Skates and knives

            “Hey Amber,  I need to run to the store real quick, can you and Prim behave while I'm gone?” my mom gently asks from the doorway. I look up from my book and give her a little nod, telling her we need sodas. It isn't long before I hear her open and close the front door. A couple more moments pass before I hear her van start up and barley scrape out of the trailer park. Even more moments pass before I finally put my book down and give Prim, my neighbor and friend,  a knowing look.

          It would've been really cool and sitcom like if she had looked back at me and shared the look, but instead she's completely captured by her phone. I hold my gaze for a few seconds before I throw a book at her.

          “Ow dude what the hell?” she yells at me. I give her the gift of my smile before I ask her if she wants to go to the school to skateboard, to which she responds “oh dude hell yea.”

          We struggle for a minute in my jungle of a room trying to find our shoes and then struggle for even longer trying to find my phone. I swear I had it in my hand just a moment ago, but now it appears to be in some void. Eventually I give up the manhunt and grab a small yellow purse off my door handle. I head to the kitchen and stuff two mountain-dews into the little thing. “Oh hey look!” I yell, pulling my phone out of the fridge.

           Prim gives me a strange look as she walks out of the door to grab her scooter. I meet her outside and grab my longboard which had been knocked into the grass by some hooligan. While I'm scraping the mud off my board, Prim goes into a rant about how she wishes she could skate. I had tried to teach her when she first moved out here, but she was too afraid to stand on the thing.

          Skating out of the park, we wave to some neighbors before heading down to our normal turn. She lags behind me a little, but it's only because her scooter is a piece of junk. The thing probably could’ve done with some WD-40 at least a year ago, but now it's only rideable if you're into masochism. Thankfully, Prim is. 

           When we hit our turn, only about 50 yards from the trailer park mouth, Prim is already in need of a break. I laugh as she puts her blue hair up and yells something about global warming. It’s usually not long before she gives the okay to keep going, so I told her I’d skate down to the train tracks to check on our coins in the meantime.

           In case you're in the blue, if you put coins on a train track the train will flatten them out into neat little disks. If you are feeling blue for other reasons,  I recommend seeing a therapist. But, even though mental health is important, the coins are the focus here. I yoinked up my board and set it up on some rotting wood before walking down the tracks to check on the coins. 

          When I got to the place we’d set the coins, I noticed something weird. That something being that they weren’t there. And that in their place was--

          “WOAH PRIM I FOUND I KNIFE” I screamed in her general direction, picking up the small blade. It's maybe four inches long and matte black, but there doesn't seem to be any labels of a brand on it. Prim was yelling something at me for being a goblin. That sounds like the words of a woman who does not have a knife. 

           I tucked the knife safely in the front pouch of my bag and grabbed my skateboard from its little ledge. Prim, thankfully, can use the momentum from the train track hill to glide most of the way down the street, so we don’t stop till we get to the elementary parking lot. 

         Once there, Prim has to stop under a tree to catch her breath. Well okay she didn’t specifically have to stop under a tree bu- okay you get what I'm saying, I needn’t elaborate. But I will. Prim stopped under a tree by choice. There.

          I skated a few laps around the lot, nearly hitting an idiot on a golf cart. The internet says that there are some cool dances you can learn on the longboard, but I’ve decided the legacy I am to lead is skating everyday and never learning one trick. I like to call it the anti Hawk.

          Eventually, I got too overheated to keep going so I went and sat under the same tree as Prim. I handed her one of the mountain dews and opened one for myself. It only took me a minute to whip out my knife and begin to gush over it to an exhausting degree.

          “Oh hey look, another person’s out skating,” Prim half shouted, hoping to grab their attention. OR she did it to throw me off my rhythm. Either way, I looked up and noticed it was my old friend, Ted. Well okay not necessarily MY old friend, But he’s dating one of my old friends so that makes him my old friend. I think. Either way, I yelled at him to come over.

          He paused for a moment before continuing down the road. I let out a gasp of fake hurt before I resumed gushing about my beautiful little blade. 

          I heard a crunch behind me and immediately yelled “I HAVE A KNIFE!” I turned around to realize it was just Ted.

          “Oh,” I realized. “I’m totally digging the axe murderer vibes.” 

           “Likewise” he chuckled, sitting on the grass in front of Prim and I.  It didn’t take me long to notice that Ted and Prim have the same hair as each other,  just different genders. 

          We laughed for a while about our ridiculous plans for when we finally get our own houses away from our parents. Ted wants to move in with his girlfriend. Prim wants to start a band and tour the world. I just want to be able to be myself everyday without worrying about my mom losing her “precious Amber.”

            Speaking of my mom,  I just checked my phone and realized that I have to be home “right this instant,” so I said bye to Ted and skated off, Prim not far behind me. I hadn’t noticed, but the night had crept in while we were slumped under that tree.  I just hope we get home before mom completely loses it.