I pull out my phone again, refreshing the maps. Only three more minutes. I hear a crunch under my feet as I'm looking at my phone and stop walking. I see hundreds of fallen trees on the street ahead of me. I dig my foot under a few of the leaves and as I take my next step, I kick leaves flying everywhere. I laugh and with every step, I send more leaves into the air. Some land in my hair, one going inside my jacket, making my back itch. I keep kicking them up all the way up the street. I hear a little boy point me out to his mother and start kicking the leaves like him. I hear her scold him for it as I'm turning the corner.
A few weeks after her 16th birthday, Maggie's mum had announced that they were moving house. We were devastated. We lived three streets from her house and her moving away seemed like the end of the world. We tried to convince her parents not to move but they said that the house they were renting was being sold, so they had to leave. Maggie and I slept over at each other's houses every second night for two months, much to our parents' dismay. They figured that if they were going to separate us, they may as well let us spend as much time together as we could. They actually almost changed her mind when Maggie started to eat less. She always said that she couldn't eat and that it made her feel dizzy. She also started being really pale all the time but doctors said there was nothing wrong with her so they let us continue our series of sleepovers. I remember the day a house went up for sale on our street. It wasn't available to rent and buying wasn't what they had wanted to do but it was the only place anywhere near our school and her parents' jobs. The day they moved in was the best day of our lives. I helped them move in and after all the boxes were in the house, we went for ice cream. Halfway there, we walked into a strip with hundreds of crunchy fallen leaves.
"Emme," she said, grabbing my hand to stop me walking on them, "it's time for our Autumn tradition."
I had gasped and then still holding hands, we scooped up the leaves with our feet and with each step, we sent leaves soaring into the sky.
YOU ARE READING
My Best Friend named Maggie
Short StoryI told her my name was Emme and she said that her elephant was called Remy. She said that my name rhymed with her elephant's name. She told me she was called Maggie.
