bikes or scooters. We called ourselves the Devils. I don't remember how we got that name, but we also called ourselves KAT Ex. when we went on our biking adventures to Cattail creek or to the berry patch.

We'd ride home with the black berries and dump them evenly into three bowls. As we poured in milk and suger, we'd pretend to be a commercial. "Try the new Berry Blast! Now at a Convienience Store near you!"

Since Kirthy always had to babysit her little sister after school, it was just Anh and I on the weekday afternoons.

We would sit in her kitchen and have little tea parties and pretend we had flowing dresses of yellow and green.

On the weekends we would jump the fence to get the only park in our neighborhood. We sat on the tube and talk about the week. Kirthy would tell us about her life in Vancouver. Anh would tell us about the drama in Middle school, while Kirthy and I asked questions on what to do in a situation.

Anh was our big sister. She knew about everything a year before us. Anh always knew what to do.

I leaned forward again to have a bite of my rice drowning in soy sauce.

"You remember our tea parties? And all the scooter moments?" Anh asked.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that. It's sad that it all had to stop. We don't see or talk to Kirthana as much, eh?" I said back.

"Yeah. She moved too far. You moved far but still close enough."

"Your parents still thinking of moving?" Anh's parents have looked at many houses in the past year. We never really knew exactly if her family would move or not.

"Not now, no."

Anh was in high school now, me, still in middle school. We hadn't set enough time aside for each other. I didn't feel as though we were growing apart. When we did see each other, we had great time, almost never bored. The only dullness was that Kirthana wasn't there. I see her once or twice a year now-a-days.

"You wanna go outside?" I asked.

"And do what?"

"Wanna walk around Barrow?"