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THE BEAUTY OF FRIENDSHIP

"Hi, I'm Sophia! This story is about when I moved to Pennsylvania and started a new school. When I moved there I met a girl, obviously, but she was different. She changed so fast in the matter of two and a half years that I thought that I was going to explode! Well not quite to the point that I would explode but something like that. So here's the story that technically changed me and alot of other people to see things in a different way. It all started like this"...."Come on", I said, "Were gonna be late!" "Coming" said Blondie. "Hurry up slow poke! I don't want to be late on our first day of school!" "But I have little legs Sophia, and HELLO it's twenty minutes until the bus even gets here!" It was my first day in a new school and I didn't want to miss one second of it. Finally my sister got to the bus stop, and yes it was very early to catch the bus, but like I said I didn't want to miss one second of it. The bus finaly came. The inside of the bus wasn't anything special. DIrty white walls and brown leather seats. I got on I sat next to a girl named Judy. She had long dirty blonde hair and fair skin. Not tan, yet not pale and a few freckles here and there. She said Hi, to me and I thought that she might be a nice girl to talk to, mabey even be friends with! So I started talking. "Hi, I'm Sophia! What's your name?" " Your new here aren't you?" She asked. "Yeah, how could you guess?" "Well first off Iv'e never seen you around here, and second of all now one here wears jean skirts to school." " Like It? It's new. Wait did you say no one dresses like me? Cause if you did I might start a new trend! That would be cool! Don't you think?" "Yeah that would be cool, I think? My name is Judy. I can show you around school if you want." "That would be great!" I didn't know it yet but I was in for it, friendship wise, you know what I mean? I got to school and and I saw the schoolyard with lots of kids on it and adults watching their every move. There were a lot of swings and seasaws, basketball hoops and circles on the ground for playing dodgeball. I got out of the bus with Judy on my side and I smelled the trees and the grass and a small scent of the metal on the playground in the air on the way to the school doors. All of the kids were screaming and yelling, talking and laghing, and having fun together like little bear cubs playing. I got in the classroom which smelled guite nice. I realized then it was the teachers perfume when I saw one of the other teachers sneezing when they went near her. The desks were all in rows and in pairs of two. I sat next to Judy. I heard the sound of my teachers voice welcome me to the new school while some of the kids in the classroom played with their pens to hear the click click noise. My first day was turning out to be quite nice. Then all of the sudden I heard, BBBRRRIIINNNGGG!!! I couldn't wait to start class. = =

So Judy showed me around the school and we became best friends. She showed me the cafeteris which smelled like freshly made pizza, the office that looked like a pig pen, the classrooms, one was so hat inside it felt like a volcano inside. I'm glad that wasn't my classroom. And the playground that sounded like a zoo. We didn't leave eachothers side. We sat next to eachother in every subject, on the bus, and where one of us went the other one went to. You would think that it was a great thing, but not with Judy. For example, in fourth grade I had a big project to do and I put a lot of extra work into it. The project was to make an ABC Booklet about facts of Pennsylvania. We had to have two to three sentences for each letter and a picture either drawn, from the internet, or a photo. Not to brag or anything but I had a seven sentence paraghraph, some letters were even more sentences and explained better that others, and I took all of the pictures myself. With the help of my mom taking to all kinds of places in PA. I had a well put to together booklet and each page had a cool backround and/or border. My teacher showed it to everyone in the school including the princible and the janitor. At least that's what she said. She also sent home a letter saying that I did a very good job on all of the work that I did to Get an A+. All of the kids on the bus kept asking me if they could read it. I et them and they told me it was a great booklet. Now Judy on the other hand was a little bit jealous. I got an A+ While she got a B. So instead of saying, "Wow did a great job on your booklet! It turned out really good!" She bragged,"Yeah that's great, but I also got a letter home to. Mine's longer than yours though." The total opposite of what my friends that I have now would do. Then I asked her,"Cool can I see it?" She said, "Ahhhhhh...no." "But why not?" "Ahhhhh...it's for just my mom and me." "But I let you look at mine and our teacher said that it was for me and my parents." "I don't care ok! It's for my mom and me!" Judy sounded like a bubble waiting to explode. At that point I realized that she either had a letter saying that she should have worked harder or she was just lying to me. I figured that she was lying. Judy was getting really snobby around other kids than just me. I was new and some of you know how that goes. Your kinda popular in a way. So my guess is that she wanted the other kids to be mad and kind of jelouse that I would only be her friend. So she apparently told me bad lies about people so that I wouldn't hang out with them. She was getting really bossy to. I Didn't like how she was treating me. One day she told me, "Wear those jeans you wore on the second day of school tomorrow,ok." "There to small." I replied. "Well squeeze into them or make them bigger or something!" I was mad at her for the first time. I got on the bus the next day and Judy was all dressed up like she wanted me to be. She had on jeans, her favorite t-shirt, and high healed boots. I didn't wear the jeans she told me to the next day and she took it, lets just say, not to good. She was so mad at me for not wearing the jeans though that she started an argument. She yelled, "You didn't wear the jeans I told you to Sophia! Why didn't you wear them!!!?" I told her," I told you that they didn't fit Judy." "But I told you to make them fit!!" "Well I got rid of them ok." " Why!!!" "Because there to small!! What don't you get about that!!!?? Why did you want me to wear THOSE SPECIFIC JEANS anyway!!!???" " Because there cool and I wanted you to look extra cool today." "Why would you want me to look cool anyway. Don't you like how I look normally!!?" Judy was mad at me just because I didn't wear the jeans she wanted me to wear. I was also mad at Judy for telling me that I had to wear this and wear that the next day. I realized I couldn't make it out of this friendship in anyway. = =

Judy was so snobby and bossy and mean. It got to the point that I had to tell her that she was hurting my feelings and being mean to me even if it ment getting into a big fight. So one day I got on the bus and I asked her how she was feeling and if she did all of her homework. The usual conversation we had every mourning. Then all of the sudden she just blurted out, "What are you wearing! Why won't you wear what I want you to wear?!" "I'm wearing my favorite shirt. I just have this big ugly sweatshirt on until we get to school. It was the only sweatshirt I could find this mourning because all of my other ones are in the wash." I said. "Well take it off ASAP ok." "You know Judy I am really tired of you telling me what to do and keeping me away from other kids! I want to have more than just one friend! I know that you are lying to me about a bunch of stuff." "What are you talking about! I wouldn't lie to you! Why would I do that?" "Iv'e been to a lot of schools already and I know that when you move a lot of kids know about you and want to be your friend." "What are you talking about?!" "You still don't get it do you?" It was perfect, just as I planned! It was the only sweatshirt that I had that day and I knew that Judy would tell me to take it off ASAP, because it was a plain bright yellow sweatshirt with black and gray zippers that was HUGE on me. Underneath that I wore my favorite shirt so I didn't look like a total slob the whole day. She was at least happy with the shirt. It was a pink shirt that had beads on the top of it and a really cute neckline and the way that it was put together was just perfectly, perfectly, I don't even know how to describe it. Anyway lets get back to the story. That's when I was going to tell her that I was tired of her being bossy and mean and figure out why she was being like that. So far it was working! "Every day you tell me that this kid does this and this kid does that, but when I see them around school they do the complete opposite and they say the complete opposite of what you tell me they say to other kids. That's when I know you're lying to me. I would like to know why and this could all be over so we could be friends." "Fine I'll tell you." Yes it was working! "When you moved here everybody liked you and you were all popular and stuff so I wanted kids to be jealous." "What did you want them to be jealous about?" "I wanted them to be jealous of me because you were my friend and know one elses." "Well that didn't work out to well now did it? Judy even if I had other friends you would be my best friend, but only if you were nice of course. Just rememer that new friends are silver but best friends are gold." "I guess I got carried away on how we looked on the outside more than how we looked on the inside. I'm sorry." "It's ok as long as you promise never to do that to me or anyone else again." "Ok. It's a deal." It worked! My plan worked! From that point on we were like normal kids at school an didn't get into fights that much anymore. We had alot of new friends to. Hunter, Tyler, Olivia, Lidia, and a whole lot more. We were known as the two that never left each others side from then on.

Judy and I were friends again and we got along much better. We then had new friends. We were still in fourth grade and we were keeping it the way that we wanted, terrific. We rarely got into any fights. When we did though they were over very quickly. We played together on the playground again and we sat next to eachother on the bus and played games until we got to our stop. It was awesome. I then knew what it was like to have a great friend. When we needed help on something we would call eachother and go to eachothers house to help with the question. We lived right down the street from eachother to. It was like if we needed something there was alwas a lifeline there to help. We had play dates together and we layed out on the grass eating penut butter and jelly on a fuzzy picnic blanket. The air smelled so good. There was a scent of flowers in the air along with the trees and the grass. When we were playing in the fields near forests we heard bumble bees go buzz buzz buzz. We ran away from that spot though because we didn't want to get stung. I saw people riding their tractors along the side of the road and horses running in the fields. It was then fifth grade and things were going perfect. Judy came up to me one day and asked,"Hey Sophia, just out of curiosity are you moving? Cause if you are I'm going to miss you." "No I don't think so." Things were like I said,great. I guess that I lived and learned. I just didn't know yet what was going to happen in a few months. = =

It was October and Judy and I talked about Halloween the entire month until the day we got to get all dressed up and stay out late eating candy. Infact that was the only thing that we talked about. One day in class Judy yelled out, "I could be a grafete ghost for Halloween! That would be so cool! I coud wear an old bride's dress and do my hair really cool!" All I could say was, "What on Earth is a grafete ghost?" The class started laghing so hard. Then Judy asked, "Why is everyone laghing?" The class yelled out," A grafete ghost hugh?!" Judy's face turned red. I have a Halloween party every year. This was the second party I had and got to pick what I wanted to do. Now my Dad has some pretty crazy ideas and that year he was a ghost pirate. It was really freaky. We went into the forest and looked for the goody bags as a treasure hunt. It was fun. Until my Dad came out from the bushes and scared us so bad the neighbors on the other side of the woods could here us. He scared Judy so much that, being a ghost for Halloween and all, she looked like a ghost to. She was pale white. I felt so bad. Kind of like what happened to a girl at this years party. She did a cartwheel into a different room and screamed so loud because the sight of my dad as Dracula. We went trick-or-treating and it was a lot of fun. We got so much candy. Then November came, It was all great, until the week before Thanksgiving happened. I found out that I was moving back to New Jersey. I didn't tell Judy until the first week of December though. I didn't want anything bad to happen like before. When I told her she said, "That can't be true. You said that you weren't going to move. That can't happen, no." I said, "It's true, I'm going to live with my Nana and Loopin in New Jersey. I know that it's sad, but we can get in touch, right? I mean that's what they invented e-mail and telephones for." "But it wont be the same" "I know. But lets make our last few weeks the best weeks we will ever have." We did just that. The last few weeks were our favorite and they were the best of them all. We hung out together every day. We played together on the playgroung together and with our other friends to. Then my last day of school in PA came. It was so sad. But it was fun to. The entire day was basically opening gifts, watching movies, and playing games. It was the best. Then the bell rang. We got on the bus and spent our last few minutes together. It was the sadest time of the day. We talked about the best times we had and the worst times. We promised eachother that we would see eachother agian. We did once actually. My Grammy moved to our old house so I can got back to visit. Then the bus came to a stop, my stop. I said goodby to Judy. Then she said, "Wait Sophia! From the day that I met you to today, you have been my best friend. That might change when you move but I will alwayse remember that new friends are silver but best friends are gold. I will also always remember that beauty is great on the outside but on the inside it better than any present or pair of clothes that anyone will ever have. You taught me that and I will never forget it. Thank you." "Judy I will never forget you, ever. I am just going to keep it short cause I kinda have to go. You are a great friend and I will never ever forget you. I will call you when I get to New Jersey and I will try to visit as much as I can. Thank you for being a great friend to me. I will never forget you." I got off the bus and as the bus drove away, I saw a tear in Judy's eye. I cryed to. I realized that beauty is a way of style on the outside, and it's great to have, but on the inside beauty is the one thing that really counts.