PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

   I’m sitting in the middle of the street in my bathing suit with my younger sister and our two friends.  We live in a small town up in the mountains where everybody walks to where they need to go, so we’re not gonna get run over. We’re pretending to be fairies and the asphalt is so hot that you could squish it with your finger.

   I sat poking the street and squinted upwards as I heard footsteps.

     “Who’s that?” my best friend, Aly asks me. She closes one eye and her mouth is in a confused snarl.

   I shrug. “I dunno.” I go back to poking the asphalt.

Our town is supposed to be a secret and I don’t like it when people find it.

The stranger keeps walking towards us. This one was just a boy, about our age.

     “Hi,” he says. He’s tan and has hair that almost matches his skin. His teeth are crooked and he has scabs on his hands.

     “Hi,” my little sister says as she waves at him. All of us look at each other. The boy just stands there staring at us. None of us looks at him.

     “I gotta go home now. Bye guys. Come on Hope,” I say as I get up and take my little sisters hand. Aly and her younger sister wave goodbye and leave the boy alone in the street. Hope and I get home and spread ourselves out on the living room floor.

     “Who is he? Have you seen him before?” I ask and spit on a scratch on my knee.

     “No.” Hope shakes her head full of dark hair.

     “You don’t think he lives here do you? I hope not.”

Someone knocks on our front door. No one ever uses our front door. They always use the backdoor that never closes unless you slam it.

I get up to answer it. I see through the shades the shape of a young boy.

     “I think it’s the boy.” I open the door. “Hi.”

     “What’s your name?” he asks me.

     “Melody. What’s yours?”

     “Jimmy, but you can call me PJ,” he says as he pushes his way past me and walks into our house.

   I look at Hope and raise my eyebrows. I accidentally slam the door. I really don’t like this kid. I sigh and stick out my chin.

     “I’ll be right back. I need to ask my mom a question,” I say and walk to my parent’s room. “Mom, there’s this kid in our house and I don’t know who he is.”

     “What?” my mom asks me.

     “Aly and me and Hope and Lala met him today and we don’t know who he is.”

     “He’s probably the new neighbors.” She walks to the bedroom door and glances outside to look at PJ.

     “Oh,” I say. I dig my big toe into the carpet.

     “What’s the matter?” She looks back at me.

     “He’s gonna ruin our group. We have fun when it’s just us. He keeps trying to play with us and we don’t want him to.” I look down and make my mouth a rainbow shape.

     “Melody, that’s not very nice.”

   I scrunch my nose at her and leave.

I see PJ in our kitchen, going through our fridge. He grabs the snack I was saving for later and sits down at our table.

    I blink slowly as I watch him eat my food. I feel a bump pop into my throat.

     What the heck is he doing? That’s my snack.

  I stand still and breathe through my mouth.

   A few hours pass by and he’s still bugging me.

   I hear another knock on the door. Someone’s at the front door. I open it up and see a short lady with puffy red hair holding a cigarette in one hand and her cell phone in the other. 

   She’s gotta be the new neighbors. Everyone knows you don’t get cel service up here.

     “Hello, I’m Linda,” she says as she smiles. Her hands are shaking and she doesn’t look at me when she talks. “I’m looking for a little boy named PJ.”

   My mom suddenly pops up out of nowhere like she does and smiles at the strange lady.

  “Yeah, he’s here. I’ll go get him,” my mom says as she walks away to my room which he’s taken over.

My mom comes back and PJ’s looking down at his mud covered boots.

     “Thank you.” His mom smiles, grabs PJ’s arm and closes the door.

My mom breathes out for a long time, purses her lips and rubs the back of my head gently.

I hate it when she does mom-ish stuff like that.

   A few weeks later I’m over at Aly’s house with our friend Sarah. She’s been on vacation for a while so we’re telling her all about PJ.

     “Yeah, and then he-“ I’m cut off by Hope and Lala running towards us, screaming. They both reach us and point behind them.

     “He’s coming. Hide. It’s PJ,” says Hope between pants.

Sarah looks at us wide eyed and we all run to the garage.

     “Get in, get in. Hurry up.” I push Hope inside but leave the door open just a bit and peek outside. PJ walks into Aly’s yard and starts to wander around.

    “What’s he doing?” Sarah asks me.

     “He’s sitting down,” I say.

   Aly groans.

     “Ok, we should go out,” I say. Aly’s mouth falls open, a few strands of her sandy blonde hair are sticking inside her mouth. “He’s not gonna leave till a long time so we should just go out now.”

As I open up the door PJ turns around and smiles at us.

I roll my eyes, and we all walk to Aly’s front door.

     “Hey! Wait for me!” he says.

I stop walking and poke my cheek with my tongue.

     “Wanna play?”

     “I can’t today. I have a cold.” I say as I turn to face him and fake a cough.

     “Yeah, me too,” Aly says. She coughs too. I poke Hope in the ribs. She coughs, then Lala does.

     “What about you?” PJ points to Sarah. She looks down at the tips of her hair hanging towards the ground.

     “She has one too.”  I cough again. Sarah nods.

   PJ frowns at all of us.

     “Yeah, me too.” He coughs.

I squeeze my jaw tight and my stomach feels warm and heavy.

     “Ok, we’ll play with you. Just let us eat lunch. Aly’s mom is making it for us.” I turn away and run towards her house. We walk inside Aly’s house and go to her room.

     “Alright, we need a plan,” I say as I slowly look at my friends. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.” I motion them closer. “We’re gonna pretend that we can’t see him. So, like, we walk around and play with each other but act like he’s not there. It’ll make him really mad.” I smile and lean back on my heels. All of the girls smile back at me and nod.

   We walk back outside, giggling.

     “So whad’ya guys wanna play?” PJ asks us.

We ignore him.

     “So what do you wanna play? How about faeries?” I say. I try not to look at PJ to see his reaction.

     “I don’t wanna play faeries,” he says.

     “Did someone say something? What’s that noise?” Aly asks.

     “I don’t know,” Hope says.

We all start to walk away from PJ and snicker.

     “Where’ya going? Hey guys, I thought we were gonna play.” He walks up to us and pushes me. I still ignore him.

We keep moving away from him and for a little bit he follows us, but suddenly I don’t hear his footsteps anymore. I smile at Aly, she smiles back; but then we see PJ run past us, crying. We all stop walking.

    All of us look at each other and then down at the gravel.

     “It was your idea,” Hope says.

     “I know.” I frown at her. I scooch my mouth over to one side of my face and grumble.

I follow PJ.

I jog a little ways until I catch up to him. I see him dart around the corner near my house. He runs into a house I’ve never even noticed before. It’s small and blue.

I slowly go up to the door, but I don’t knock because I hear people yelling from inside.

     “Shut up, kid! I’m tryin’ to talk. Why’re you crying?!” says a man.

     “Please stop screaming! PJ would you get outta here? Me and Kraig are tryin’ to have talk.” I hear the Linda lady say.

     “But, mom, I-“ she cuts him off.

     “I don’t give a damn, PJ! You’re tryin’ mamma’s patience. Now please, get the heck outta here.”
   

  I don’t hear anything for a few seconds. But then the man swears. He says all the bad words I know and some that mom says I’m too young to know.

     “Nobody wants you around, kid! Go bother someone else with your snotty nose and whimpering or else you’ll eat outside again tonight!”

 I flinch and bite my lip. I run away as I hear footsteps coming toward the door.

I stop in front of my house. Aly and the girls are still standing in the same spot waiting for me. I glance into the living room window of my house and see my mom vacuuming the carpet.

I make the same face mom did a few weeks ago when we met Miss Linda.