Sydney L.'s Memoir

Elsie and Me

    "Sydney, come here. I want you to meet someone", my mom hollered from outside. It was mid August, and I had just moved to Florida a few months before. I rushed out the front door and saw five strangers standing before me, a petite and very freckled, red-headed girl, her twin brother, their much less freckled older sister and their parents. My mom told me they lived down the street and the twins were six, my age; the twin girl was Elsie her brother was Colby. The older girl's name was Jacey; she was nine, and they all seemed very nice. My parents and theirs started to chat with each other and found out we all have a ton in common.

 

    Elsie and Colby were hilarious, and I could tell we would immediately be friends, and we were. We went to their house and exchanged phone numbers. The next day Elsie called and asked, "Hey, you want to come over, hangout and maybe swim for a little while?"

I replied, "Sure, I will be over in ten. bye!" I hurried to my room and started digging through my drawer for my swim suit, as I discovered my swim suit I was still asking my mom if I could go, she said yes anyway. I shoveled my bike out of my disasterous garage and rode down the street to Elsie's house. I knocked on her door and suddenly heard barking. "Aww", I thought. She has cute little dogs. When she opened the door I quickly noticed I was wrong. They were more like huge golden beasts than cutesy little dogs. I walked inside, and it was a nice home. I especially admired Elsie's room. She had a huge desk and even her own computer. She showed me around and I got to know her family a little better. While I was over we went in the pool for a long time. We also played sonic on the game cube, went on the computer and played spies. After a few hours my mom showed up at the front door and wanted me to head home for dinner. I begged to stay and both our parents replied, "OK." We were so happy.

    After that, we started hanging out almost every day. Colby and I became pretty close too. After nine months, they moved to my school and even rode my bus. We always had a blast on the bus.  Colby and I did at school too. He was in my grade, only because both our mom's held us back, but Elsie was in 2nd grade.

As time passed, Elsie and I grew closer. She didn't ride my bus anymore, but we didn't mind because she was only down the street. We still hung out a lot. We liked to build forts, pretend we were superheroes jumping through universes and so much more. We had pretty big imaginations for six and seven year olds.

On their eighth birthday, they held it at Superplay. That's an amazing place with a forty eight-lane bowling alley, an arcade, a batting range, lazer tag, mini golf and two restaurants. They got so many presents they were uncountable. My birthday was really cool too, although it wasn't held at Superplay, or anything like that.

 

    After a few years of great times, hard laughs and many sleepovers, Elsie's mom announced that they were moving to North Carolina. Elsie and I both felt like the world was about to crash and burn, but we knew we would never let each other go. After a ton of arguing they finally decided not to move. We were both relieved. By this time we were 10 she was in 5th grade and I was in 4th along with Colby. 

    Since they thought they were gonna move, they were currently living in a rental home. While they were there Elsie decided to have a "70's party" and we all had to dress like hippies, my costume was really good. There was hippie music, "groovy" decorations and hippie talk going on everywhere.

     

Then on my 11th birthday she got me jewelry, candy and a scarf. At the party we all went on a walk and there was a really cool part of the woods and from then on me and Elsie used it as a clubhouse.

   

Now I was in 6th grade and Elsie was in 7th. On New Years Day, another friend was over at the time and the cutest German Shepard / terrier mix dog showed up at my front door. We didn't know who's it was but it was very hot outside so my mom put food and water out for it. After a while we let it inside and we all immediately fell in LOVE with it. We called the dog warden to see if anyone called claiming a missing dog, nothing so we kept it and found out it was a girl. We kept it for a few weeks nobody called so, we kept her and named her Snickers, but after a few months my mom said that she was to big and we didn't have the money to keep her, Elsie was over then and my mom said she was taking Snickers to the pound. So me and Elsie snuck the dog out of the house along with a bag of dog food, a huge bottle of water, and a bowl. We paraded her down 4 blocks away from my house and hid in the woods, we loved this dog and my mom wasn't about to take her away. But I forgot to leave my cell phone home so my mom called and asked where we were, I barked back " I'll never tell!" and hung up. But after a few hours we were out of water and food so we had to go back. Every step we took closer to my house the I loved Snickers more and more and knew I couldn't let her go.

    

When we reached the house my mom was sitting on the porch looking more disappointed than ever, but I could see the smallest gleam of proudness in her eyes because we had stood up for what we beleived in. She said "Sydney it's time for her to go". My eyes started to gush tears and we both quickly ran to the end of the driveway and she hollered "wait", "what?" I hissed back in a snotty tone that I sort of regreted after. She replied in a calm voice "it's no use running, it will only make things worse". Now so upset I was screaming "NO IT WON'T, IT WILL SHOW YOU THAT YOUR NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS DOG AWAY FROM ME!!!" She told me to bring Snickers up there or I would be grounded for a month, but I stood my ground, I wasn't going to budge and at my side neither would Elsie, she would stick through this with me just like she did with everything else. My mom started to approach us and we ran, faster than we have ever ran before. Down the road and into the woods, we peeked out and saw her coming with the car. We panicked and ran all the way through the huge woods in about 20 seconds, we were amazed. My mom was at the other end hollering "Sydney come here with Snickers and Elsie, I promise I won't bring her to the pound." We all cautiously shuffled towards my mom. She said it was okay, she wasn't going to take her. We climbed into the car and drove home. The end of a very long battle... but with Elsie there and our determination of winning it was worth it.That's a memory me, nor her will ever forget.

   

 More time past with Snickers, then we all definitely had to work a little bit harder considering Snickers was only a 14 month old puppy.
    

All of a sudden, one day there started to be talk about us moving. Elsie's family my siblings and I all started to worry. About a month later they announced it... the worst possible day of my entire life. We were moving 1,000 miles away toConnecticut. And before we knew it my mom was packing. The night before we were going to move Elsie came over with her family to say goodbye. And after six years with them, I never thought I would have to say goodbye, but this was it. she brought me over some goodies, so I wouldn't get bored on the trip. We all talked, but then they had to leave, it wasn't as sad as I thought it would be but I was still tearing up. We all gave each other big hugs, but through the tears I could barely see who I was hugging. The morning I moved I was just as sad, but I didn't cry. We left at 5:00 in the morning and I knew that was I wouldn't see Elsie probably ever again.