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Chapter Fifteen of Our Days As Friends
Chapter Fifteen
Courtney
The next day, Courtney, my twin, came over. We used to do everything together. But now, those days were something to look back on and laugh or smile about. I still remember the last normal day for me and her. The day I found out that my best friend forever was leaving me.
“Hey, Liz? I got some bad news.” She said. We were on the phone, since she was with her grandma.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is it about Evan?” Her Evan was Evan Morreti, a fifth grader at the time. We were fourth graders then.
“No. I’m moving.” She sounded very upset. I was sad with her. I knew this would be hard for her. Like me, she didn’t have a real sister. But, instead of one brother, she would soon have two. In the next year, 2005, her mom would become pregnant with her soon-to-be baby brother. Her other brother, Riddick, was just about to turn three.
“Your moving? Why?” I asked.
“My grandfather, you know, the one that lives with us, he threatened me. We’re leaving him and grandma at our house and moving to a new one. I’ll miss you.” She said. I could tell she was near tears. I was too.
“When are you moving?” I asked.
“On January fifth.” That was eleven days away.
“Let’s use the rest of our time together to have the most fun possible. We’ll go sled riding if it snows, we’ll go outside on the trampoline, if it gets warm. We’ve got to make this last eleven days memorable so we don’t forget how strong we are as sisters.”
Since then, I’ve only seen Courtney once.
Her mom’s minivan pulled up, and I went out as fast as I could on my crutches. “Sissy! I missed you so much!” I yelled.
“Sissy!” Courtney yelled. She ran up and gave me a hug. She looked down at my leg. “What’d ya do?”
“I hit Mrs.Freeman’s car on my bike.” I explained.
“Ouch. That’s gotta stink.” Courtney said. “Can we still go in your room?” She asked.
“Yeah, but I need you to hold my back when I go up the stairs incase I fall.” I could go up small sets of stairs alone, but I needed help with the big sets.
“Ok. Leme put my stuff up there first, then I’ll come back to help.” She confirmed. She took a light blue suitcase out of her mom’s minivan. Her mom, Danielle, had gone inside to talk to my mom. Courtney put her stuff in my room, and then hurried down to get me. I put both crutches and my good leg on the first step, and began to climb. I felt the pressure of Courtney’s hands on my back, and felt confidence. I finally reached the top stair, and took one step forward, so Courtney could let go. I walked into my room. We both sat on my bed. Courtney opened her suitcase.
“I have a surprise. Close your eyes.” She said. I closed them. I felt her get up. Then, she placed something, and sat back down. “Open ‘em.” I looked around. “Guess.”
I looked hard, and noticed something new. “Is it the star?”
“DING DING DING! We have a correct answer! Now, I know how much we miss each other. So, I had a great idea. I love it here in Wareham, so I thought, why not put a star here? So, I came up with the idea of the North Star. This star will stay on your light, so it will glow in the night, a signal to both of us wher home is.” She said. “Do you like it?”
“Yes! And in fact...” I grabbed a paper and pencil. “I just had an idea.” I scribbled down a small poem. “Here.”
She read the title. “‘A North Star’s Prayer?’ What’s that?” She asked.
“You got one of these on your light?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we can say this little prayer before bed, so we will always remember each other.” I said. I read the prayer out loud.
“Now that we’re farther apart, I must keep my sister close to my heart. No matter how far away we roam, may our North Star lead us home.”
“Wow! I love it!” Courtney exclaimed. “Can you make me a copy?”
“Of corse, sis.” I copied the prayer down on another paper in permanent marker, so her brothers couldn’t erase it. “Here ya go.”
“Thanks, Liz!” Courtney said.
“Your welcome, Court.” I said. I sometimes called Courtney Court for short.
“This is great! Now, when ever we go to sleep, we’ll think of each other.”
“Yeah!”
“Can we go on your computer to play Sims?” she asked. The Sims 2 was our favorite computer game. In The Sims 2, you had to create a Sim. A Sim is a virtual character in the game. You could make a Sim look like an actual person, or make them as wild as imaginable! Once you’ve made a Sim, then you can create its house. The houses in my neighborhoods only have one thing in common: they all have black roofs. Other than that, all of the houses are different colors, shapes, and sizes. I even had a house that was shaped like a bowl! No matter how different I made the houses, the Sims liked them all the same. After creating the house, you put furniture in it. This is the difficult part, because each Sim family only starts with twenty thousand dollars, and building the houses cost roughly from seven to twelve thousand dollars. So, to furnish the home, I use a money cheat. There are two effective money cheats. The first cheat is kaching, which gives your Sim family one thousand more dollars. The other is motherlode, which gives the Sim family fifty thousand dollars. There are two other ways of gaining money. One is getting your Sim into a well-paying job. The Sim will go to work for five days, and two days are taken off. These days are usually Monday and Sunday or Saturday and Thursday. The other way of gaining money is creating items and selling them to neighbors. Sims can create paintings, write novels, craft toys, and breed and sell dogs or cats. Then, you basically have your Sims sell the items to a neighbor, museum, pet shelter, or publishing company for money. Once you’ve furnished your Sims home and got money for them, you control them. You determine every action, from finding a job to making friends, you control their life.
“Liz, which neighborhood?” Courtney asked.
“How about . . . Pleasant View.” I said.
“Sure.” Courtney replied.
“Now, what do you want to name your Sim?” I requested.
“Hmm, how about, Helga Hobartson.”
“Skin color?”
“Medium tan.”
“Age?”
“Adult.”
“Hair color?”
“Red.”
“Hair style?”
“Wavy.”
“Cheek size?”
“Medium.”
“Chin point?”
“Rounded.”
“Ears?”
“Pointed.”
“Eye color?”
“Purple custom eyes.”
“Eye size?”
“Large.”
“Blush?”
“Light pink.”
“Lip color?”
“Shimmering red custom lip color.”
“Eye makeup?”
“Teal with magenta custom eye makeup.”
“Clothes?”
“Orange tee with faded blue jeans.”
“Personality?”
“Shy, active, and playful.”
“Goals?”
“Money goals.”
“Ok, your new Sim is all done! Ooh, she looks nice.”
“Thank you. You make the daughter.”
“As long as I get to be the god mother.” I joked. We both laughed. I loved hanging out with my sister, wether we were outside on the trampoline or inside playing computer games. But it seemed so long ago that we were last together. I always thought of Court, wondering where she was, or what she was doing. No matter where I was, I always had my sister close to me, even if we were miles away. I would never forget who she was. We always said we would grow up together and some day live near each other. I always wished to myself that Courtney really was my sister. We would always be together through it all. When one of us was upset, we’d have the other to cheer us up. We’d go to the same schools and even if we moved away, we’d still be sisters, surviving our new life, making the best of it all. But those were distant dreams, far from reality. When I looked at my completed Sim, I was surprised. It looked exactly like Courtney, except her name was Megan. I looked at its personality. Friendly, lazy, and playful. Courts attributes. I saved the Sims appearance. I would use it later to create a family in Vernon Village. Vernon Village was a place where I put Sims that looked like actual people. Most of them came out through the same magic way I had created my Courtney. I thought about the person while creating a Sim, and then, BAM! I’m looking at a Sim that looks exactly like the real person. When I looked behind me, Courtney wasn’t standing where she was a moment ago. She was sitting on my bed, looking through my CD collection. She pulled out three CD’s. They were Kids Bop 4, with random songs sung by kids, Speak, Lindsay Lohan’s debut album, and Rock Steady, an old No Doubt album. She held all three up.
“Which one is best?” She asked.
“I like Speak best. You?”
“I was thinking the same. Which one second?”
She didn’t even need to ask. “Rock Steady.”
“Great minds must think alike!” she said. She put the CD’s into my radio in the order we would listen to them: Speak first, Rock Steady second, and Kids Bop third. The last two slots had A Girl Like Me, which was the newest Rihanna CD, and Metamorphosis, a Hilary Duff album.
I was happy that it was May. In five weeks, school would end, and the non-stop party will begin. The party called Summer Vacation. Three months. No school. That meant that Court and I would be able to do this all the time.
“Court, is Helga going to be a single parent?” I asked.
“Yup. Go ahead and get started on the house when it’s done loading.” Court confirmed.
“Ok.”
I began designing the house. I made it supported by brick foundation and shaped like a pentagon. I painted the outside with cinnamon red shingles. I made the roof black with a high arch. I zoomed out the screen and tried different doors to see which looked best. I liked a cherry colored door with a window in the middle. I found the matching windows and installed them around the house. Next, I put floors in the rooms. Carpets in the bedrooms and living room, linoleum in the kitchen, hard wood in the dining room, and tiles in the bathroom. Then, doors. I chose cherry doors that matched the entrance. Finally, I added furniture. When I was done, the family had five thousand of their one hundred thousand I gave them left. Court laughed, because she had never seen one of my irregular shaped houses. I had many strange houses, but Court had never seen any of them. Because she used to make a lot of the houses, all the ones she usually saw were rectangles or squares. She had never seen my brand of housing.
“Presenting pentagon house!” I cried.
“That’s a hexagon.” Court said.
“What?”
“It’s a hexagon. See, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 sides.”
“How’d that happen?”
“You had to make the tip straight so you could add a door.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Silly.”
“I know I am.”
We started playing the game. We had Megan study for her first day of school tomorrow. Helga studied cooking, because if Sims didn’t study cooking, next time they cooked, they would light their house on fire. As the Sims studied, Court turned on the music. She started rocking out, dancing along to the music. Then she looked over at me, and sat down.
“Sorry.” She said. We both laughed.
“Hey, look! Meg and Helga have some visitors!”
I identified the Sim visitors as Susan Glumble, Jennifer Kilapo, and Kevin Markinso. Court and I always laughed at their strange last names, even though Kevin and Susan were our own creations. Jennifer was Jane’s creation. We had Megan greet Jennifer and Helga greeted Kevin and Susan. Meg and Jen ran upstairs to play with Meg’s toys. Helga, Kevin, and Susan started talking with each other. Helga and Susan became friends as quick as Meg and Jen had. Kevin wasn’t very interested in either of the girls.
By the time me and Court stopped playing Sims, we were hungry. I went downstairs and got us both a snack. We ate, then we went outside. It was so beautiful out, and the neighbors were all bustling, cleaning their yards to save the little flowers that were nearly frozen during the snow. I laughed as I saw Brit and Dez running over. They looked like Eskimos, wearing a scarf each and heavy winter jackets. They looked like they were wearing two pairs of gloves as well.
“What up?” Court asked. “Why you wearing Eskimo gear?”
“My mom’s taking us sledding. You wanna go?” Dez requested.
“Only if Liz can go too.” Court stated.
“Thanks, Court.” I said. “I’ll see if I can get in and out of my sled. If I can, Court can take Roberts.”
“Cool!” Brit yelled.
“Brittany, why you so loud? You’re gonna cause an avalanche with that tone.” Court laughed. We all did.
Somehow, when I close my eyes, I see things. Sometimes, these things truly happen. When I went to get my sled, I closed my eyes and saw the hill where we sled. There were other people there. Suddenly, a whimper. One of the sleds hit a dog. The dog stands up and attacks the boy that hit him. Then the dog goes after the other sleds. The people run, but they can’t get away. I see one of them trip. It was Court. The dog ran over to her and bit down into her foot. She screams as the dog drags her away. I shuddered, realizing that this could happen if we went. I didn’t want my sister to get hurt. Or anyone, for that matter. I went to the front yard.
“Liz, are we going?” Court asked.
“Guys, I had another vision.” I said, my voice sounding very scared. I’d had them before with the girls and Court. Not like this.
“It was a bad one.” Brit stated. “You don’t get scared when something good happens.”
“Well, lets just say, if we go there is a danger of one of us not coming back.” I reported. The girls nodded. Court looked grim. I could tell they thought it was going to be me. Little did they know that the most capable one of us would have fallen.
The girls went home. We didn’t go sledding that day.
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