Enter Merry

let's call her merry.she's always smiling and she's one hell of an optimist,that suits her as well as any other

merry,for the past couple of years,had been living in saudi arabia where her dad had been transferred.she and queen B had been best friends since they'd been toddlers.and they'd always kept in touch.

i'd heard of her of course.but i really didn't know who she was,or what kind of a person she'd turn out to be or anything,queen B never talked about her that much,she was her best friend,you'd think i know more about her.all i knew was her name and that she'd been living in riyaadh for the past number of years

anyway,three months before my thirteenth birthday,guess who i found out was moving back to the country?

yeah,you got that right.merry was back

i didn't really even know when she landed in the city but i just get this phone call from queen B going "she's here!"

i didn't bother asking who,i knew.

"here?as in,she's landed?"
"as in,she's in my HOUSE!come over!"
"i'll be there in ten" i hung up

so i called my dad to ask if the car could be brought from the office back to the apartment,i needed to go to queen B's house.

as it turned out,the car and the driver couldn't be spared because my dad needed him at the office,or something along those lines.

but i'd promised to be there,plus i was itching to meet merry.

so i lugged my bike out the garage,hopped on the seat,and biked all the way.

well,not all the way completely.i'd just left my neighborhood when my tyre gave way and started deflating.it was four p.m. and still burning hot outside,you could have cracked an egg on the ground and it'd start cooking.

so i walked the rest of the way.and it was really out of the way.it took me about forty minutes to walk from where i'd hopped off the bike,all teh longer because i had that huge hunk of metal to lug along half the way too.

by the time i got to queen B's house,it was late afternoon and the back of my half sleeved T was sticking to my back with sweat.my hair looked like a grenade had gone off somewhere in my curls and my face was colored bright red with the heat.

needless to say,i've been in lighter moods than that

anyway,i was so sick of staying in the sun i didn't even bother ringing the doorbell,i just stalked right in,cool as you please,and trudged up the stairs after wheezing out a hello to her mom and sister who met me while i was walking in the door.

in front of her room,i grabbed the handle,swung the door straight open and wheezed,still breathless from the exercise,

"*insert queen B's name here* (i said it more like an expletive than anything else) YOU IDIOT!"

then i stopped.because next to queen B,who'd been lounging on the bed,was sitting this girl with dark straight hair,a round face and a mouth that was forming a silent O just then.

i shuffled my feet against the floor. "uh.hi!"

queen B,with a bored expression on her face,like my spectacular entrance didn't surprise her in the least bit, said "M,this is merry.merry,meet M"

and then she smiled.i grinned back

and that,my friends,was the beginning of a beautiful friendship

seriously,after that,i'd bike over (in the evening,when it was cool and shady and there was no chance of getting completely sunburnt again) every single day to hang out with them,we'd spy on queen B's cute neighbor from her window,re enact parents trap like we used to (this had been a queen B and merry thing to do before me and queen B started doing it) and altogether acting like complete goofs.anybody looking at us must have thought we were ten,though i'd just turned thirteen,and merry was half a year older.

then,thanks to our dads jobs,all three of who worked for the same organization,had all us transferred one by one to different parts of the country.thats the part about being me.you have to reconcile yourself to living a very unstable life.you move,you settle in,you're just beginning to make a place for yourself in school,get in good with your friends,when presto,you have to move again.

but there are a lot of perks to such a life too.you can always start over.you can wipe out all the bad memories and start afresh if you weren't happy before.besides,i've met a lot of people and made a lot of lifelong friends from this so i wouldnt trade it for the world,dispite having to move around all the time..

i got transferred to one state,merry moved to a completely different corner of the country,and queen B moved to a little town in the middle of nowhere that was a two hour drive from where i was.despite that,we didnt get to meet too often.we only met like a couple of times every few months.meetings were few and cherished,and we'd go crazy with hyperactiveness every time we met.

those two years i spent when i moved THAT time,were the worst years of my life.it was a little town literally in the middle of an ocean of ignorance,and i had nothing in common with the people there.i had a very tough time of it,i didn't have any friends who weren't really talking behind my back in secret or plotting something to embarass me in front of th whole school.you couldn't trust anybody.i spent two years,crying into my pillow every day when i came back from my school,and practically stopped seeing the sunshine,i'd just prefer to sit inside in the four walled confines of my room.at least nobody could hurt me there.i wouldn't have to deal with people making up stories about me or hurling verbal abuses in my face..

those were tough days...but i've learnt to stop looking back,all that matters is,that finally after two years of heavy endurance,i was out.my dad got transferred again.and we moved to civilization again,a city where there were people who actually had the words "compassion" listed in their dictionary.finally,a place where at the very least,i'd have something to talk about with the people there! i mean,back where i'd come from,people didn't even know what the bsb were,for crying out loud.harry potter and backstreet boys or the spice girls,basic stuff every teen is familiar with,were blank words when spoken about to them.

but before i moved away,queen B got another transfer.this happened about half a year before i moved away from that hellhole i had to call home for so long..

we went to say goodbye to her,merry and i.merrys dad had gotten a transfer in between those years,back to the city all three of us had been together,and from my house i drove through the motorway to her house from where we left to go to queen B's grandad's place.thats where queen B and her family were staying till their flight two days later,since all their things were packed and all.

we had fun.we spent the whole day with her.we went to the mini golf course,hung out behind the swings in the park close to her grandads house,and went out to grab a little something to eat together.

we waved goodbye to her from merrys car.my car was still at merrys place,waitintg to take me back.while we waved,i said a little prayer and hoped that whereever she went,queen B would find plenty of friends and settle in brilliantly.this was the furthest transfer she'd ever had to go through,it was really far away,and she was seriously scared about settling into a new place all over again.when you're fourteen,or any age in your teens for that matter,it's just all about settling in,finding friends,making a place for you in school.its the age i resented my dads moving around the most,it just got tiring,to have to start all over again just when you're starting to make friends in your new hometown...it's not like when you're little.you can't just share a ride on a swing and be best friends,it's so easy when you're a kid.for a teenager,not so much...

but i didn't realize just how far she'd go.and i don't mean that in terms of physical presence either.of course she was moving.we all did,that was the pattern of our lives,we all had to move away from each other every few years.

but she really went away from me.far out of my reach.she went away to a place i couldn't reach her,not by catching a plane to her house.nothing

i couldn't reach her anymore.that's when i had my second defining moment in life..