Louisiana hadn’t played with Dakota for a long while. About six months. This was the longest it had ever been. The two had been best friends since kindergarten. No, longer than that, thought Louisiana. Since they were toddlers!
Their friendship started when both kids were four. Pre-K was a scary place for Louisiana, who grinded her teeth like crazy the moment she and her mother got there.
“‘Ana, stop grinding, you’ll shred your teeth,” Her mother told her, and for the moment tiny ‘Louisiana did stop, but resumed when the teacher came over.
“Oh, is this Louisiana?” Asked the teacher.
And while the teacher and Louisiana’s mother talked, Louisiana walked around the classroom, looking at everything. Little tables about a foot and a half tall were everywhere each with three seats. In Front of all the seats was a colorless smiling sun. There were letter magnets on the white board and pictures of smiling faces all around the classroom.
Louisiana saw some tables were empty, and some were full, and one had just one girl at it. Perfect. Louisiana didn’t want to be at a table filled with people, but she certainly didn’t want to be alone.
She sat at the table, grabbed a fat pencil, and began writing on the back of paper with the black and white sun. Once there was a sun named Ray. he loved shining on good children in the day time, and talking with the moon at night. The end.
She looked up to see the girl sitting next to her looking over her paper. She laughed. “That’s a funny story.”
Louisiana smiled. “My name’s Louisiana. What about you?”
“Dakota. Hey, my names prettier than yours!” Dakota yelled. Then she went on. I thought we were supposed to color the sun, so I was busy coloring it.” Dakota laughed.
“Oh, I didn’t think about that,” Louisiana said, embarrassed.
Louisiana looked at Dakota’s sun, which was yellow with squiggly black eyelashes, purple eye-shadow, and orange polka-dots at the bottom of it.
“Why’s the sun have polka-dots?” asked Louisiana.
“That’s cheetah print!” Dakota explained quickly. And both the girls laughed.
When Louisiana got home, she told her mother of her new friend.
“She sounds full of herself, saying her name is prettier than yours.” Mom told her, but Dakota didn’t care.
She couldn’t wait until tomorrow when she could talk to Dakota again, but as it turned out, Dakota’s grandmother’s car was driving down the same street, with Dakota in the back seat!
The girls looked at each other through the back seat windows, and as soon as their relatives stopped the car, they ran out to each other, and started to play a game of princess monkey fairies.