A Hidden Picture

Fourteen

~ Reed ~ eight years ago ~ fourth grade

"Ro! Come here!" I yell to my cousin whose taking his time as he walks over.

"Your cousin is really slow," Jesse complains next to me.

I'm starting to get annoyed because it's really hot outside, and I'm sweating and thirsty. Jesse's also sweating. His little afro seems like it's grown in size. Wait how did it do that?

When I asked him how he got his hair like that he said magic. I asked him if he could do magic on me so I could have hair that stood up too and he said no. That was kind of disappointing.

"Wait a second! Jeez!" Ro speeds up, now walking a little faster. The girl behind him walks at her own pace too. In no rush.

He obviously is annoyed which is making me even more annoyed because he has no right to be annoyed. We've been sweating our butts off and he's the one whose taking his sweet time!

Jesse and I stand there with our arms crossed. Waiting.

I regret inviting him with us.

When he finally is in front us, the girl standing behind him as well, I stare him dead in the eye. He rolls his eyes and blows out a breath of air.

"Okay okay I get it! Can we just get this thing over with?" Ro throws his hands up dramatically. "What are we even doing anyway? We had to stop in the middle of playing The Sims to come out here!" The girl behind him just darts her eyes in-between Jesse and I. I've seen her around school before with my cousin, but I don't know her name or why she's here. Except I don't care. As long as she doesn't snitch.

I dart my eyes around. "We can't talk about it here!" My voice comes out as a whisper-yell. We're in front of the outside of a store right now, people are around. They can't hear, I'm not trying to go to jail. Alina told me what happens to boys in prison.

What if I drop the soap?! A shiver of fear run through me at the thought. This is exactly why this needs to be top secret.

"Okay then you fool, where can we go to talk about it?" Ro seethes.

I look around and my eyes widen a little when I realize the perfect spot.

With my hand I beckon them all and walk down the sidewalk. Passing the people walking by. These people could be secret spies or police officers, so these idiots need to remember to shut their big fat mouths.

"Yo Reed look! There's a frog!" Jesse bends over and stares at the frog sitting in the crevice that divides the sidewalk and the street. It's tiny and green and looks like a blob.

Within an instant I bend down and scoop it up in my hands. "Cool, he can be our pet now." And with that I continue walking. Our new frog being sat within my palms.

~

Finally we've reached a dead end on one of the streets. An empty factory and a few rundown shops. And then an empty parking lot that looks into a river thingy which then leads into New York. There's a bunch of cars on it right now but I don't think they can see us, and they definitely can't hear us, so we're good.

"We've been walking for like hours! I'm tired." I roll my eyes and Ro's complaints.

"Cala boca. It's been ten minutes!" I whip my head around and narrow my eyes at him. He sighs. I just learned that from Mr. Lopes next door when I went to mow his lawn earlier for some candy money!

The girl he brought just follows along, she hasn't said a word. Maybe she's mute.

Her hair is short, curly, frizzy, and poofy. It's up to her shoulders. It looks fluffy.