Chapter 5

Andi Goes Home

“RED! There’s breakfast down here if you guys want it!” My mom yelled up the stairs. I was sleeping hard because she was getting upset from repeating herself and I only heard her once! “Did somebody say something?” I said sleepily through my closed eyes. Andi was all dressed, teeth brushed and standing over my bed laughing at me saying “Your mom’s been trying to get you to wake up and come down for breakfast for like 20 minutes. I think she gave up.” “Why didn’t you wake me?” I asked Andi. “You looked so peaceful sleeping so I just got myself together and figured you would get up when you were ready.” Andi said, followed by, “I’m hungry! Can we go downstairs and eat now?” “Oh no! We left the pizza out!” I said as I ran to the table. I realized Emily must have cleaned it up at some point last night. Emily came up the stairs at that point and said, “I put the leftover pizza in foil and put it in the fridge downstairs.” I said, “Thank you, Emily!! You’re a pizza saver!” We laughed and headed into he kitchen to eat breakfast.

My mom had 4 boxes of cereal set out, Styrofoam bowls, plastic spoons and a gallon of milk. We got to choose from Golden Grahams, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes and Raisin Bran. I chose Golden Grahams, Andi chose Lucky Charms, and Emily ate earlier. She said she had cold pizza. Lucky. I love cold pizza!

“Oh no! You leave today, Andi! No wonder I didn’t want to wake up! I had so much fun! I don’t want you to go!” I said as I stirred my cereal up. “I don’t want to go, either! I wish I could live here! I wonder if I could get my parents to move to this town! How awesome would that be? We could be neighbors and spend every waking minute together, like we used to only in your new cool house and in this awesome town! My mom will be here at 11 to get me. I am so sad!” Andi said as she at her cereal. “We only have 2 hours left!” I said. “Let’s hurry and finish breakfast so we can play outside the rest of the time!” “Ok!” And said and we slurped our cereal down, threw away our bowls and spoons and ran out the back door to explore the 2.5 acres of yard that I haven’t had a chance to show Andi yet.

“What is this little door?” Andi asked as she pointed to a little door on the house near the back porch. “My mom said it used to be a wine cellar”. I answered. We opened the door and looked in. “WOW!” It is big enough to hang out in! We took turns going inside. There was a wooden ladder in the door you had to climb down. Once we were inside, we sat on a long wooden bench. It was very chilly inside there! “What a perfect place to go in the summer when you are hot! Have you ever been in here yet?” she asked as she looked around with only her eyes. “No! I saw the door and asked my mom what it was. That’s how I knew. I didn’t want to explore stuff without you, though--so I waited!” I told Andi. “I cannot stress to you how amazing your house is! I would hide down here all the time, if I could! You are so lucky! Let’s go and see the rest of the outside stuff!” She said as we climbed out of the cellar. “Where do these doors go?” Andi asked as she pointed to two large gray, painted wood doors that laid flat over a stairway. I opened them up and showed her that it leads to the basement. I said, “The basement is boring so we won’t be exploring that today.” As I shut the doors up. We walked toward the pool. “I can’t wait until we get this all cleaned and filled! We moved too late during the summer to do anything with it this year, but next summer we will use it and you will spend all summer here! I demand it!” I said to Andi “No, I demand it!” she said back. We laughed. I took her to a long flat part of the yard and we started doing flips and cartwheels. We forgot we were running out of visiting time and were startled by my mom yelling for Andi. “Andi! Your mom is here!!” she said as she walked out of the back door with her. “Hi, mom!” Andi said and ran up and hugged her. “After seeing this house, I don’t think you will want to come home again.” Andi’s mom joked. “It’s true, though mom I want to stay!” Andi said back to her. “I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I am here to take to home with me now.” She said. I ran up and hugged Andi and thanked her for spending the entire weekend with me. “We will do this again very soon! I promise!” We walked inside and went upstairs to get all the stuff that Andi brought and to collect all the stuff that I gave to her. “Mom! Ginger gave me so many things so I can remember our weekend together!! She has this cool attic and I got to keep some stuff out of it! This weekend was so fun!! Thank you for letting me stay!!” Andi’s mom said, “I wouldn’t split apart 2 besties! I am so glad you had this time together!” She looked at my mom and said, “Thank you and John for letting Andi stay the weekend.” My mom said, “It is always a pleasure to have Andi. She’s like a 3rd daughter!” We helped them to their car and put the baby buggy in the trunk. It barely fit, but Jim lied it on its side and the trunk closed. I ran up and gave Andi one last hug! “I’m going to miss you! I hope you can come back soon!” I said. She shut the door and they drove away. I felt intense sadness aching in my heart while I watched my best friend in the whole wide world drive away. As the car got smaller and smaller, my heart ached more.

I guess I was standing there looking sad because my mom came up and hugged me. “Andi is always welcome here. She will be back for more fun times.” She said and turned around and went inside. Well, there was no point in staring at an empty driveway, so I went inside and looked in the fridge for that cold pizza. I really wanted a piece of cold pizza. Yay! Here it is. I stood in front of the fridge with the door open eating a piece of cold pizza. It was so good, I had a second piece, right in front of the open fridge. “Are you cooling the entire kitchen?” John said as he walked past me. “Oh, no. sorry.” I said as I swallowed my last bite, I wrapped up the rest and put it back in the fridge and shut the door. Yum. That was good. Emily came running down, “Hey! You better have saved me some!” she said as she flung the fridge open. I moved out of her way and said, “Second shelf on the right!!” John said, “Do me a favor and shut the fridge before feeding your face.” Emily laughed and said “Why, of course!” and she grabbed the pizza, shut the fridge and walked to the table. “I shall sit and eat like a civilized lady.” She said and sat down to eat her cold pizza.

I went up to my room and cleaned up a bit. I had clothes on the floor and a messy bed. I was so tired. I laid down on my bed after I straightened it up and I fell asleep! I woke up to Emily standing in my doorway saying, “Too much weekend for ya, old tired one?” “I slept for two hours! I must have been so tired! I don’t even remember falling asleep!” I said “Hey, check out facebook! Andi tagged you in a bunch of pictures!” She handed me mom’s phone since mine was dead and I stared smiling at our selfie we took in front of the creepy doll and she took pictures of the stuff I gave her and tagged me in those, thinking me for what a fun time she had this weekend! I hit ‘like’ on all of the stuff and I commented back to the selfie, “Nothing like a creepy doll selfie with my favorite BFF EVER!” “Hey, can I give mom back her phone now?” Emily said as she reached out her hand to take the phone from me. “I guess!” I gave it back to Emily. “I sure wish I had my own phone, like you, Em” I said. “But mom said you’re too young and it would be too expensive to add one for you right now.” Emily said. “Besides, it gives you something to look forward to.” She said. “I guess you’re right” I said. She added, “Besides, apparently, we are very lucky to have everything we have already. So what if you don’t have a phone right now. We have each other, our family, a new home, a great new school, and great friends.” “I stopped and thought about what Emily said. I was never able to agree that I had great friends. I always had a great friend. One. Now, I can truly agree that I have more than one. After thinking back to my fun times with Andi this weekend, though, even if Andi was still my one and only friend, I wouldn’t mind at this point because she is amazing, and I am lucky to have her.

“Girls!” Mom called upstairs. “Yeah, mom!” we chimed back together “I haven’t cooked dinner in a couple of nights, and I am going to cook tonight. I’d like some help with dinner from you girls! Oh! Sounds fun! Emily said, “I wonder what we are making!” and we looked at each other and headed downstairs to join mom in the kitchen. “Mom! What are we going to make?” I asked. My mom likes to watch cooking videos and she gets new, yummy ideas sometimes from facebook videos. Not tonight, though. “I thought we would have tacos tonight.” My mom said. “YAY! Tacos! WE haven’t had tacos since we moved here!” I said. My mom finished her orders out, “Emily, you are in charge of chopping stuff. Red, you are in charge of grating stuff. I will make the meat and Emily, you can put the shells on the baking stone after it heats and set the timer for 5 minutes.” I was excited to see that my mom bought all paper bowls so we would have less dishes to load into the dishwasher after dinner. “After the bowls are full, I need you girls to help set the table with sour cream, hot sauce, salsa, and the taco holders from the cabinet.” We worked together making a yummy taco dinner. It felt good to be in such a good mood. Even through all the weirdness of my medicine, I can overcome the symptoms, as long as I feel happy. This weekend has made me extremely happy and for the past couple of days I was able to forget that I am different because for 2 days I felt included--not only in Andi’s life, but also in Emily’s life. Emily and I get along mostly, but we have our moments of despair. Especially the moments when Emily doesn’t include me in her life--but, that didn’t happen this weekend so I won’t dwell on that right now.

My mom stood at the table admiring the taco buffet and said, “Ok! Dinner is made, now let’s whip up a fast dessert. Emily, cut 5 TBSP butter off a stick and melt it in the microwave in this glass pie pan. Red, open this pouch and dump it in the mixer and add 1.5 cups of half & half and mix on low for 2 minutes than high for 1 minute. Emily, after the microwave beeps, pour these crumbs into the butter and mix it up until you make a pressed down crust. Emily, after the mixer is done mixing, help Red get all the yummy stuff poured into the crust you just made. Scrape the bowl good and cover it with Saran and put it in the fridge. When it is finished and cleaned up, we will eat dinner.” Emily and I worked together making the JELLO Cheesecake dessert and then we covered it up and put it in the fridge to set while we go have tacos! WE rinsed off our dishes and put them in the dishwasher. My mom went over to the intercom and hit the call button to contact John down in his workshop and tell him it was time for dinner.

John came up shortly and we all sat down to eat tacos. “You two look really tired!” John said to me and Emily. “Yeah! We did a lot this weekend!” I said. “Well, I hope you girls are happy in your new home. I know it took a lot of stress and guts to get to where we are, but I hope to think that we are all happy here now as a family.” John said. “I couldn’t be any happier right now! I just spent the weekend with my best friend, and even shared my sister with her! And now we are having tacos for dinner and cheesecake for dessert!? What could be better?!” I said and then crunched into a taco. Hot sauce dripped down my chin and everyone laughed at me. I laughed back. I knew it wasn’t a personal dig to my sloppy eating but a funny response to the trail of red running down my chin.

After dinner, I helped clean up the mess and I took a shower and put on my jammies. I couldn’t believe how tired I was! I was up in my room reading a book at my desk and my mom came up to say goodnight. “School tomorrow! Are you going to be able to get up ok in the morning after such an exciting weekend?” she said and sat on the end on my bed. “Yeah, mom. I think I will be o.k.” I said sleepily. “Get plenty of sleep tonight, Red. You don’t want to deprive yourself from sleep because you could have a seizure. Are you sure you are feeling ok after such a long fun-filled weekend?” “Yeah, mom. I’m fine. And before you ask, I just took my night medicine.” I whined back to her. MY mom looked shocked and said, “Wow, Red, you are growing up so fast. You always remember to take your medicine without me hounding you. I am proud of you. Keep it up. You re doing great.” She kissed me on the cheek, tucked me in and said, “Good night. Sweet dreams! Don’t let the alarm clock bite.” And turned out my light and went downstairs. I laid awake for only about 5 minutes. I could hear the quiet muffle of television shows downstairs as I drifted off to sleep, thinking of how blessed I am this very minute.