Story: The Sandbox Hot Tub and Nadiya’s Dumb Brother by Kate Thompson My parents, the two little babies in my mom’s tummy, and I moved into our house about three years before our new neighbors moved in next door. By the time those two little babies popped out and were about two and a half years old, I was already best friends with Nadiya. Nadiya had bangs and glasses and a pool in her backyard, and she was way cooler than the teenage boys who lived in her house before. They always used to ruin my sandcastles and they liked to pick on me because I was only seven. But Nadiya was eight, and she didn’t pick on me because we were best friends. The summer of 2009 was the peak of our friendship. We spent every waking moment together; we were absolutely attached at the hip. We kept a tally on the chalkboard wall in my playhouse of how many days we went together without one of us going on vacation or going shopping because one of our parents said we had to or something else stupid that kept us apart. Our grand record still stands at 38 days. That’s 38 days in a row of water balloon fights, selling lemonade to anyone who would stop, swimming in her pool, and chasing each other around my playset. Nadiya had two brothers, one of them, Chase, was only six, which meant he was too little to play with us and we didn’t want him hanging around, and the other, Steven, 13. Steven was a troublemaker, as all budding young teenagers are, and he would come out sometimes just to get Nadiya and I riled up. On this particular August day, Nadiya and I were running out of fun ideas to fill our day with. We’d already colored sidewalk pictures on the cement, done each other’s makeup with my $10 makeup kit from Claire’s, and made root beer floats with a little too much ice cream and not nearly enough root beer. Steven seemed to have a sixth sense about when his sister and I were at our most vulnerable time, when exactly he could get us in trouble. As Nadiya and I went back and forth asking, “I dunno, what do you want to do?” Steven made his way over and plopped down on the swing next to me. Nadiya and I immediately stopped our bantering and looked at him expectantly. Nadiya spoke first. It was her dumb brother after all. “What do you want, Steven?” “Just seeing what you’re up to.” “Nothing,” came our unison reply. We knew Steven’s games by this Page 8
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