Читать книгу The Bestest of Friends - Rachel Schoemer - Страница 5

Chapter One

Our story begins with a little girl named Charlotte. She was a tiny little thing with big blue eyes and lots of fiery red curls and she loved wearing her favorite blue and red polka dot dress. Charlotte and her parents lived in a little yellow house with green shutters. A big oak tree in the yard had a swing dangling from its biggest branch and a tree house resting in its boughs. It was Charlotte’s favorite place in the world. From the window of her tiny little tree house Charlotte could see most of the small country town where she lived and could plan all the adventures she was going to have.

The first thing you would love about Charlotte was her laugh. It started as a twinkle in her eyes, spread to a little smile and then worked its way up from her tummy and sputtered out of her mouth in a fit of contagious giggles and bubbles. It was a little mischievous and sometimes a little cheeky, but it came from the heart. When little Charlotte laughed, the world stopped and laughed with her.

This little girl, though tiny and young, had a heart full of adventure. Charlotte wanted to know everything about anything and would ask her Mommy and Daddy a million questions every day. Why is the sky blue? Why do birds sing? What does it look like on the moon? She loved exploring and trying new things. Charlotte dreamed of seeing giraffes in the savanna and whales in the ocean and dancing in the rain on a beautiful meadow with thousands of daisies. She was quick to study new things, always ready for experiments and investigations and she would not rest until she had figured out how something worked.

Charlotte knew that life was meant for good friends and great adventures. She was pretty sure that the adventures were taken care of, but something was still missing in her wonderful plans and that was a best friend. Charlotte had friends of course. They played together, dressed up together and laughed together and had such great fun. But a best friend was something special. A best friend knows everything about you and loves you just the way you are, a best friend keeps all your secrets safe, a best friend goes on all your adventures with you. To find a friend like that is special and doesn’t come around often. If you’re really lucky, you may even find your bestest friend, those are the ones that stay with you always, through thick and thin, no matter where life takes you. And that’s the kind of friend Charlotte wanted and she knew that one day she would find a friend just like that. Until then, her pet frog Ferdinand was the only keeper of her secrets and guardian of her dreams.

One wonderful hot summer day Charlotte was busy daydreaming in her tree house, a glass of lemonade in one hand and one of her mom’s famous strawberry dumplings in the other, when she heard a loud thud on the roof of her little house. What in the world could make such a noise? Did a plane crash on her house? Did a tree fall? Did elephants start raining from the sky? Charlotte’s imagination spun crazily out of control but never in her wildest dreams would she have come up with what really happened. Quickly she leaned out of her window and stretched and shimmied to see what had the nerve to crash her out of her dreams. And lo and behold, something had landed in her tree! There it was, balancing on the edge of the roof, little puffs of smoke billowing from it. There it was plain as day, a spaceship. A spaceship? Impossible, you might say! But it really was right there. Round with a glass dome for a roof and blue-green sides, the spaceship was clearly wrecked with a jagged tear going through the glass and one of the landing feet twisted to the side. Charlotte was amazed at seeing a real, live spaceship. Not quite as big as she would have imagined, really only the size of a suitcase, but it was definitely a spaceship, with blinking lights and all. The only thing missing was the alien to go with it.

Maybe a blue one, with little antennas that move around in all directions, helping him to hear. Or one with pointy ears that can read your mind and is always so very serious. Or maybe a really tall, mean looking one that speaks a weird language, sounding like he’s really grumpy and is always shouting. The alien would come out of the spaceship and be very curious about where he had crash-landed and be so happy to find that this world also had little girls playing in tree houses. He would teach Charlotte many things about the universe and if she was really lucky, he would take her on big adventures to his home planet and maybe Charlotte would make lots of funny, new friends.

No sooner had Charlotte had this thought when something tapped her shoulder from behind. Tap, tap, tap. There was an alien! Strangely calm and not scared in the least bit, Charlotte turned. What she saw was not an alien but it just as well might have been one. In front of her was another little girl in torn blue overalls; long, blonde hair in a lopsided ponytail, freckles and big black glasses. She looked a little anxious, clutching a remote control in her hand. “Hello,” the little girl said with a shy smile, “I think my spaceship crashed on your tree house”.

Charlotte quickly recovered from her surprise and was happy to meet a new friend. “Yes, it’s right out here,” she answered with a big grin, pointing out the window. “You gave me quite a scare”.

“I’m really sorry, but I got distracted and then the spaceship started crashing and then the wind blew and I wasn’t fast enough and I really didn’t want to scare anyone.”

It all came rushing out in one long breath and the little girl looked as if she had scared herself the most. Charlotte felt sorry for her. Crashing a spaceship really isn’t something you do every day and Charlotte was sure that the little girl needed something to calm her down.

“I have some strawberry dumplings if you want. They really make a difference after a crash. Do you want some? I can help you with your spaceship later.”

The little girl had never had strawberry dumplings before, but they sounded good. Looking at the mistress of this funny little tree house with her big smile, she felt an odd sense of intrigue come over her. This was a new feeling and although she usually was way too shy to eat dumplings with perfect strangers, the little girl nodded thankfully, sinking down on the chair as if all the energy had drained from her. Silently she nibbled at her dumpling as if deep in thought.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Charlotte asked, “What’s your name anyway?”

“I’m Matilda,” came the feeble reply. “We just moved in next door”.

And so, the mystery of the moving van was also solved. Charlotte had watched the commotion just the day before, happy to see that grumpy Mr. Sanderson was replaced by a new family. Now things turned out even better, because Matilda was already sitting in her tree house. Despite the obvious differences between them, Charlotte knew deep in her heart that she had found her bestest friend.