Random Acts of Friendship

“Layla, time to wake up!” mom said from downstairs.

“Ugh, okay, I’m up,” I said. I changed from my polka dot pajamas and went down the stairs.

“Good morning, sweet heart.”

“Good morning mom.”

“ How did you sleep?”

“ Okay I guess.” I said while trying to get the sleepy seed out of my eye.

“Eat your cereal quick,” mom said, “and get ready for your first day of middle school.”

“Okay.” I ate my cereal quickly before it got soggy and put on my black shoes that I got from my dad. I really miss that I don’t get to see him that much because of his work. Then I got my big black backpack. Yes, my favorite color is black it makes me look cool. I started to open the front door when I heard mom say,

“Don’t forget your water bottle!”

“ Ugh, why do I keep forgetting my water bottle!?” I said to myself

I go to the kitchen and put in warm water in my black water bottle. I look at the clock of the microwave and see that I’m late so I run to the front door and see that the bus is going away

“ Stop, wait for me!” The bus does not stop right away, and I keep yelling for a while then the bus stops and I get on the bus. Everyone on the bus looks at me like I’m crazy. Maybe I look crazy because of my hair. It's not brushed so it’s really tangled and it’s all on my face and some on my mouth. I go to the end of the bus and sit on the far right side of the bus. I take my Rubik's cube out of my backpack, and start to solve it. I’m pretty good at it. After I solve it I try to brush my hair with my finger. After I think I did enough I stopped brushing my hair with my fingers also because my finger was getting tired and starting to hurt.

The bus stops and we all get out of the bus. I get out of the bus last so I wont get pushed or get touched a lot. That's why I sat in the back of the bus, so I could get out last.

I went in the front door of the school to get to my class, then a teacher stopped me.

“You need to wait when the bell rings then you can go inside.”

“Oh, okay.” I walk to where people are lining up and go behind a short girl. She turns around and says, “ Are you in this class?”

“I think so?” I say it in a questioning tone she rolls her eyes and says

“Are you in Mrs. Charlotte class?”

“No.”

“ Okay then, go away.”

I walked away and said, “What a great day”

“What?” a taller girl askes

“Nothing.”

“Alright, are you in Ms. Smith class?”

“Yes!”

“ You are in the right line then,” she said, “ By the way my name is Grace. What’s your name?”

“ My name is Layla.”

“Cool, I like your name.”

“Thank you!”

DING DONG DING DONG “ That’s the bell.” Grace says

“ It sounds like church bells.”

“ Yeah.” she said while walking to the front door to our classes.

After my three classes ACC, SS(social studies),and math it was time for lunch. I sat at one of the single tables with my back against the wall and started to eat my tacos. Then I saw a girl sitting by herself. I guess I’m not the only one sitting by myself and not having friends. I thought to myself she looked at me and smiled shyly.

“He he he he.”

“ Oh he is so cute!”

“ Just look at his paw!”

“ He is so fluffy!”

I heard a group of girls giggle and laugh. As they walked to a table and did what friends do. I rolled my eyes. I took my homework from my backpack and started solving the math questions. But I kept looking at the girls. Then I said to myself I don’t need any friends, they just get in the way and they bring trouble. After I finished my homework I took my Rubik's cube and solved it. The bell rang and it was the end of lunch, I threw my trash away and went to science. The shy girl was in my science class. She looked at me and waved. I think she wants to be my friend but it's too bad for her because I don’t want any friends. She sat in the front of the class, I sat in the back of the classroom not because I want to get away from her, it's just because I don’t want someone to throw rolled up paper on me and because I don’t like that much attention.

“Hello everyone,” The teacher says, “first thing I would like you to do is get a partner and talk about yourself for ten minutes then get a computer.”

The shy girl comes and says

“Do you want to be partners?”

“Sure?” I say it like a question, “ My name is Layla.”

“Nice, my name is Joy,” she said smiling, “I like to watch movies a lot, especially Peter pan.” We talked a lot, and I shared things I didn't tell anyone. I found that I was actually having a lot of fun with her.

After school I got on the bus and went home. I did my homework and played with my Rubik's cube and when I solved it I read my book until dinner. We eat chipotle at home with some orange pop. Orange pop is my favorite.

A few days passed and Joy had a ton of friends. I think she heard me say I don’t need any friends, I’m good by myself. So she didn’t try to be friends with me. It’s okay because I don’t want any friends but as I saw how much fun Joy and her friends were having I wanted to join them but they might not want me so I didn’t. After school I went home and while eating dinner mom said

“So, have you made friends?”

“No.” mom eyebrows went up

“ You don’t have friends?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” talking about this was making me angry

“Why don’t you have any friends?”

“ Because I DON’T NEED ANY FRIENDS!” I yelled at her, “Sorry Mom.”

“ No it’s okay darling, You know not every friend is like Mia.”

“ Mom, don't talk about her.”

“ Layla, you have been struggling for two years now, you need to let go. You doing this is not going to help.”

“ Mom is not just about Mia. People don’t like me. In the first week of school they gave me glares. Someone said go away to me as they don’t want me in this school. Also I can’t make friends because Joy is taking all the friends.” I said this about Joy because I was jealous of her. When I looked at her she smiled and seemed to know Joy.

“ Layla, I want you to make friends in three days.”

“Why?”

“ Why not?”

“ Because they are trouble.”

“ No they’re not. Mia was.”

“ They need to change how they are, they only think about themselves.” I said in a complaining voice

“ Layla, they are not the ones who need to change. You are, just let go,” mom said in a gentle voice, “ do it for me.”

“ Okay.” I said and she smiled and said thank you.

The next day at lunch Joy brought three balloons and a needle one balloon has a price when you pop it, another one you get a dare, and the other one when you pop it you get splashed with water. It looked fun. Grace was the one who got splash, her face and hair was dripping. Then Clue got a dare he needed to tell everyone that he liked unicorns. Knowing there was only the surprise left, Joy saw me watching them, she smiled at me.

“ Okay Layla this one's for you” she said as loud as she could everyone looked at me I felt uncomfortable that a lot of pairs of eyes were looking at me.

“ Come on, pop it,” she said cheerfully. I went with a nervous smile and took the long needle and popped it. It was 2 dollars.

“ You can buy ice cream with that,” she said. When I looked at her brown eyes I felt like she knew that I liked ice cream a lot. It was the same look mom give me when I thought she knew Joy, I guess mom knows Joy. I went and bought mint ice cream. Then I went to my seat and ate it. Joy came to me and said

“ How is it? ”

“ It’s really good!” I said with a mouth full of ice cream.

“ Do you want to be friends?” she said in a hopeful voice. I did not know what to say so I waited for a minute but it felt like 100 years. She waited for me to answer. Should I be friends with her? She is really nice and happy but what if she does not like the things I like? What if she is like Mia but is hiding it. But I will never know if I don’t try. She might be a great friend, right? I though.

“Yes we can be friends.” I said quickly before I changed my mind.

“Great, I can’t wait to get to know you.” her smile was bigger than ever. I guess she really wanted to be friends with me.

“ You know I was waiting for you to ask if we could be friends but you didn’t so I just asked. Is not because I heard you say that you didn’t want any friends.” she started to walk away but then she turned around and and said

“ Do you want to come over to my house and do homework?”

“ Sure, that would be great!”

After school me and Joy walked to her house. She had a beautiful garden and all the flowers were bright. Her house was beautiful with all the flowers in front and the grass so soft and green.

“ Your house is so beautiful”

“ Thank you. I work on the garden on the weekends.”

“ It really looks so great. You must be working hard on it.”

“ I guess. It’s fun to garden, it’s satisfying when the roots of the weeds come out easily.” she said it in a happy way.

We went into her house. Her house smelled like fresh roses.

“ Can I borrow your phone? I need to call my mother so she wont get worried.”

“Sure she took her phone out of her backpack and handed it to me. I put her number and call her

“ Hello?” mom said in the phone

“ Hi mom. I’m at a friend's house doing our homework together. I will come when I’m done with my homework.”

“ Okay have fun!” I gave Joy her phone back that had a cute cat picture in her phone case. We both did math and Language Arts homework. She was better at math and I was better on Language art, homework

A week later in science class we needed to do a big project for the science fair. It's the place where three judges choose what project is better and more interesting. It's in the cafeteria. All grades come 6th, 7th and 8th. So the cafeteria is packed. I was worried that my project will not be good. But Joy new that I won the science fair last year so she said

“Don’t worry. You won the science fair last year. You will win it again.” she said it in a confident way. She was right. I did win the science fair.

Now every lunch time I did not feel lonely because I ate with a lot of people but Grace and Joy were my BFF. We had a lot of fun. Grace had a pool and we played there when we got time, in her pool we played monkey and the middle. It was nice having friends that you could trust and have fun with.

Every time I see a person that does not have any friends I help them have friends like Joy helped me. I found out that friends are great and that they help you in hard times and that shows that friends are important.