//------------------------------// // The Childhood Friend // Story: Mareitime Academy Diaries // by Mica //------------------------------// “Sunny, you know you’re not supposed to come into my dorm room after 9:30.” Sunny grips my door frame. “Come on, Hitch, it’s not like Mrs. Cloverleaf is watching. She doesn’t do her bed checks till a quarter to 11. Anyway, can you read over my latest manuscript for the children’s pony story thingy?” “Only if you’ll help me on my chemistry homework after,” I say. “Deal.” She steps inside, leaving the door wide open. It’s the policy the school set specifically for me, so that I don’t feel entirely isolated in the dorms. Since I’m the only male student in the whole school, I’m allowed to have female guests in my room, but only up to 60 minutes before lights out at 10:30, and the door must be wide open and lights all on while they’re in my room. It’s 9:34pm now, or 56 minutes prior to lights out. Sunny’s clearly in violation of that bylaw. Sunny’s my longtime childhood friend, though. I’ve known her since before kindergarten. Do I tell on her? Rules are rules, sure, but if I were a real man, I shouldn’t be complaining that an attractive girl my age is wanting to come into my room. Yep, this is me, Hitch Trailblazer. Due to some administrative mishaps, I am the only male student at Mareitime Academy, a grade 7-12 all-girls’ boarding school. Let me explain. Technically, when I joined in freshman year, it was Mareitime Academy’s first year as a co-ed boarding school, after being an all-girls school for fifty years. Except I was the only guy who signed up. I liked the place when they gave me a tour during summer break. The place was super clean (especially the brand new boys’ bathrooms they put in the hallways). The teachers were nice, too. When the admin realized I was the only one who signed up, they offered to transfer me to an equally rigorous co-ed boarding school in another town. I said no. Surprisingly, Mom was down with it. Something about gender equality and rebellion against archaic single-gender education. I don’t know. I don’t understand Mom sometimes. She’s the kind of person that’ll yell at the person in front of her in the checkout line just because they choose “plastic bag” instead of “paper bag.” After Mareitime Academy tried the co-ed thing for one year and they realized it was a total flop—since, well, no boys except for me signed up—they went back to being an all-girls school my sophomore year. But they gave me special permission to stay. So now I’m the only guy in an all-girls school. Sunny I know well. She’s my next door neighbor from back home in Mareitime Bay. When we were little, we shared toys, walked to school together, and sat next to each other in class. Sunny’s mom died when she was 5, and her dad died when she was 12. After her dad died and she moved to live with her aunt in a faraway town, I’d thought I’d never be able to see her again. Funny how things turn out. (My decision to join Mareitime Academy had nothing to do with the fact that Sunny had been attending that school for the past two years. None at all.) Tired of banging my head on my chemistry homework, I get up from my desk and sit down on my bed. My room’s got plenty of space. It’s basically a regular room that’s normally used as a double. I’ve also got a private ensuite bathroom. Sunny joins me on the bed. The bed’s in a corner of the room so that even with the door fully open the view is obscured. “Sunny, we shouldn’t—” “Oh relax, Hitch.” She rolls her eyes. I think she’s more annoyed than anything. “What about all those sleepovers we had back in elementary school?” Sunny was the only girl in the neighborhood, and I was the only boy that didn’t tease her. So, Sunny’s dad seemed to always bring her to my place for playdates and sleepovers. “Well, that was a long time ago, Sunny,” I say. “We’re older now.” She smirks. “Oh, so are you saying I shouldn’t trust you and your self-control—” “No, no,” I cut her off. “Of course not. I…” I scoot a few centimeters away from her, to reduce the evidence against me. And I try to rehearse what to tell Mrs. Cloverleaf if she finds us. Sunny hears me whispering. “Why’re you so afraid of Mrs. Cloverleaf’s bed checks, anyway?” “Because if she sees you in my room after 9:30, I’d be violating the school policy on co-ed visits. Mrs. Cloverleaf and the school administration are putting so much trust in me by letting me enroll here in the first place, and I’d be breaching that trust. She’d think I was trying to take advantage of you, and I—” “…and I’d vouch for you.” She places her hand on my shoulder. “Calm down, Hitch. We’re friends, okay? There’s nothing wrong with two friends sitting next to each other, fully clothed. “Oh. Yeah. The reason I came here.” Sunny rummages into her bag and pulls out a handwritten manuscript. “Here’s my latest draft of the children’s story. ‘My Little Pony: Princess Twilight and Her Adventures in Equestria.’ Volume 1.” I skim through the 80-page notebook Sunny handed me. More fictional stories about magical talking ponies. Apparently, they’re based off the bedtime stories her dad used to tell her. Sunny’s dad loved horses. It seems like yesterday when Sunny and I had a sleepover, and she’d repeat and re-repeat those stories about ponies to me. I guess she never grew out of them. This time she’s got digital renderings of the characters she created, printed on photo paper and sandwiched between the pages of the notebook. There’s six ponies in the foreground: an orange pony with a cowboy hat; a pink pony with poofy hair; two winged ones, one blue, one yellow; one white unicorn with a purple mane; and one purple winged unicorn standing in the center, wings outstretched. “I snuck into the digital art studio downstairs so I could use Adobe Illustrator. Don’t tell anyone, okay?” She smirks and hides the bottom half of her face with the collar of her blue sweater. I should tell. I should. Sunny’s not allowed to access that space unless she’s taking a class. She can get a demerit for what she did. There’s an extra sheet of paper clipped at the end. “What’s this?” “Oh, it’s a theme song I’ve been working on, when my books get adapted to a TV show.” “If—” “When,” she reemphasizes. She sings the childish tune for me, out loud. I follow along with the sheet music. My Little Pony, My Little Pony, What is friendship all about… A whole song. She writes a whole song. Not part of any class, no extra credit, no points. Just all her. How does she do it? …Friends, you’re my very best friends? She finishes singing, and she turns to me, a smiling exhale coming out of her mouth. “Nice,” I say, politely applauding. “You like it? You really do?” I’ve never seen her giggle so much in a long time. “I…I do.” I show her a polite smile. She sings just like she did during our sleepovers. Slightly off-key, simplistic melody. Like a child. Though I wonder if she’s making her voice that way on purpose, since it’s a kids’ song and all. Our backs are to the door. I hear footsteps. Tap. Tap. And a rustling. The rustling of a large square of fabric. Mrs. Cloverleaf wears a floral shawl. It’s her! I knew it! She’s coming to my room to do an early bed check! “Sunny, hide!” I whisper to her. Sunny does what I daren’t do and pokes her head out the door. “Hitch, stop panicking, it’s just Pipp.” Sunny and I walk over to Pipp, who, at 10 in the evening, still has her full makeup on and her fuzzy white fur vest. Real fur, apparently. “Hey, Pipp!” Pipp smiles widely. “Hi Sunny! I’m just going down the hall passing flyers for this year’s musical. We’re doing Forgotten Friendship…oh my gosh, you should SO audition!” She holds Sunny’s right hand. “You were, like, so good in last year’s musical! I just know you are gonna be fabulous, oh my gosh.” She briefly glances at me, like an afterthought. “Hitch, you want a flyer too?” “Erm, sure,” the afterthought says, taking two copies. “Have a good night, Sunny~!” And with that, she skips back down the hall, singing her “me-me-me” vocal warmups. She ascends the C-minor scale with perfect AutoTune precision. “You gonna audition?” I ask Sunny. She isn’t even looking at the flyer in her hand. Sunny skims the flyer, then half-crumples it. “Nah, I won’t. I’m gonna be too busy working on my book.” “But Pipp is right, you were really good as Maria von Trapp last year.” “It wasn’t exactly pleasant, though. Zipp played my husband.” Just one of the realities of theater in an all-girls school. Zipp always gets the guy parts ‘cause she looks the most butch out of all the girls who audition. She doesn’t particularly enjoy it either—I’m sure the only reason Zipp does theater is to spite her sister. “Hey, maybe you should try auditioning, Hitch.” She shoves the flyer back to me. “You want me to audition as your husband?” I ask. “Ah! Erm…I mean, all I’m saying is…if I were auditioning, which I’m not, I’d rather you play my husband than, erm…say, Zipp. You know. ‘Cause you’re actually a guy and all.” She’s silent. For a while. And she’s staring at me awkwardly. No smile, no sadness, just…stare. Maybe she’s assessing what I’d be like as her husband. I suppose the neighbors back home expect that we’d get married someday. We live close by, been good friends since kindergarten. She’s literally “the girl next door.” Suddenly a look of displeasure falls over Sunny’s face. Okay, maybe I assumed wrong. Then she snaps out of it. “Anyway, that theater experience was good for my growth at the time. But I gotta move on. It’s time for me create my own story. And have other people fighting to act in my own story. I wanna break out of the loop.” “Loop?” She raises her eyebrows. “You ever feel like that? Like you’re trapped in this magical neverending loop, and you just can’t break free.” Am I stuck in a loop? Pretty much every day, I see Sunny. As early as I can remember. She looks the same to me, simply ‘cause I’ve grown along with her. “Our whole lives are like a loop. Just the things in the loop change as we get older. Now, it’s schoolwork, afterschool clubs, lunch, lights out. Later it’ll be schoolwork, sorority parties, bar hopping, pass out. Then it’ll be work, little league tournament, family dinners, lights out. Then it’ll be retirement, shuffleboard, brunch, lights out. Then lights out, lights out, lights out, lights out. You get what I’m saying, Hitch?” A bit too philosophical for me, but I suppose she’s right. We are in a loop. But I like this loop. I like Sunny. She’s a nice gal. And I know her so well, I could be bored with her. I could sit all day with her with nothing to do, and I’d feel okay. I think I want to get trapped in a loop. That way, I know exactly what’s gonna happen next. “Oop. 10:29. Guess I better be goin’ to my room before I get in trouble,” she says in a singsong voice, with a smirk on her face. “Oh, Sunny…” I stop her at the door. “Yeah?” I almost wanna tell her that she never helped me on my chemistry homework. But it’s past lights out anyway. Instead I say, “It was a good song. The ponies, and the song about friendship and all that. It’s cute. I think kids’ll like it.” “Thanks, Hitch,” she says through her whispery giggling.