Things Change

Things Change

Leah Pettit

Period 3

Mr. Ellis

When I was seven years old, a new family moved in around the corner, They had 5 kids, whose names all started with K – Klara, number 3, was just my age. The following Sunday, I met Klara at church, and we were fast friends. We spent tons of time together. After all, it was summer, so every day and most nights we spent in each other’s company. We were exactly the same – rowdy, hyper girlie girls who only talked about the 6 handsome Benson boys who lived down the street.

Klara and I were troublemakers. We’d climb trees in other people’s yards, play in the mud in our new white socks just to make our moms mad, eat disgusting combinations of food such as a cookie, toothpaste, and ketchup sandwich, play in the sprinklers wearing her mom’s high heels and petticoats- you think of something random and crazy and we did it.

Klara and I wrote, directed, and starred in plays. We would come up with silly non-coherent plots and expect our parents and a few select others 75 cents to see them. We would act out ridiculous scenes and expect laughter and applause. We had so much  fun, even my older sister (who was “too cool”) got jealous and insisted on acting with us.

Our families mostly got along as well. All except for Keegan, Klara’s 14 year old brother. We’d lock him out of the house and raid his room, and when he’d finally catch us, he would drag us outside and mercilessly peg us with water balloons. The worst incident by far occurred was when I was about 9 years old. Klara and I locked Keegan out, and he shocked and scared us by gasp flipping us off. We let him back in the house out of terror, and he was so angry he carried us outside, a kicking and screaming 9-year old under each arm, and used cheap yellow rope to tie us to the splintery wooden poles that held the aluminum panel over her patio up. He left us there for 3 hours, until Klara’s sister Kelsey rescued us. Periodically during the 3 hours, he and his doofus friends would walk by, point, and laugh. I had rope burns for 3 days.

Klara and I had officially become one person. That is, until the day that Klara told me that her father, who was a sergeant in the United States Army, was being relocated to Oklahoma. I cried. So did she. Over the next month and a half, we cried alot. But the day finally came that Klara drove away, and her once busy, happy house was empty save for the memories we shared there. I was devastated.

But Klara and I wrote each other every other week. I felt so special, addressing a letter to “Edmond, OK”. In every way except for physical distance, we were closer than ever. But then she started moving on. And I hated her for it.

Four years of bi-weekly letters, and semi-annual phone calls. Then, in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I found out she was coming to visit. I was ecstatic. Two whole weeks with Klara – what could be better? At the airport, I was so exited that I told my sister to drop me off at the wrong terminal – I ran halfway across LAX in sandals and a jean skirt.

When she came off the airplane, I looked right past her. She wasn’t the Klara I knew, but I eventually recognized the tan, freckly face, brown eyes and big smile of my best friend. She dropped her bags and hugged. She cried. We were together again.

But Klara was different. Or maybe the problem is that she wasn’t. She was still sloppy, naive, rude, obnoxious, and self-centered, but I had changed. I was hyper, yes, but I was now a neat freak, flirtatious, and entirely focused on school, swimming and my music. She still only talked about the 6 handsome Benson boys, and I had moved on to the high school boys I so eagerly flirted with. By the end of the two weeks, we couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

We drove to the airport, listening to the beatles very loud to avoid conversation, and right before she boarded her plane we hugged – for the last time. We exchanged a few half-hearted “I’ll miss you”s and said we’d write. We never did.

It’s three years later, and thinking about Klara still makes me want to smile and cry. We grew apart. That’s all. And now, the only thing to do is look back and remember picking honeysuckle, writing plays, a tearful goodbye, and a disappointing reunion.