Dedicated to Jamiee R

The first to have an open heart,

A memoir.

What comes to mind when you think of a memoir?

A basketball game?

A ballet recital?

No?

That’s not what I think of.

I think of it as something that has changed me as a person.

Something I can call my own.

And this memoir has changed me as a person.

Your probably thinking, a thirteen year old writing a memoir? You haven’t lived that long!

I know, I know but I have experienced more things than others have and here’s one reason why.

It’s late February. The snow is melting into brown mush that creates a sticky feeling in the air outside. Just even looking beyond the mist you feel the sticky sensation rise up your back. But I’m nowhere near a window, I’m in the middle of the old elementary school on State St. in the principal’s office with my iPhone 4 in my pocket and my hands clammy with my foot thumping nervously against the coarse carpet as I anticipated wait.

Tick

Tick

Tick

I hear the clock whisper in front of me. I can’t focus, my mind races a hundred miles per hour with a sick, rotten to the core feeling at the pit of my stomach as the fat principal in front of me picks up the intercom phone and I hear her speak the word of the two people who were involved in this tangle of a knot.

“Jamiee Ritz,” The principal said with great intensity. I can hear it from the hallways too, “and (I will not speak of her name for many reasons) Can you both please come down to the office.”

The principal looks back with a sour look at me as I sit there scared of making one slight move to make her mad. She was my principal but still she was a stranger to me as a ten-year-old being traumatized at school for the first time. There’s nothing I could look at except her otherwise it would be very awkward to just stare up at the ceiling or at the floor. But I felt I was seeing nothing but a blurred dream that I wish I woke up from.

A slight click behind me made me turn around, wondering who came first. Both of the two girls, who were did not resemble each other one bit, sheepishly made there way into the cramped office and stood behind my chair, attentive to what our principal had to say.

One girl, who was slouched over, had freckles and a pickled nose. Brown wavy hair that was very thin and innocent blue eyes that reminded me of crystals. The other girl stood up in a straight posture like a model. Her hair short and thick with a bleach blonde tone of hair. Her eyes were also ice blue but fierce like a blue fire and less of innocence.

“So,” Our principal started, “Carmen right here has confronted me about a video of you, (Not saying her name), threatening Carmen to punch her in the face the next time she gets mad at you.” (To be honest, I was on my womanly time of the month then and I get pretty agitated when somebody annoy me.) This matter seemed like nothing now but just a warning but as a fifth grader I was very freaked out by her saying this message to me.

“And you, Jamiee, you have just sent her this last night when this was two weeks ago, why do you send her this now and not sooner?” Her voice sounding angerier.

Jamiee stutters and fails to answer the question.

“We could have cleared this up then but you now it seems too late.” The principal yells as I here the little girl behind me whimper. I think, why isn’t she punishing (Not saying her name?) She’s the one who threatened me and started it. Yet I stay silent and still as I do not know what to do but watch.

You see, Jamiee and I have been very close friends since I moved and I knew her well as be have been through both though time together, we’ve grown more as sisters and for her recently sending this, I could understand, she was young and scared and didn’t know what to do.

“As for you (Not mentioning her name.) Please don’t ever say that again.” The principal stated nicely, “Now both of you apologize.”

For what reason did Jamiee have to apologize for? For not telling me sooner? For keeping this to herself? No punishment for the other girl? What is this? But Jamiee apologizes with the blonde haired girl anyways and all three of us head out of the principal's office both teary eyed and upset.

The blonde haired girl speed-walks ahead of us, sobbing in her arm, both distressed and embarrassed. Jamiee and I walk slowly and I think of the first time we met each other: on the rickety old yellow school bus with a fourth and fifth graders bickering in every seat as annoying as possible. I was the new kid who had just moved to the other side of town in despair of moving to a new school with nobody who I knew to be there with me. I sat in the middle of the bus as a patient fourth grader, not saying a word to any of these stranger kids and a girl, older than me calls me a bear out of nowhere. I look at her perplexed when the Jamiee who I never knew back then stuck up for me and let me sit with her the rest of the year, growing a close bond almost being sisters in a way.

But back to the present, I look into Jamie's freckled face whose eyes were glistening like crystals and I wondered, what's in her head. She walks ahead of me as I ponder, still with a big lump in my throat as I thought this was my fault for bringing her into this and she’ll hate me for the rest of her life. Then something snaps into my head and I reach over, tap her shoulder slightly and told her with a tear gracefully falling down my pudgy cheeks, “I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble Jamiee.” As she turned around, her cheeks were rosy red and big watery tears streaming down her face. Our arms encircling both of us as we hugged their in the middle of the hall, forgetting what had happened and where we were. All we had in our minds was a strong friendship and love. Nothing but that wonderful feeling to find love.

How’s that for a thirteen-year-old?

Honestly my time with Jamiee was the best. Her and I were stuck like glue, always having each others back when we were about to fall. This memory of her and I were on of the last ones until she moved away. The significance of this is tremendous because this grew our bond even further, knowing that whatever hits us in the next few years we’ll be able to tackle it together. So, this memoir is for Jamiee R, my best friend.