Story: Becky's Visit

Becky's Visit
By: Emily

"Today in class we'll be running a mile to improve your standard time," droned Mr. Pickles. The gym teacher's name wasn't really Mr. Pickles. I just called him that because he made me sick. He might as well have said, "Today we will run and get Tova sick so we can make me look like a good gym teacher even though I absolutely stink." See, I hated running because it made me sick, and we had to run almost every day. On top of it all, I never got to see my friends except in summer, which was 216 days and 17 hours away.
I had no friends at my school. At my small school all anyone cared about was sports, and I was the only one who liked writing. At writing camp, everyone loved writing. I had a countless amount of friends from there that lived all over the United Stated of America, but none lived near me. I was truly hopeless.
On my third lap, the pain kicked in. In case you never thought about it, being on the verge of throwing up at the same time as being breathless is painful. And on my seventh lap, I was so dizzy that I felt like I could collapse at any moment. Mr. Pickles would probably make a huge deal out of it. And I wouldn't even have a friend to cover me up and let me die!
Just I was about to finish my seventh lap, something caught my eye that was standing in the middle of the track. I stood very still, and as my full vision came to me I realized I had just seen my dream. I ran all the way to her and hugged her so tightly that she couldn't breathe.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was visiting the space museum. I was going to make it a surprise, but when I found out that you were running a mile today-"
"Well, couldn’t you at least come on lap two? I'm on lap seven!"
Laughter.
"I'm just so happy to see you!"
Laughter.
At my best friend Becky's hotel room we talked about everything from running to writing. That's when Becky mentioned that I should make some friends who lived near me.
"How?" I asked. She knew that everyone in my state loved running. What was she talking about?
"Well, you could join a book club. I saw one at a book store once."
The next day we rode to the book store in search of a book club. It turned out there was one in the middle of a discussion about Number the Stars made of five awesome girls my age. Of course I joined, and the weekend was perfect. I was living in heaven--that just shows you how good things can be when you have a best friend around.
Unfortunately, Becky had to leave. I wanted to die, or at least never return to school. Becky and I hugged each other for two hours and told each other kind things:
"I will miss you so much!"
"You are the best friend ever!"
"You have been awesome!"
"See you in…well, I forgot how many days!"
Finally Becky's plane came and took her away. I thought everything would go back to normal: I would return to school tomorrow and run again, be hopeless again. But nothing was normal: After school my new friend from the book club came over. We had a blast!
Becky's visit changed the rest of my life--now I had friends wherever I went. Maybe temporarily I was a little sick because of Mr. Pickles, but I wasn't completely hopeless. I would never be after the important weekend of Becky's visit.