“Is it okay if we sit with you?” asked Hope's musical voice. We awkwardly loomed over an unsuspecting girl in our school library. I stood beside my crush, pale as usual. “I’m Hope and this is Felix-Felix, but you can call him Feliximo for short.”

This girl we were asking got to be one of that next year. Little did we know how badly she wanted -more than anything- to be our friend. She had so many questions. It didn't matter the years between us. Was this her moment to ask us? After all, two amazing freshmen were talking with her right now. Wow, what an experience!

She giggled. “I’m Dues, Khabira Georgina Dues, but most people just call me Kristy. It’s an honor to meet you.”

In that library birthed a friendship, Kristy's first real friendship. We were a family of laughter, tears, and crazy adventure. Most importantly, we lived our real true lives together. Hope, Felix, Truman, and even Ruth on occasion would always encourage Kristy to be her best, never back down, and stay true to herself even if it meant doing something stupid. A better day had never come for our entire life. This day made us radiate more than we thought was possible.

Poor Qadir had to listen to his sister reign over his spirit for the rest of the month. In fairness, he forgot eventually ever not hearing about it. Qadir decided he regretted letting his little sister tour his highschool early that week. He never stopped regretting it, but he was quite proud all the while.

Kristy fidgeted with the pins on her shirt. "Please, I’d love to have you guys sit next to me. We’re going to be great friends. If you don't mind telling me, do you enjoy being in high school? My brother Qadir enjoys it and I want to know if the other students do as well. What is it like there?”

As we sat on the other side of the table, we dropped our backpacks to the floor. I unzipped it and pulled out paper, a pencil, and an Algebra book.

"It's nice," replied Hope.

"Wow, it was a real Algebra book!?" She asked. “Wouldn’t you say so?”

I chuckled. “It’s so much fun. There are tons of programs and you get to sit with all of your friends as long as you aren’t that loud even though we usually are.”

“I heard you guys are going to go on a trip to Italy. That’s so cool!”

“Sh, we’re in a library.” Hope hushed her. “It would be awesome if you came. I’ll talk to my teacher about it. Is that okay?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Does that mean I can come too? Ouch!” I asked as Hope punched me in the chest. “Is that a yes?”

“You’ll get kidnapped,” she commented. “What would I do then?”

“Kidnapped?” the eighth grader asked. "You freshmen are so cool; you have so many stories!"

“Please, come instead of him.” she chuckled, holding onto a gleaming silver locket. It had two hands reaching together to hold a heart. “What if we get lost again? I just don’t know….”

"How long has it been?" I said. "A year… or half of a year? I've tried to convince you to come with us to Italy, but you won't have it."

“Wha?” The girl exclaimed. “Really?”

“But it wouldn’t be the same without you.” I protested. “We’ve been through so much together. We have to go together!”

“Could we all go?”

“Ruth and Truman will be with you.” Hope persisted. “They were with you then.”

"Ruth and Truman are friends of mine." I explained to the bystander. "Truman stands at six foot two and has brown hair. He is fifteen years old. He's impatient and is allergic to all types of ice cream excluding vanilla and cookies ‘n cream. Then there’s Ruth. She is a five foot four self centered fifteen and a half year old blonde who spends all of her time putting on make-up and flipping through magazines of hot men. They were on the trip with us when it happened."

"What happened?" She asked.

"We were in San Francisco last year for a Shakespeare play. During the trip, we saw British performers -who Ruth was all over- and watched them excitedly while Hope started weeping because she wanted her mother to be present with us. Her mom is gone from this world. I felt really bad for her and wished I could cheer her up. Then it happened."

"It?"

"Time froze."

"TIME FROZE!!!?"

"Puzzled, I went through the performers to Hope. I wiped away her tears, went back, and time went on again. Soon a musical voice went off in my head. It told me to tell Hope what had happened."

"Did you?"

"I told her, but we weren’t walking with Ruth, Truman, and my sister Violet. We were separated from the group.

"We were lost." Hope summarized.

"Lost in San Francisco. When we had lost all hope of finding the others, a man told us where they were. We followed him and he led us through an alleyway. He turned and then became as still as a statue."

"As a matter of fact, so did everything else. Time was frozen still…"

"Again."

"It was like last time, except Hope could move also. Oh, did I mention that Hope’s mother appeared out of nowhere? She told us about her locket and how it has a picture of Hope inside of it that changes according to age and clothes. It was also affected by her mood too. Whenever she’s upset, happy, or whatever, it changes color according to that mood."

"Crazy stuff!"

"Anyway, Hope’s mom led us back to our friends where she disappeared in a blinding flash and time went on. When we went home that day, the musical voice went off again and this time Violet, Truman, Hope, Ruth and I all could hear it."

"As I said before, crazy stuff!"

“If we nearly get kidnapped again,” I suggested. “Your mom could stop time for us, talk to us, and save us all at no time at all.”

Hope punched me in the stomach with a solid right hook.

"Ouchie!"

The girl tilted my chair over causing me to fall on the ground.