She went to pre-school in June. Daddy said he had to work again, and didn't want to leave her home in case mommy got "sick" again. Since she wasn't old enough to go to kindergarten yet, they took her to a different school. It was scary at first, but she got used to it. They had legos, and mats, and blocks, and Hot-wheels...those were fun. And on Wednesday's they took the kids outside to the playground. She liked to slide down the slides and ride bikes around the sidewalk.

It was a Friday, which meant today was art day. Daddy said she would go to kindergarten in September. She decided she would paint a kindergarten for art today and take it home. Teacher always said they could take it home if they wanted. Daddy dropped her off again and gave her backpack and special nap blanket to Teacher, and gave her a kiss on the head. "Be good," he told her, and she nodded. Remy walked in and the first thing she noticed was a little boy in over-alls playing with the Hot-wheels. The girls never wanted to play and the boys wouldn't let her play 'cause she was a girl, but she'd never seen him before.

"Hi," she said to him; "can I play with you?"

He nodded shyly and handed her a car. It was the green one- her favorite. She smiled at him and sat down beside him on the rug.

"What's your name?"

"Ethan." he said, making a 'vrrooom' sound with the car. "What's your's?"

"Remy."

"Do you have a sister?"

"No."

"I have a sister. She's older than me. Her name's Georgia." he said, taking the purple and red cars and faking a crash between them, making a "fwwsshhh" sort of sound. "Do you have a brother?"

"Uh-uh." She shook her head and began to drive the car around on the rug.

"My sister goes to school." he told her, getting a block to use as a type of ramp. "She's a big girl, she's six. I'm four. But I'm gonna be five and my mom said I get to go to school this year. She said we're gonna go to the same school."

"I'm gonna start school soon, too." she told him, getting a policeman to pull over her car because it was going too fast. "But I'm five now. I turned five a couple of days before yesterday."

They sat and chatted like that for a while, until it was art time. Teacher told them to clean up and they did, and she put their smocks on them. Remy sat down next to Ethan.

"Whatcha gonna paint?" he asked her as the brushes, water and little pallets of paint were passed around. She picked up a smaller brush to start with.

"A school." she told him happily.

"Oh. I'm paintin' a car." he said, then asked as he picked up his brush; "When you're a grown up, what do you wanna do?"

"I wanna be an artist."

"I wanna make cars."

"Can I paint them?" she asked, now looking to her paper as she tried to make a brush stroke with the red on her brush. "I like painting."

"Sure."

The teacher was pleasantly surprised to see the girl make an actual effort to sit next to some one today. It wasn't that she was particularly isolated, but she had never seemed to care much for people. Not only that, but Ethan had had a rough day- having been picked on for the color of his skin.

Their friendship continued. With joy they both realized they were going to the same school. They played at the park together and went to each other's houses. Remy's parents, of course, were thrilled that she had finally made a best friend- reguardless of his coloring. When she announced that she wanted to marry him, her mom just smiled a maternal type of smile and said she could when she got older.

Little did any of them know that the medication would soon stop working.....