Not many friends can brag that they have a picture of their first meeting. Not as though the three occupants of ours would want to brag: the picture isn’t the most flattering. On the contrary, all three would rather I "rip it up, and fling it to the far corners of the earth, and Ra be damned if I ever have to see it again!"

But back on subject, the four of us meeting was odd to say the least.

It all started when we were fresh out of elementary, just innocent little sixth graders.

At least I know I was. But anyways, Tori and I aren’t quite sure how it started, but we have the sneaking suspicion that is has to do with names.

Well I mean boys fight over anything and everything else, why not something like names? I myself have never even a met a girl named Ambar, so how do you think it is on a guy? But yeah, Ambar and Matt-tye are not your typical boys’ names.

I’d already known Ambar for a while, since the beginning of the year, and since we were already 6 months into the year….

*She shrugs*

I guess at that time, we could already be called friends, and by friend I mean he didn’t make me feel like my sanity was slowly draining away second by second, inch by inch….

Sorry, I drift off subject sometimes. Ambar in general was pretty pleasant to be around for a preteen boy. He was rather loud and had a habit of speaking before thinking, but his intelligence made up for it. The first thing that grabbed you attention was his hair, it was pulled into a tail almost to the middle of his back, and the tail was very white. (We think it’s dyed, he insists it’s natural.)

Tori and Matt at that time were basically strangers to me, although it was hard not to notice a girl such as Tori. She was loud, eccentric, crazy (clumsy too) and just generally very cheerful, and as I got to know her she only became worse (luckily, she’s joined ROTC this year, and so she has to shut up once in a while).

She not only stood out in personality, but in looks with her dark brown skin, even darker than some of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians, and thick black hair. She was also fairly short, barely 5’4".

Matt was extremely prideful, temperamental and tall--at least for an Asian. He was also blind in his left eye with a cataract. Another subject that he was touchy upon.

When it happened, it had been raining a lot lately, so of course the ground was very muddy, and by third period I was scraping mud off my shoes. Not that our sadistic PE teacher cared; not only did she make us play volleyball in the mud, but in the rain too.

We were split into groups, and as Luck (or sadistic Fate) would have it, Ambar, Matt and I were put onto the same team.

In that one-hour’s time, the muddy volleyball kept finding itself traveling hard and fast into the two boys’ heads, backs, legs, and any other available body parts, so by the time class ended, they were by far the wettest, dirtiest, and angriest in the class.

This and several encounters in the past fueled the oncoming clash, which was actually pretty disappointing. I don’t know how it started, (being a woman I took forever in the locker room so I missed most of it) and by the time I’d gotten out, both boys were in an all-out fistfight in the mud. A crowd had gathered, including the incoming PE class.

And then in comes Tori to break up the fight, because being Tori…

For the life of me, I don’t know why she does it, jumping into fights like that. You would think she’s smarter than that, or at least wants a longer life expectancy. And somehow, invariably, she never ends up hurt, at least seriously. It’s sometimes a little funny, if not annoying.

But there goes little Tori, barely 5’4", up against two 5’8" boys, which may not SOUND like much, but it sure looks it. And then she did something that even now, Ambar and Matt complain as savage. She kicked them in the you-know-where.

Had this been a movie, Tori would have then walked away dramatically, the wind rustling her hair behind her amid the stunned awe of the crowd, and the groaning of the boys in the mud.

But this isn’t a movie.

After kicking them both, she went to kick Matt again for trying to lay attack Ambar yet again. As she kicked out, he had up his hand in an attempt to block her foot, but in the process knocked the already naturally ungraceful Tori off balance. Much to the two boys chagrin, Tori fell, landing heavily on them both and knocking them even further into the mud.

And the crowd just laughed at the interesting show they were receiving.

Now, I’m not saying that we immediately became friends like that and lived happily ever after. Both boys got detention and sent to the counselor’s for guidance, Ambar’s dad grounded him forever and made him apologize to Matt, whose parents made Matt do the same back. They fought again. They got grounded again. They beat each other up and resolved their differences. (That’s the nice thing about guys, a couple of punches and everything’s all peachy.)

Somehow Tori and I just followed, I was already Ambar’s friend, so when they got together, I followed. Tori came…because she was Tori, if you know her, you’ll discover that sometimes that’s the only answer you can give.

But how did we get the picture you ask? That incredibly handy yearbook. Tori mutilated my book cutting it out, then had the picture enlarged, which I then took and posted on my wall. Ambar and Matt despise it and attempt to get rid of it every time they see it.

And that’s how we became friends.

"Dooooooooooooooooooreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!"

Too bad I wasn’t aware of what psychos they’d all turn out to be.

Almost by reflex, my hand whips out and smacks Matt’s retreating hand. Tori cackles and grabs the dropped candy bar. Ambar sighs at all of us as Matt calls us some very uncharacteristic names.