Sorry for no author's notes... this is my first fanfic and I thought you could edit it once you've submitted it... stupid me. Sorry. Anyway, people, PLEASE review! If you don't like it, tell me what's wrong with it. If you don't, I'm never gonna get any better and you'll just have to read this crap the rest of your lives! You don't want that, do you? So tell me if you like it, why you like it, if you hate it, why you hate it... etc. Basically, REVIEW!!!!!!
"Let's follow them," Melissa suggested suddenly.
"What? No, we can't. We've risked enough as it is."
"Oh…darn. Then let's go home." They turned and headed back towards the city, walking silently, each lost in their own thoughts. Kayla was thinking of Lily, remembering and longing for the care-free days of their childhood: romping around the garden, laughing and joking with each other, as close as cousins could get. Then came that day – that horrible day which was to stick in the minds of both girls for eternity. The day they found the Kaleidoscope.
The girls had been young, both 9 at the time. They had been exploring the attic of Kayla's house when they found a small telescope-like thing. When Kayla had pressed her eye to the lens, she had seen millions of dons, formed into shapes. "It's a kaleidoscope!" she had exclaimed, and peered through, pointing it at Lily. Immediately the dots had showed the form of a girl, which was mostly normal. But then it had changed, to show the attic, exactly like the real thing, but darker, dusty. Confused, Kayla had brought the kaleidoscope down from her eye, and the attic had returned to normal: the colorful, inviting place that Kayla saw it as. She lifted the kaleidoscope to her eye again, pointing it at Lily, and the attic became the dull, lifeless torture that she had seen the first time. She opened her mouth to ask Lily about it, but Lily spoke first.
"Let's go," she said. "There's nothing exciting up here."
Kayla gasped. She had been looking forward to exploring every corner of the attic, and it would have provided hours of fun. But mostly she was astonished because what Lily saw in the attic was exactly what she had seen through the kaleidoscope when she pointed it at Lily. "Funny," Kayla said bitterly, "That's exactly what I saw when I pointed the kaleidoscope at you. Normally, it's bright and colorful."
"Weird," Lily said. "Maybe it reads people's thoughts." She was being sarcastic, but Kayla nodded enthusiastically.
"Try it," she said. "Think of anything, anything at all, and I'll see if I can see it through here."
Lily was skeptical, but she nodded anyway. She pulled a memory from the back of her mind, one she had kept hidden for a long time. Kayla put the kaleidoscope to her eye and pointed it at Lily. A movie of sorts began to play before her eyes. She watched, and reported to her cousin as she did so. "There's you and me—and Kevin? And we're running around in the kitchen. Kevin stopped—he fell—oh, this was when he cut off his finger. And he's seen the knife, and he picked it up, and now the cat came in, and she tripped him, and he fell." The movie stopped, and Kayla looked up. "That was right, wasn't it?"
"Wow," Lily said. "That was right. That's a very valuable kaleidoscope. Can I try?"
"No!" Kayla exclaimed. She pressed the kaleidoscope to herself, holding it tight. "It's mine!"
"What?" Lily stepped back, surprised. "Since when have things been 'yours' and 'mine'?"
"Well, this is mine. We can share everything else, but this is mine."
"Then I get to have something that's mine, too." Lily glared defiantly at Kayla. "I get the cat."
"I get the stuffed animals."
"I get our room."
"I get the rest of the house."
"I get the back yard!"
"I get the front yard!"
"Fine."
"Fine."
Since then, Kayla and Lily had slowly grown apart, had made other friends. They stopped doing everything together, stopped caring so much about each other. Their whole relationship had been destroyed by this tiny kaleidoscope. And now nothing could fix it. Every now and then, Kayla found herself longing for her childhood, but she knew it had been lost forever.
Suddenly, Kayla's thoughts were interrupted by a loud crashing in the bushes behind her. She stopped and turned around. Lily was running towards her. Kayla grabbed Melissa's arm, prepared to sprint home. Lily saw that, and stopped. Kayla had a sudden urge to know what was going on in her ex-friend's head. Slowly, she pulled out the Kaleidoscope, pointed it at Lily, and peered through. A movie played, and with a start, Kayla realized it was the scene in the attic when they had first found the Kaleidoscope; the same one she had been remembering. She dropped the Kaleidoscope into her bag, staring at Lily. Melissa tugged at her arm, but she shook her off.
"Those days are over, aren't they?" Lily murmured, just loud enough for the girls to hear. To her surprise, tears pulled at Kayla's eyes, trying to get free. She stood for a moment, then let herself go. She ran at Lily and hugged her, the tears streaming from her eyes. "They don't have to be," she sobbed. "Those days don't have to be over."