Rings in the Water
Slowly, he walked down the deserted beach, wet sand squishing beneath his toes. Water lapped at his feet with every wave, whispering to him; urging him to go for a nice long swim. The air was cold and the water even colder, but, even in his short-sleeves, Reynard Muldoon barely noticed. Gently, he laid his hand on the sand and sat down. He gazed off into the distance, wondering, dreaming. Until his hand hit something and he was jerked back to Earth. Looking down wonderingly, he saw that it was a jet black rock with a single white ring circling it. A Wish-Rock. Almost absentmindedly, he tossed it into the swirling ocean, silently making a wish to himself as he did so. Reynie watched as rings circled out from the place where the rock had landed. He imagined each ring like a part of his life, while the rock was Reynie himself sinking deeper and deeper. Rings in time, he thought to himself with a small smile. The scene reminded him of a day years and years ago. A happier day.
The four children ran along the beach, kicking up sand and water. Every one of them was smiling. The blonde-haired girl, with an intense look of concentration on her face, threw a flat rock into the ocean like a frisbee. It skipped twelve times before disappearing with a plop into the ocean.
"Beat that!" she called to the others, laughing.
The shortest girl scoffed. "You call that good? I can beat you easily!"
"Yeah right, Constance. What was your record again? Oh yeah. Two!"
"Come one, stop fighting!" called a third voice. A average-sized boy with brown hair had just walked over. "Anyway, we all know that I'm the skipping champion!"
"As if!" called the two girls at once.
"Oh, you want to bet?! Come on, Sticky!" he called to his bald, nervous-looking friend. "We can beat these girls easily!"
"Yeah!" the boy challenged. "You guys are going down!"
Reynie sighed. He had sat on this very beach, laughing and having the time of his life. He missed those days. Though some of them had been full of danger, they had still been the best ones of his life. He missed having every second become a new memory, almost as much as he missed the people in them.
…
Kate sat next to the window of coffee shop, the newspaper open in front of her. Even though many years had passed since the Whisperer had been shut down, she couldn't shake the habit of checking the paper for anything odd. Sitting across from her, was her friend was in a deep conversation with herself about some boy or another. (supposedly she was talking to Kate, but the blonde-haired girl was paying her friend no mind.) At the moment, the blonde was reading an article about some braniac who had invented a way to make engines run from pianos. Under the article was a photograph of the scientist and, with a small gasp, Kate realized who it was. Sure enough, a line of print underneath the picture read "Inventor George "Sticky" Washington".
Kate sighed. Barely a day went by without one of her long-ago friends being in the paper. Wether it was Sticky with some new invention, Constance with some prize-winning painting or poem, or Reynie doing… well, whatever Reynie did, there was always something to read. She sighed again. She still expected to see them everywhere. She was always waiting for Constance to attack her with some insulting rhyme, for Reynie to crack a joke, and for Sticky to laugh nervously and start wiping his glasses. She glanced out the window. In the busy streets, two girls and two boys were running around laughing together. It reminded her of a day so long ago….
"Come on, Constance! Hurry up!" Four children weaved through a huge crowd, trying to see over the much taller adults.
"I'm trying, but it's not my fault my legs aren't as long as yours!" the little girl cried back irritably.
With a sigh, the blonde-haired girl, stooped to let the girl ride piggyback. "Better? Okay, come on!" Even with the extra burden, the girl moved much more quickly than the two boys. "Faster!"
The tall girl headed toward an old empty building. "Uh, Kate?" the bespectacled boy panted. "You know the parade's the other way, right?"
"'Course!"
The two boys looked at each other, shrugged, and continued to follow the bright blond ponytail as it whipped through the crowd.
The girl reached the building and, after a split second's pause, raced inside.
"Kate? Are you positive this is safe?"
"43.6% sure."
"That's comforting.
"Glad to hear it."
The four children raced up the creaky old staircase, three of them expecting it to crumble under their feet. The stairs held strong, however, and before long they had reached the roof.
While the boys stopped to rest, the tall girl tied a rope that she had taken out of a bucket to a metal pole. Then, without any warning, she flung herself off the edge of the roof.
Startled the boys raced forward to see of she was alright.
"Kate! Kate!" the average-looking boy yelled.
The blonde-haired girl was standing on a porch twenty feet below looking exceedingly pleased with herself. The smaller girl, however, was yelling herself hoarse about something that seemed to have to do with "reckless bulls" and "crushing skulls".
"You're turn," she called up to the two boys, over the little girl's rants. She tossed them the rope.
"You're…. joking, right?" asked the bespectacled boy, removing his glasses nervously.
"Nope," the girl called back smiling.
Ten minutes later, four children stood high above the crowd on a balcony, watching the parade and having the time of their lives.
"Kate…KATE!"
"Sorry, what?" Kate asked, shaking her head.
"You've been staring out that window for half an hour!" her friend said from across the booth.
"Sorry. What were you saying again?"
"Oh, nothing. Just there was this amazing guy that I met…."
Kate sighed. The old days had been so much fun. Full of laughing and adventure. They had even been secret agents! Sure, there were some bad times too, but really, when you added it all up….
She wondered what had happened to her friends. Where were they now?
…
Sticky Washington, at that moment, happened ti be cleaning out his desk. Or attempting to at least. He had, it seemed, somehow managed to stuff his papers in his desk in such a way that it was almost impossible to get a couple of them open. Every time he managed to open another drawer, a huge puff off dust came out, and Sticky was forced to sort through a mess of odds and ends that had been collecting over the last four years. And more often than not, he got distracted by old pictures and memories that he had almost forgotten about. He even had found a broken glass bottle that had almost taken a finger off.
Sicky sighed, and looked at the mess his latest drawer had expelled. His arms heavy, he began to sort it into piles. His hands passed over old newspaper clippings ("Emergency Getting Worse", many of them were titled) and random official documents and papers. After cleaning out two more drawers, he went to try to open the last one.
There was nothing inside. Confused, Sticky felt around for the back of the drawer. His hand touched a piece of paper, hidden at the back. Curiously, he pulled it out.
It was a photograph of four children, one short, one blonde, one bald, and one average, all by a big oak tree laughing. The blonde girl had in fact climbed up the tree with only a rope and stood there quite a bit higher than most parents would count as "safe". The youngest girl appeared to be attempting to follow her, but the trunk was to slippery and she kept sliding down. The bald boy was looking nervously up at her, and the other boy was looking at the two girls laughing.
Sticky sighed. He remembered that afternoon. It had been the day when Milligan had decided to take the four children to an old oak forest.
"This is amazing!" a blonde girl called, laughing. The four children jumped and skipped and hopped and ran and flew around an old oak forest, having the time of their lives. There was no one else there and, to the children, it seemed like it had been put there just for them.
"Thank you so much, Milligan, for bringing us here!" said the boy with brown hair.
"Yes,thank you!" the other children chorused.
The man smiled at them. He loved to see them so happy.
The blonde girl with the fire engine red bucket climbed down from the tree she had just been in. So far she had managed to climb every oak she had seen.
The little girl ran ahead (or tried to run, but her legs were so short it took her just about the same amount of time for the other children to walk). "I bet you can't climb this one, Kate!" she said, pointing to an extremely smooth-barked tree with no branches lower than twenty feet up.
"Yeah I can," the blonde girl said dismissively. Within thirty seconds it became obvious that she was right.
Sticky simultaneously suppressed the urge to crumple the paper up and to laugh out loud. How much he missed those days...
…
Constance was angry. No surprise there, but this was a serious kind of angry.
Something had made her emotional, and that was the worst possible feeling for Constance.
She knew she shouldn't miss her friends. She knew that there had been almost nothing but danger from the first time she saw them.
But she couldn't help it. She did.
The moment she saw that poem that she had written about their lives, she had to stop herself from crying. So many memories…..
No, Constance! No! You will not go back into your memories! Think of the present! You're rich and famous, what do you need them for? No memories.
Too late.
The four children sat on bench overlooking a lake. They were laughing.
"Where'd you come up with that story, Kate?" asked the average boy. "I think it was the funniest one I've ever heard!"
"I don't know. It just popped in my head," answered the blonde. Swiftly changing topics she bounced off the bench and said, "Who wants to bet that I can swim across the lake and back in under a minute."
Silence. No one wanted to bet against Kate. They'd lost too much money that way.
"Oh come on guys!"
In response to the silence, the short girl enthusiastically proclaimed, "I have written another poem!"
"Big surprise there," answered the blonde, once more flopping down on the bench.
"Well, this one's different!" retorted the small girl. "It's about our lives!"
"Let's hear it then," said the nervous boy.
Five minutes later, the children once again sat in silence.
"Um…. Constance?" said the brown-haired boy timidly. "No offense but…"
"How is that supposed to be a poem about our lives!" cut in the blonde girl. "It doesn't even mention the rest of us!"
"I know. That's because I'm the only thing important in any of our lives."
The other three children let out a collective sigh.
Back in her mansion, Constance sighed as well.
No! Bad Constance! You can't miss them!
But she did.
…..
Throughout the last few years, they had all passed by each other at some point or another. But none of them said hi. Or even glanced at each other twice.
They were strangers now.
Who could've guessed that they too would grow up?