Lucy Lucy

As I walked through the hallway of my new school, I felt what seemed like thousands of luminous eyes on my back. I put my head down a bit and tried to ignore them, but they wouldn't let me forget about it. I walked faster to my locker. But my brand-new green Converse sneakers squeaked as I walked, and I heard a couple of giggles from a group of senior girls.

I tried to hold back the tears as I opened my locker to put my books away. They swelled up in my eyelids and I couldn't hold them back. Fortunatley I could make it to the girl's room before they burst.

I cried in the stall. I cried and cried, until the bell rang for afternoon break. When the burst the stall door open, I noticed a girl, standing there, looking at me. She had brown curly hair and blue-green eyes that sparkled like a shimmering pool of light. My tear-stained face started to dry up at our stares met.

"Sorry, I just heard you crying," she said. "Hi, my name's Lucy."

"Sidney," I said in my Australian accent. As we shook hands, an electric shock flowed through my body.

This was the special friend I was looking for.

We walked to lunch together. "So are you new?" she asked me.

"Yeah, just moved here last summer." I felt strange talking to an American with my accent.

"I bet you had a lot of friends where you came from and I bet you miss them," she said.

"Australia? Oh, yeah. Plenty of friends. I had meself a boyfriend too, but I had to leave it all. We moved 'cause of me pappi's job, and I'm still grievin' for it."

She looked at me. "I'm really sorry about that."

"I still don't have any friends."

"I could be your friend.

I looked at her. "Really?"

"Of course. To tell you the truth, I don't really have any friends myself. I don't know why."

"Well, now you have one."

We smiled at each other.

We brought our lunch trays over under the big oak tree and sat down.

We ate quietly, and when both of us were finished, we turned in our trays and started talking.

We talked about problems in our own worlds. Boys, parents, weather. We talked and laughed and joked. We were having a grand time, when the the bell rang, and we had to go to our next classes.

Before both of us parted, she said to me, "Meet me at the oak tree after school."

I nodded, showing that I would. We slipped through our final classes, thinking about what a great friendship it would be.

That's when it all went wrong.

Lucy hadn't been at school for about a week. When I came home one day, Mammie was standing in the kitchen, leaning on the island in the middle. She was thoughtful, but no trace of a smile showed on her face.

"Hi, Mammie," I said, dropping my pack down, smiling. "Something wrong?"

"I need to talk to you privately, Sidney," she said in her accent that was even thicker than mine. "Come in the living room with me."

She sat me down on the couch. "Sidney," she said. She hesitated for a long time.

"Sidney," she said again. "Something terrible has happened."

"Whatever it is," I said. "At least I have Lucy to guide me through."

"No," Mammie said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "No."

"What do you mean?"

She opened her eyes and looked up. "There is no Lucy, Sid. She died from pnemonia."

I frowned in disbelief. No. No! Lucy wasn't dead. Mammie was lying to me. I don't know why, but it wasn't true, it just couldn't be!

My eyes turned weak and I broke down and cried. Mammie pulled me close and said, "My Mammie always told me to be a big girl and not cry. But you've been hurt, so you just-cry."

I stayed curled in her arms for a long time, until late at night when I had to go to bed.

I got into bed and thought about Lucy, how I would never see her again. I knew I was grieving but I could cry no longer. My emotions were all mixed up; fear, sadness, anger. I prayed. I said, "If Lucy is not alive I do not deserve to be. Let me die."

So I closed my eyes.

And I died.