“Aw, fricklestein,” I grumbled under my breath, reaching down with one hand to inspect the rip up the leg of my shorts. It wouldn’t have been quite as big a deal, I suppose, had I not just bought them earlier that week. Luckily, despite how short they were – I’m not going to lie, I consider my legs the most attractive part of me, and I don’t mind showing them off – the tear stopped short of actually revealing anything I’d prefer to leave unseen.

“What did you say?” Lela giggled beside me, adjusting her glasses. Despite having been my best friend for pretty much all my life, apparently she had never heard me curse, or had, possibly, just forgotten.

“Cheap piece of junk,” I ignored her question, my fidgeting finally drawing her brown eyes down to the site of the tragedy. “Two days. Can you believe that?”

She shrugged. “I’m seeing it.” A brunette ponytail pendulummed halfway down her back as she shook her head. “You should see about getting a refund.”

“Probably won’t do anything,” I said sourly. Annoyed, I brushed a strand of golden hair from out of my blue eyes. It was always the blonde that got in my face – the black was nice and obedient, hanging there right above my shoulders, but the one little patch of yellow right at the front I’d left alone just had to be sassy. “’Sides, I think Rita’s working today.”

“She might not be doing returns,” she suggested, so sweetly, so very naive, obviously unaware of the way the real world worked. She had such an innocent look on her face, I couldn’t bring myself to enlighten her, just smiled sadly down at her. She was about six inches shorter than me, even though she was a couple months older, and still had a smattering of freckles, and a touch of baby fat, all of which sometimes made it hard to take her seriously. It did explain why she was such a popular babysitter, however.

Speaking of which, it was about then that her latest charge, an unquenchably energetic little six year old boy, ran up to us, hands full of various leaves. “Look, look!” he called, thrusting them up into Lela’s face.

“Great job!” she complimented him, slipping a ziplock from her purse to put the leaves into. “Do you have enough for your project yet?”

He hesitated for a second or two before nodding, so Lela said, “Why don’t you go get a few more, just in case?” He nodded, then quickly turned and scampered off. At a distance, even I couldn’t deny he was quite adorable. That’s when kids are the best – when they’re far away.

“I’ve missed this,” Lela said, tucking the bag away into her purse.

“Leaves?” I teased. “There’s usually quite a few of them in the park.”

“But we haven’t been here in so long,” she stuck out her tongue. “Smart ass.”

“I’ve just been busy,” I shrugged, staring up into the branches of a nearby tree. “You know how it is… I’ve got ballet all the time, and when I don’t have that, the band’s wanting to practice, and then I still had to do homework and spend some time with Keith.”

“At least it’s summer now, right? And tell Keith you spend enough time with him in the band – you need some Lela time, too.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

The kid came running back while we were giggling at that, and after Lela took his latest haul, she decided it was time for them to get going. I didn’t really have anything else to do, but getting sucked into some weird daycare art project wasn’t high on my list of things to do for that day, so I parted ways with them there.

“See ya,” Lela waved.

“Bye, Skye!” the boy chirped.

“Bye… you…” I answered, drawing a blank when it came to actually remembering the kid’s name. I don’t know how Lela ever managed to keep them all straight.

I tugged gently at my shorts, wondering if I’d be able to talk my mom into sewing them up. She wasn’t a fan of them in the first place, and I’m not entirely sure she knew how to run a sewing machine, or if we even owned one. Grandma could do it in about 15 seconds, but she lived all the way across town. Not to mention that she would be more likely to throw them away if I told them they were mine. My family, if you hadn’t guessed, is a bunch of prudes.

Lela, on the other hand, was pretty good at all that domestic crap. Maybe I could take them over to her house later on. I turned around to see if she was still within shouting distance – she wasn’t – before fishing my cell out of my pocket.