My New Bestest Friend Carolee...

I made friends at my Grandpa Roy's cabin in the mountains. Which was very cool. Especially because I've never really been one to have friends. I just somehow fit in better there. One of the first friends I made was Carolee. I remember the day we moved my Grandpa Roy from his apartment in Oakland to his new digs. Which, by the way...seemed like a billion miles away!! I mean, it took FOREVER to get there. I wondered, did Grandpa Roy retire to the other side of the world? In all reality, it was about two and a half hours away, headed from the city up toward the Sierras. But honestly, when your that little, and your stuck between your two stupid, annoying brothers...it is FOREVER. So anyway, I was helping unload the trailer. Little stuff, of course...back and forth, back and forth...when across a dirt driveway I see this girl watching me. She smiled at me and I smiled back...which back then I think meant we were new bestest friends. I was bigger, but it ended up she was a year older. I would come to learn that she was there visiting her grandparents too. So often when I would go back to visit, Carolee wouldn't be there. I could almost always count on seeing her when we went on holidays though. Holidays that is, except for one time...one time in the summer after Grandpa Roy had died...

Aside from my pink cabin, there were other little houses on the property. There was a glass house for growing plants in, and a little house for putting garden tools in, and an odd little shack for...well...for me to make a secret FORT in! What else?? I cleaned the secret fort really good. (Oh, just wait until my dumb brothers came back from wherever they were and saw THIS!!) I was sitting in it one late afternoon...me and my flashlight, because it was dark in there...when all of a sudden the door opened and there stood my mountain bestest friend Carolee!! I remember she scared me! Oh, she didn't look so good! "Hi!" I said, so glad to see her. She closed the door and just sort of stared at me. "I'm going to be here for the summer" I announced. "How long will you be here?" Carolee, just staring at me...staring at me... Uhhhhh.... kinda weird... "Hey! Mom is taking me into town to get Foster Freeze for dinner! Do you wanna come? I'll ask her if it's O.K. and we can ask your Gram!" Staring at me...staring at me... Uhhhhhh, hmmmmmm. "Do you wanna?"... "I can't.", she finally said. Oh. I was sad. Long silence... "Are you O.K.?", I asked. Finally, Carolee says, "I saw your Grandpa." She did? That's kinda weird! It must have been a while ago... maybe last time she had visited. Maybe she didn't know. "My Grandpa is dead" I told her. Still, just staring at me...staring... "He said you shouldn't be in here." She looked as confused as I was. I mean, what? What? Why? "There's ticks.", she said. Well, I didn't know what that was. Ticks? "Whats ticks?", I asked her. "They're bad..." she said, staring at me...staring at me... "I have to go now"... and so she left... as quickly as she had appeared.

"Mom! Carolee says there are ticks in my fort! What's ticks?" I asked, waiving my trusty flashlight around the kitchen. "TICKS?!?", Mom all but screamed. She grabbed the flashlight. There were these tiny little bugs attached under the rim by the bulb. A complete body search followed. Panic set in. Crazy! She was freaking out, so I was freaking out. She was checking my head, and under my hair by my neck, and telling me to strip and put my clothes in a bag... there were "ticks" in my sock, and under my arm... and then I was naked and getting scrubbed down in the shower... Moms could be so crazy! Even worse, she didn't really want to explain what a tick was. "Is it a spider?", I asked. "Uhhh, sort of honey. Don't worry about it.", she had said. Don't worry about it, except for I wasn't ever allowed to go in my secret fort anymore! That SUCKED (as do ticks, as I would come to find out decades later, when I almost died from one's bite).

It was dark when we got home from Foster Freeze, so Mom wouldn't let me go over to Carolee's house. But first thing next morning I skipped over there to see if she could play. Her Gram answered the door. She was wearing her flower apron. She always wore that apron. Usually because she was always making COOKIES! Yeah! Cookies! Very exciting! "Hi!", I said. "Can Carolee play?".... Oh, oh... not good... not good at all. Carolee's Gram clutched the front of her flower apron. I remember she turned white as a ghost! She turned and looked at her husband, who was sitting in a chair behind her. She turned back and looked at me. I thought she was going to cry. I remember feeling scared, and bad all at once. Oh no! Was I going to get in trouble?? "Um...Sweetheart", her Gram began...she was shaking, "Our Carolee was hurt in an accident with her Mommy. Ummm... It was very bad." Oh no! It must be bad! Her Gram was sooooooo sad! "Well, is she at the doctor?", I asked. Maybe my Mom could take me to see her. Long pause.... "No Sweetheart. Ummmm, Carolee is in heaven with her Mommy. They went to heaven last year." What?? But, that wasn't true! I just saw her! Just yesterday!...