The
girls rested after lunch with ice cream and slushies while watching a
puppet show with other children and their adult chaperons. No one
wanted another ride on a full stomach. Instead, they went into the
hall of mirrors (guess who paid for admission again) to laugh at
absurd images of themselves.
Esper
paid for games after that. The girls tossed basketballs into hoops
together. They shot at targets with waterguns. They tossed rings onto
pegs.
They
played enough games to earn enough tickets to exchange for a stuffed
toy for each of them. Sandy chose a small black monkey that looked a
lot like the one she had lost when she was small. Ariel got herself
an orange cat. Esper selected a purple snake, which she stuffed into
her backpack.
At the
end of the day, which really was just late afternoon, the girls were
outside at the taxi stand in front of the amusement park. They were
happy, for all the fun they had together. They were tired, from all
the excitement they had experienced. And they were sweating heavily -
the sun had been smiling the entire day.
Sandy
gathered with her friends under the shadow of the shelter by the
street where cabs lined up to collect passengers. Her legs ached from
all the walking she had done. But she had fun, and with her closest
friends too!
"I
hope the two of you will be good friends," Esper told the other
two girls, "All you've in school now are each other."
"What
are you talking about?" Ariel asked.
Esper
sighed and glanced up at the clear sky. "I'm not going to be in
Fernham High next year."
"What?"
Ariel blurted, "Why?"
Esper
turned to the blond. "I'm going to a private school."
"A
private school?" Sandy asked.
"It's
an expensive school with better facilities and better education,"
Ariel clarified. She turned back to Esper. "Why are you going
there?"
"I
just received a large inheritance," Esper answered, "My
parents thought that I need a better education to manage my wealth."
The news
of her friend's windfall had Sandy's attention. Ariel was interested
too as she listened intently.
"One
morning last week," Esper began her story, "a man showed up
at my doorstep and told us this incredible story, that I had a dead
relative who willed me some money. The next day, my parents and I and
that man were at an attorney's office with a lot of people I don't
know. I thought it's just a small sum, you know, maybe pay for
college, then maybe a car."
Esper
paused for a breath. "It was much more than that. Not just money
but stocks and property. My parents wanted me to learn to manage all
my wealth. Well, it will be mine once it's fully transfered to my
name on my eighteenth birthday. My grandmother's holding it in trust
until then. She's the grandmother I didn't know I had until we met at
the attorney's."
"Oh,"
Sandy uttered at the end of it all. Was she ever going to see her
friend again, her rich friend?
Esper
smiled. "Hey, I'll still be around town, just not in the same
school. We can still hang out during the holidays."
Ariel
smiled back. "Yeah, I guess so."
Esper
took out her handphone from the pocket of her slacks for a look at
the time. "Hey, uh, look. I've to get home and get ready. I've
dinner tonight with my grandmother." She sighed. "It's
going to take a whole hour to wash all this sweat off."
"Okay,"
Ariel said.
Esper
took out her purse. "Here, let me pay for your cab fare home."
Ariel
would not accept it. "Thanks, but no. You've already paid for so
much!"
Oh, no,
no! Ariel was denying free money! Should Sandy asked for her fare? It
would not be appropriate, would it? Yeah, she could not do it. Ariel
would not like it. And she had just become friends with the
bespectacled blond again.
"Well,
okay, then." Esper put away her purse and glanced at the cabs.
There were a couple available and no passengers were queuing. "See
you around!"
No comments:
Post a Comment