Brandice

By: Summer Crockett

My heart pounded in my ears as it tried to drum out the words I'd just heard.

"She ran away?" I asked, echoing my mother’s words as if they had barely reached me at the end of a long tunnel.

It was a bright September day. Brandice and I were working in my family’s garden getting excited for our work to be over and our play to begin. Brandice was from Texas, but we knew each other so well that she was less of a friend and more like the sister I never had. My brother, Caleb, tired from his labors, looked over at us and smiled wickedly. He knew how to spice up the hated chores. He picked up a rotten tomato, tested the softness of the outside with his finger, eyed the molded side with glee and threw it hard at Brandice. My mouth dropped. He did not just do that! Brandice looked at him an excited gleam coming into her eyes. She picked up her own tomato, wound her arm back as far as it could go, and then launched it toward him with as much force as she could muster. It splattered on the side of his face ejecting red juice and tomato seeds all over his glasses.

I'm not one who loves to roll in the mud, but this was going to be way too much fun to miss out on. I picked up a few tomatoes and threw them at Brandice and my brother. It now became an all-out feud. I ran to the plum tree and picked up the squishy plums off the ground. They stained my already tomato colored hands purple. I hit my brother in the chest, painting his work shirt with rotten plums. He wouldn't let me out do him; neither would Brandice. They ran to join me at the plum and crab apple trees. The fight was about to take on new realms. Brandice threw the first crab apple and it stung my back, leaving a deep purple welt to be later discovered. I ran to the tomato plants and grabbed as many mold covered bombs as possible.

I lunged into my attack. I was hit with plums from my brother and crab apples from Brandice. They hit me hard, causing me to take in sharp deep breaths to compensate for the stinging welts that were beginning to form. It was time to make an alliance.

“Caleb!” I called to my brother. I gestured my head to where Brandice was holding the top of a small hill with the crab apples surrounding her. Caleb smiled and nodded. He ran to the garden and picked up the more tomatoes. We started to attack at the same moment, splitting her attention until she was forced to run into the house, laughing, and perhaps crying a little. 

“Teaming up isn’t fair!” she yelled slamming the door. My brother and I laughed. She’d held the upper hand until we had joined forces, and it felt nice to be the winners.

“I suppose we should switch up the teams,” I said.

“I have a better idea,” Caleb said smiling. “Water fight!” He dashed and grabbed the hose. I laughed, but it was soon turned into a scream as my brother drenched me. Brandice came out and grabbed the hose from my distracted brother and attacked him. In the end I think we let Brandice win, I mean technically she was the guest. 

“How long has she been gone?” I asked. My throat felt like it was a draw string bag being closed. My heart refused to continue beating at a steady pace; it felt like it was skipping beats, trying to post-pone time.

“Almost three weeks,” my mom answered. “They haven’t heard anything from her.”

“I can’t sleep!” I declared as I laid in the top bunk, Brandice on the bottom one.

She chuckled. She put her hand to her mouth and blew hard against it. The room echoed with the garish sound of someone breaking wind. I let out a strangled laugh.

                “That’s disgusting,” I said when I had gained control of myself.

She did it again laughing harder this time. “You have to try it,” she declared pulling herself into a sitting position and looking up. “I bet I can make the best sounding one.”

I leaned over the side of my bed to meet her challenging gaze. I put my hand to my mouth, it tasted of soap, and I breathed in deep and exhaled hard against my hand. The sound was interrupted by my uncontrollable laughter. I tried again and got a small one out, it sounded squeaky and pathetic. Any further attempts were stopped by the laugh and my aching side. A few tears rolled out the side of my eyes and I whipped them away.

Brandice let one more large one go. The room was silent for a moment before it was ripped with our laughter.

“Why?”

“She had a boy-friend.”

My brothers, Brandice and I all sat at the table. My fingers felt like cubes of ice. Brandice shivered next to me.

“Our jump is the best that I’ve ever made,” Caleb declared. “Tomorrow we should try to build one twice the size.”

“I vote we have a huge snowball fight,” Brandice said.

“Let’s not and say we did,” I said.

“Hot chocolate is ready,” my mom said as she set mugs around the table for all of us. We all muttered thanks and sipped deeply the piping hot, chocolate goodness.

“How do you drown a dumb blonde?” Caleb asked.

“I don’t know,” I said while Brandice and my younger brother drank their hot chocolate.

“You put a scratch and sniff sticker on the bottom of a pool.”

Hot chocolate sprayed out from where Brandice sat. She jumped up and ran to the bathroom.

“I think that just came out of her nose,” my younger brother said.

“Really?” I said, glancing the short distance to the bathroom, just around the corner.

My brothers busted up laughing, clutching their sides. I chuckled slightly. Brandice came back in a few minutes later and grimaced at first as my brothers told her how awesome that was. She ended up joining us in our laughter.

“She and her boyfriend wanted to get married. Her parents asked them to wait a year. They didn’t want to. The next morning she was gone. ”

We’d just finished watching the movie Signs. I was expecting a long, green fingered hand to grasp my shoulder any moment. I laid in bed trembling slightly.

“Are you scared?” Brandice asked me.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Are you?”

“A little,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Do you want to sleep in my bed with me?” I asked, more for my sake than hers. She nodded and gracefully crawled up to my bed.

“Why haven’t they been able to get ahold of her?” I asked my voice void of emotion.

“They think her phone must have died,” my mom said.

Brandice smiled at me. Her blue-gray eyes twinkled like a pixie. Her curly dark brown hair bounced as she ran. She had a birth mark, a kiss from angels, the size of a dime, next to her right eye. She stood tall and laughed often.

“What makes you so happy all the time?”

Brandice shrugged. “I don’t know. I just am, I suppose.”

My hands started shaking. My stomach clung to my spine as if dreading a coming dose of medicine. I hate crying, and I wouldn’t. My voice box tried to close its lid before the dark monster could escape. He managed to get through the boxes lock. He clawed his way up my throat and ripped through my mouth exposing him-self as a horrible sob. I collapsed on a chair and hid my face in my hands.

“Oh Brandice! Why would you do this?” I asked in breaks, as I kept sucking in more air, unable to stop crying. “This hurts too much!”

My mom took me in her arms while I continued to cry.