Page 1 of Reckless Youth
Part One
London
Chapter 1
I’ve known Sage Hendricks and Cameron Lucas since we were five years old.
We started out as friends, then grew to be more as the years progressed.
We were a perfect band of misfits – the smarty-pants princess, the angsty punk kid and the Prom King jock. Yet somehow, we worked – most of the time, anyway. Even in grade school, when we first met over their stupid boy antics, they both stole equal parts of my heart, never to return it in the same shape they found it.
The day we met on the playground was the day that changed the direction of my life.
That was the day we became a trio. The Three Amigos.
From that day forward, we were inseparable.
I remember that first day of kindergarten like it was only yesterday. I was the sassy know-it-all, trying to change the world through rules and authority.
“Stop it right this minute you two hooligans,” I commanded. My tiny hands at my hips to prove my resolve and seriousness like my momma always did. “Or else I’m gonna tell Miss Lund and then you’ll be in big,bigtrouble.”
I stood behind the two boys who were fighting over the big yellow bulldozer in the sandbox; my chin up, trying to muster all the bravery I had inside my pixie five-year-old body.
The two boys halted their arguing, each keeping a grasp on the toy and peered up at me. One stocky toe-headed kid with bright blue eyes, and the other a scrappy dark-haired boy with the freckles and eyes so brown they looked like the bottom of Pitney’s Pond.
The blond kid sneered, saying with a lisp from his missing teeth, “Nobody likes a tattletale.”
The other kid, dirt caked on his face, snorted a giggle, repeating the words of his nemesis. “Yeah, nobody likes tattletales.”
I crossed my arms over my favorite pink polka dot dress. My momma tried to suggest that I wear something less fancy, but it wasn’t her first day – it wasmine. And I wanted to look pretty and stand out in the crowd, just like my daddy always encouraged me to do.
“I ain’t no tattletale,” I said with as much bravado as I could muster. “But we’re supposed to share. That’s what my Sunday school teacher tells us. We’re supposed to turn the other cheek and not sin, either.”
My voice held a level of authority that typically doesn’t come from a little girl and the boys seemed to consider my theological wisdom –for a second- until the bigger blond kid yanked the truck from the scrawny kid’s hands, sending him flying face first into the sand.
He came up sputtering, as I ran over to lend my hand. Tears streaked down his already dirty cheeks and he tried to hide the fact by wiping at them with the back of his hand. The other kid – looking a bit surprised – began laughing out of spite.
“What’d you go and do that for?” the dark-haired boy asked, pushing himself up off his knees.
I chimed in. “Yeah, you big meanie. You’re just a big ol’ bully.”
My little temper got the best of me, regardless of the fact that I knew fighting was against the rules that Miss Lund had gone over just that very morning. But I couldn’t help it. I gave the blond boy a jerking shove to his shoulder, but he was quicker than me and he dodged it by turning his back, as I went sailing into the sand face first.
I landed in the sandbox angrier than a mangy dog and completely humiliated at how I was bested by a bully.
When I moved to get back up, the two boys were already going at each other – like scrappy little bear cubs – throwing punches and slapping at each other’s faces. A group of kids formed around us, wanting to see the tussle, all screaming and yelling.
“Hit ‘em!”
“Sock it to him!”
“You hit like a girl, sissy!”
That’s when I jumped in to break things up. It’s was an abomination that they would fight like that. My momma always said there’s too much war and hatred in the world and we should love thy neighbor. Which in theory sounded good, but I could never quite understand the rationale, since Mrs. Johnson was our neighbor and she was a mean old witch that yelled at me once for trying to pick up her cat, Luscious.
“You better stop this right now, both of you. You’re behaving like…like…miscreants.”
I had no idea what that word meant, but I’d heard my momma use it many times before with my older brothers,Grady and William. So, whatever the word meant, it wasn’t a good one, for that I was sure knowing the headaches my brothers gave my momma.
