The Three Musketeers
I ran across the basketball courts, the cold rain stinging my skin. I smiled as my shivering body was greeted by the warm room and affectionate librarian.
“Good Morning, Perpetual!” She referred to my seemingly never-ending smile.
“Good Morning!” I replied blithely, plopping my backpack down in the ‘forbidden section.’ This was actually where all the fairytales were, but was so named by three ardent Harry Potter fans who thought it sounded more magical that way. Layla (seventh grade, twelve), Tayler (eighth grade, fourteen), and I (eighth grade, thirteen) did everything together. We are cousins, so it was easy to do so. Just after my thirteenth birthday in November, I decided to audition for a local play. Naturally,…show more content… We hit the ground running, literally. We all won ribbons at our first meet. Layla was first place in the triple jump and Tayler and I both placed in the hurdles. Shortly after the track season came to a close, school did too. I was concerned for the coming school year, Layla was only in seventh grade, so she would stay at Hickman, Tayler wanted to be homeschooled, and I knew I wanted to go to Hughson. This didn’t worry me too much yet, though. It was finally summer! Summer kept me busy. From family reunions to the start of cross country practice, the amount of time I spent with my cousins was rapidly decreasing. Once more, I was oblivious to the change happening before my very eyes; there would be more time when school started, I assured myself. Little did I know, as I was growing apart from them, they were growing closer to each other. School was even worse! Waking up at 5:30 to get ready for seminary and not getting home until around 5:00 every day left me scrambling just to finish my homework and chores so I could go to bed early. Weekends were my only break, if I didn’t have cross-country or a choir…show more content… When she lived in Mammoth, I would visit her for weeks. We’d splash in ‘dragon creek’ behind her house, uproot dozens of plants we thought were onions so we could make ‘soup,’ walk to the general store and buy fudgsicles, and make forts in the trees.
Layla and I were best buds too. When we were younger, we’d have slumber parties every single week, and named our stuffed animals after each other. More recently, we enjoyed making fake movie trailers and commercials together.
So why was Tayler acting so bizarrely? In order to understand the solution to this, you need to understand Tayler. After every movie that she saw in the movie theaters, she would either become obsessed with it, or hate it, and when she was obsessed with something, there could only be one subject. I suppose his is similar with people. Although she is very social, she’s always tended to play better with only one person.
It broke my heart to view myself as just another phase, but what could I do about it? I never had time…
Randomly, they both decided that they wanted to come to one of my cross country meets. I was ecstatic! I drove up with my team, and my family came a little later. Minutes before I had to warm up, my mom came. I hopped to my