She nods, looking like it doesn’t hurt at all as she wipes the dirt off and stands back up. She grabs the juice box and toy car from me and I smile as I walk back toward the garage with her, happy I finally got her to climb over the fence.

Ella

Six years old…

I like my next door neighbor Micha a lot. At first he was kind of scary because he was so nice and no one’s ever been that nice to me before. But now he’s not too scary. He always shares his juice and cookies with me at school and when Davey Straford pulled my hair and told me I was icky because I had holes in my clothes, Micha shoved him down and told him he smelled like rotten eggs.

The teacher got mad at him and then his dad got mad at him when we got home from school. He couldn’t play with me for three days ’cause his mom and dad said he was grounded, but it’s been three days and now I can go over again.

It’s a really hot day, so I get two Popsicles out of the freezer before I head over. My shoes have got holes in the bottom of them again so I don’t even bother putting them on. My mom yells at me to take out the trash as I walk out so I have to go back and haul it out of the trash can. She’s always yelling at me to take out the trash and do the dishes. It makes me sad sometimes because I get tired, but my dad says she’s sick and my brother and I have to be nice to her and help her out because he has to go out at night to “clear his head and take a break.”

The garbage bag’s really heavy and leaves this gross slimy stuff on the kitchen floor as I drag it out, slide it off the steps and toss it into the bigger trash can. I put the lid on and skip down the sidewalk and then climb over the fence.

The sprinklers are on and the grass is all wet and kind of muddy, but I splash in it anyway, getting the bottom of my jeans wet and some mud gets stuck in my toes. I skip up the sidewalk, making footprints on the cement all the way to the side door of Micha’s house