I was in fourth grade, when we still had recess, and I had plenty of good friends at the time. Every recess I'd play on the swings with my friend Aimee. Sometimes, we'd play on the blacktop. And once and a while we'd play on the jungle gym. But mostly it was the swings where we'd spend our recess. We'd giggle and scream like little girls, which was okay because we were little girls. We'd swing higher and higher into the endless blue sky, polka-dotted with clouds, like it had some rare form of the chicken pox.

Of course, Aimee and I had other friends who we'd like to spend our recesses with. This made it perfectly natural when Aimee wanted to play with other friends one day. I wasn't in the mood for other friends. So I swung alone. I could entertain myself for a half an hour, right? Or at least that's what I thought. Turns out, I couldn't. I became extremely bored staring the dusty ground, swinging forward and back, forward and back. Then I heard a giggle. It wasn't a this-is-an-inside-joke-you-won't-understand giggle; it was an actual I'm-having-fun giggle. I looked up and saw the giggle came from a group of three girls, about a hundred feet away, behind the soccer goal.

Before I go any further, I would like to explain something: I loved the Harry Potter series. I head read every book that was out by that time (which was three, I think), maybe even twice. I practically worshiped the books and thought J. K. Rowling was an absolute genius. I was almost obsessive.

So now that we have that cleared, I shall continue relaying my memory:

I listened some more to the giggling girls and I heard a name. The name was (as you might have guessed from the past paragraph) Harry Potter. That name coming from these girls had an odd effect on me. It had broken open my protective shell (I was known by many to be shy). It brought forth a small amount of courage that I could never find before.

I rose from the swing and walked over to the giggling girls. I said something to the effect of, "Hi, can I play?"

Obviously this story has a happy ending. Otherwise, I wouldn't have chosen this for my favorite memory (hopefully), so you might be able to guess what came next:

One of the girls, that I now know asKelly Annsaid one wonderful word, "sure", while the other two girls nodded their heads. I must have grinned like a child on Christmas morning because one of the other girls, Lee, said wryly, "I think we have another Harry Potter fan on our hands", or something similar.

I was so happy; I almost thought I saw fireworks. It was like I finally figured out the answer to a frustrating algebra equation; we fit together perfectly.

We played almost every recess after that, varying from Harry Potter take-offs, to our own invented adventures.Aimee sometimes joined us, my other old friends, but mainly it was the three of us. We became best friends, and my recess spot moved from the swings to behind the soccer goal, our own little world of fantasy.

Lee, Kelly Ann, and I are still as close as peas in a pod. We have been together through thick and thin (if you don't mind the cliché), like whenLee broke her leg, or when my cat died. The third girl that day, Sara, has sadly left our little clique and found another, but that's okay. We can survive almost anything as long as we have each other; all that matters is that we're friends. (I know I'm getting a little sappy but I think I have a reason excuse!)