Chapter 1
Summer Before First Grade
It’s summer break, and in a month, I will start first grade.
I am super excited because I loved kindergarten and I know I’ll love first grade just as much.
My dad takes the summer off from touring with his band, and right now we’re in the middle of our daily guitar lessons.
I’m sitting in his lap, his larger hands on top of mine, helping me push down the chords and strum, when I hear loud banging and yelling outside our house.
Daddy started giving me guitar lessons when I was four, after he found me in his music room strumming and banging on every instrument he had in there.
Instead of yelling at me like I thought he was going to, he sat down on the floor, moved me to sit on top of his crossed legs, and placed his acoustic guitar in front of us.
With gentle fingers, he started strumming and humming a melody to me.
Mom found us hours later, me still sitting on my daddy’s lap while he strummed his guitar, and we sang to each other.
It made my mommy cry, but she said they were “love” tears, whatever that means.
I only cry when I’m sad. I love my mommy and daddy and sister, but I hope my love for them never makes me cry. That would just be weird.
I hear more loud noises from outside. Daddy pulls the guitar off our laps and I get up quickly to go to the window and see what’s going on.
We live in a two-story Craftsman with a red door and red shuttered windows.
I love our backyard because it’s huge and has a forest that backs up to it and a creek where I go and catch crawfish in.
I squish my nose against the window glass so I can better see the very large moving truck at the house next door to us.
The family that used to live there moved out a month ago, but I didn’t care much since their kids were grown up, and there was no one for me to play with.
I hope that the new family has kids my age.
It would be really cool to have friends that live right next door to play with every day.
“Yes!” I shout.
I see two boys that look my age walk across the front lawn in front of the truck. I notice they are with a tall, bearded man who is holding each of their hands. With gleeful excitement, I squeal and run out of the room and up the stairs.
“Where are you off to puddin’?” Dad hollers after me.
Bounding up the stairs to find Hailey, my sister, I shout back, “I’m going to meet the new neighbors and I have to look my best!”
I hear his chuckle behind me as I try leaping up two steps at a time in my haste to get to my room. Running as fast as my little legs can carry me, I throw open Hailey’s bedroom door, waking her from her nap.
“Hailey! Hailey! Come on! We have to go meet our new neighbors. Get up! Get up!”
I run through our jack-and-jill bathroom to my room. I fling open my closet and grab my blue Easter dress. Mommy said I looked like a princess in that dress, so that is the dress I’m going to put on to meet my new neighbor boys.
Standing at the bathroom door that leads to my room, Hailey yawns sleepily at me. “I don’t wanna go.”
“Fine. But I’m going.”
I wriggle out of my shorts and top and put the blue dress on.
Mommy taught me how to braid my hair, so I quickly comb it and then braid it into two pigtails.
Seeing my gold plastic princess crown I wore last Halloween sitting on my dresser, I grab it and carefully place it on top of my head.
I push past Hailey into the bathroom, do a quick check in the mirror, decide I look awesome, and run downstairs.
I grab a bag of fruit candies, shove them in my dress pocket, and sprint out the front door only to skid to a sudden stop once I see my mommy talking to another lady on the porch of our new neighbor’s house.
I turn around and scan everywhere for the two boys I saw from the window, but I don’t see them anywhere.
I walk up the steps of the neighbor’s house to where my mom is and grab her hand.
“Oh, Lizzie-bear. I want you to meet our new neighbor, Freda,” my mom says to me, motioning for me to step forward and shake the lady’s hand. Freda bends down, holding out her hand to me, but instead of taking it I gracefully curtsy.
“Welcome, Lady Freda. I am Princess Elizabeth, ruler of the magical forests beyond,” I announce regally while pointing toward the backyard.
Freda’s face lights up in amusement and it’s then I notice her eyes as she peers down at me. They are light and metallic-looking like the shiny quarters I get for my birthday.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Princess Elizabeth. You are a very pretty princess in a very pretty dress.” I beam at her and give another curtsy.
“Your mom was just telling me all about you and your sister.
I look around again and don't see the two boys I saw from my window. I start to get a bit sad that maybe they aren’t going to live here with Freda and be my neighbors. Maybe they live somewhere in the neighborhood and were just taking a walk with their dad or something.
Freda continues talking to my mom. “My husband just took the boys to grab something to eat. They should be back soon. It would be nice to introduce them to your daughters and make new friends.”
My ears prick up at her words and a happy dance rolls through me. “My princes live here? I saw two boys earlier. They really live here?”
“Princes? Oh, yes, Princess Elizabeth. I have two twin boys, Prince Jayson and Prince Julien. I am sure they would really like to meet you when they get back.”
Freda and my mom are grinning at each other while appearing like they may burst into laughter. Feeling much better about things now, I turn and start racing down the steps towards the forest.
“Tell my princes to come rescue me when they get home!”
“Do not go far young lady. Dinner is in an hour!” my mom calls after me.
I reach the fort built among the forest trees that Hailey and I started making at the beginning of summer.
Our fort is made from anything we find on the ground along with some ply board daddy gave us, and is a hodge-podge of dead tree limbs, pinecones, and rocks.
Mommy bought us a glitter blanket that we use as a cover to our fort and daddy chopped some firewood that we use as benches to sit on.
Hailey and I try to work on the fort every day.
We have made paths along the ground by taking sticks and scraping aside fallen pine needles, and we made ladders up the trees by nailing broken tree limbs or sticks in the bark.
Since I love collecting things I find along the creek, we have a collection of glass jars in our fort along the back wall.
Each jar sits atop its own stump and I made labels of what’s inside.
One jar has colored rocks we find along the creek bank.
Another jar has freshwater shells we collect from the creek bed.
We have empty jars we used to collect fireflies in the evenings.
Hailey and I pretend the fireflies are twinkling stars.
Wanting to impress the boys when they come find me, I survey my surroundings to make sure everything is in place and then decide to sweep the floor with a pine branch to get rid of the pine straw that has fallen to the ground from the loblollies that stand at the corners of our fort.
I take out the bag of fruit candies I grabbed on my way out of the house and place it on an empty stump.
I’m wondering what is taking my new boy neighbors so long when I hear a noise outside the fort.
Could it be them? It’s probably Hailey or deer or a brown rabbit.
I adjust my tiara on my head, because it’s beginning to slip sideways, and walk out of the fort.
I give a startled shriek when I come face-to-face with two upside-down heads giggling at me.
Dangling from their knees, upside down from the tree branch that hangs in front of the fort’s entrance, are two brown-headed twin boys with silver-gray eyes.
They’re here! I smile a huge grin that shows my two missing front teeth, and they mimic me also showing they are missing two front teeth. I suddenly become shy
“Hi,” I say while moving my right foot back and forth along the dirt on the ground.
One of the boys grabs the tree branch he’s hanging off of and flips over to land on his feet.
“Hi. I’m Julien.”
The other boy flips up and over to sit on top of the branch and swings his feet.
“I’m Jayson. Our mom said we had to come rescue Princess Elizabeth. You her?”
“Yep,” I say, popping the “p” at the end of the word.
“Okay. You’re rescued.” The boy named Julien grabs my hand and we run off in the direction of the creek.
Jayson jumps down from the branch and runs to catch up with us. He grabs my other hand. I laugh like a loon as we all run and stumble along, weaving between the trees until we reach the creek.
Jayson declares, “This is so cool!” before proceeding to jump into the creek, fully clothed with his tennis shoes on, taking me and Julien with him since we are all holding hands.
The creek isn’t deep, the water only coming up to our ankles. But that doesn’t stop us from yelling and laughing and jumping up and down, kicking water everywhere. Jayson suddenly stops and looks upset.
“I’m so sorry! Your dress is all wet.
I peek down at my muddy, soaked dress and shrug. “It’s okay. Me and Hailey play down here every day and always come home dirty. Mommy doesn’t care.”
Jayson still looks unsure, so I decide to cheer him up. “Here. Help me lift this rock.”