Page 15 of Rewind It Back

“That’s awesome. My room is just white.”

“I think I’ll do yellow. Do you like yellow?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be yellow.” She points up to a window facing my house. “That one is my room. Luke got to choose first and he picked the bigger room.”

I point to the window on my house that faces hers and shares a roof. “That one is my room.”

“You can watch me paint my room from your room!”

“Okay. That sounds cool.”

“Do you want to be friends?”

Well, that was easy. Just last night I was praying for a new friend, and here she is. “Sure!”

“My brother will probably tell you not to be my friend.”

“I don’t care. I’m friends with a lot of people. I can be his friend and your friend. Or we can be secret friends.”

Her smile grows. “Okay.” She looks down at my feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“I was practicing my skating, but I had to take them off because my dad went inside, and I fall too much. But I’m getting better at skating.”

“Do you like music?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. I love music.” She presses the rewind button on her cassette player.

“CDs are way better than tapes,” I tell her. “You should start buying CDs.”

“I like tapes. CDs scratch too much when you rewind them and then they don’t work right.”

“What are you listening to?”

“I don’t know the name. I just picked a song to remember the moment.”

Huh?

She must realize how confused I am because she adds, “I pick a song when something cool or important happens so I can remember it. Then when I want to relive a moment, I rewind it back and start the song from the beginning.”

That’s kind of weird but I don’t tell her that. I also don’t think it’d bother her if I called her weird. I think she’d keep doing what she’s doing.

And that makes her pretty cool.

“Are you trying to remember moving?” I ask.

“Yeah. And meeting a new friend. You should try it sometime.”

“Okay. Maybe I will.”

Her smile turns proud.

“Rio!” my mom calls from the front door. “Dinnertime,Tesoro.”

She glances at Hallie quickly before peeking out the front door to look for our new neighbors. My mom gives her that signature kind smile she always wears and goes back inside.

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