Painted Scenes

I love how during the autumn all the leaves turn colourful, ranging from brown to orange to yellow. I love how they flutter to the ground, sometimes landing in my hair. And I love how the leaves are so crunchy under my feet and that I can jump in the air and land with a satisfying crunch of the leaf flattening underneath my worn shoes. And I absolutely love how the last birthday I had, my best friend made a poster that read: “TODAY IS ELLIE’S BIRTHDAY” and taped it to my locker.

I’d arrived at school and I’d been waiting at my best friend’s locker. When Jenny finally arrived, she’d said something along the lines of, “Dang! I wanted to arrive earlier than you. Oh well.” And then she handed me a present.

And as soon as she’d stuffed her orange and blue bag into her locker and grabbed some tape, she stuck the poster on my locker. It wasn’t even a poster – it was a huge piece of lined yellow paper, and the words were in extremely colourful capitals. She’d stuck it across half my locker and half of the locker next to mine, which was empty.

Since my locker was next to a flight of stairs, everybody who saw the poster wished me a happy birthday. As we went to our classes and through the hallways, Jenny told everybody and anybody that it was my birthday. She knew that I didn’t like the attention, but she did it anyway.

Little did Jenny know that she made that particular birthday the most memorable. It was the last birthday of mine that we spent together, because on July 28th she moved back to America. Her family are in a rented apartment right now and are househunting. But I digress. I love how that was the best birthday I spent with Jen.