I jumped out of the car, grabbing my track jacket for later and running up the driveway to my friend's house. I'd been looking forward to this party because I hadn't seen her in forever, and the people who she hung out with were awesome.

In other words, sorry angst lovers; today I was in a good mood.

By the time I reached her steps Jillian already had the door open and I made sure to crush her in a hug before Malcolm, who stood behind me, could ruin the moment. Jillian has a lot of friends but I'm practically counted as her sister.

I slipped through the door and was startled to find that half the people were already here. They were all here in past years, so I already knew all of them.

The ridiculously tall twins, Max and Jasper were stretched out on a pair of arm chairs, Lydia perched on the arm of one of them, and Fiona and Ashley sat on the floor, joking.

"Wuz up people?" I beamed. Then there was a startling moment when Max and Jasper disappeared off their chairs and materialized in front of me. God, I didn't even see them move! How do they do that?

Avoiding near collision, Jasper swerved around me to look out the front door but Max stayed a couple feet back, a complex expression on his face. I'd actually seen them earlier this week at a track meet; Max was on the Arlington team, I wondered what he did though… Anyway, we hadn't talked or anything. In fact, I don't think they would have recognized me.

"Oh crap," I heard from behind me from where Jasper was, "It's Sarah!"

"Shit!" Max yelped and fled the room, Jasper right behind him.

Sarah, a perfectly normal looking girl was walking up the driveway, and if a little girly looking, would still earn my respect by the end of the party (you'll see why).

People trickled in over the next few minutes until I deemed it time to go out side. It turns out, everyone else had the same idea. Stopping to take off my socks and shoes-, which I just consider to be annoyances attached to my feet-, I saw Max stop to do the same thing. "Hey Max," I said inquisitively, "You're on the Arlington track team, right?"

He nodded and his mouth curled up to one side, "Yeah, I recognized you at the meet."

Uh, excuse me, did he just read my mind? I paused to let my brain reboot.

Wait a minute…Bad Rose. No staring.

I said, "So, what do you run?" hoping that would be a good question.

"Fifty- five hurdles, hundred, and high jump."

I grinned, "Woo! Go high jump!" We high fived and ran into the backyard, with me headed straight for the giant trampoline.

I'd been going on this thing since I was six and I still loved it. Never, under any circumstances would Malcolm pass up a showing off opportunity, and so he climbed on behind me.

Thirty seconds later, we were joined by Max. Now, this was Malcolm's first time meeting Max and within five minutes you could tell they would love each other. They both love parkour (hmm, I didn't know Max did parkour…), they both love doing crazy and dangerous stuff (like climbing dead or extremely tall or dead and extremely tall trees) ect.

Soon more people came onto the trampoline and, because of the mesh around it to keep us from falling off, we were all crashing into each other and at one point Malcolm grabbed my leg, trying to trip me up. I kicked him repeatedly until he let go.

We told racist jokes and the others told stories about past crazy parties they'd gone to.

Sarah had started to say, "Oh, I remember at Jasper's party, when-" But Jasper interrupted her with a shout of "Never again!"

Of course now we all wanted to know now though. Max simply stood there laughing and refusing to comment. We all sat down in a ring around the edge of the trampoline and I let myself pull back from the social atmosphere, as is my natural tendency.

It went on and off like that. I would spend ten minutes up a tree in the back yard, looking down at the partiers below, to on the ground with the others discussing the awesomeness of dubstep.

That tree I mentioned, pretty much everyone was inclined to climb it. We were all those kind of people, and the tree was there, so we climbed it.

I was hanging by my knees off of the ancient set of monkey bars Jill owned when Malcolm walked over with a rubber ball and a gleam in his eye. A gleam that, using my awesome twin telepathy powers, I could tell meant, 'You're about to get pegged so hard.'

Pretty much defenseless, I warned him, "Malcolm, don't you dare…"

Pegging noises

"MALCOLM!"

He smiled evilly, darting forward and grabbing the ball again.

More pegging noises

"Malcolm get over here; I'm gonna kick your ass!" I snarled, twisting around and making him jump back, my nails raking through air. I twisted around again and barely missed Max, who had been watching with great amusement. Ignoring this for a moment I reached up and flipped myself off the monkey bars, turning and giving my 'you're gonna die' look to Malcolm.

He cackled and ran away and up a tree. It's useless to chase him once he's up a tree.

Damn it.

Later, during capture the flag:

"Some trees just need to be climbed people." I said, justifying my lengthy disappearance into the woods. 'Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't-'

"That should be a t-shirt." Max said. " 'Some trees just need to be climbed'."

I looked at him. Was it just me, or was he getting taller by the second? He had to be just under six foot by now…

It was strange. I'd met him two years ago at one of Jillian's parties when he and Jasper had been spying on us (they weren't invited) and we found them, tied them to a tree and beat them with cake. Then, last year, when they were invited, I had made friends with Max, though not so much with Jasper. I think it's because he lacked the love of the woods and pointy things that Max and I bonded over. (Max tried to teach me how to throw a javelin. I failed. Miserably.)

It was all really fun, the party. But in case you haven't come to this conclusion previously, being social exhausts me. So I drifted off and found myself a tree and stayed up there for a good amount of time, restocking my energy.

By that time, the others were back at the house eating and didn't seem to really notice I was gone besides Jillian, who had been worried, and Max, who between mouthfuls of chips, asked how long I was up whatever tree I'd climbed.

I blinked. It was really quite disorienting the way he knew these things all the time without me telling him.

Now came what I shall appropriately dub the war of the Giant Purple Inflatable Ball, because it was in fact, a fight over possession of a giant purple inflatable ball.

First Sarah had it, and she bounced away on it, gossiping with her friends until suddenly, it was kicked out from under her and grabbed by Jasper, who ran away with it to the other end of the yard. Now, you don't just do something like that to Sarah without getting a serious beat down, so she stood up and ran at him. This continued, and I watched with amusement until Max got the ball and lay down on it, the girls unable to shift him.

"Dog pile on Max!" Alyssa shouted, "Rose, go!"

Um, excuse me? "What?" I asked, embarrassed. Inside my mind, I was screaming 'GO FOR IT! DOG PILE!'

"Just lay down on him!" Alyssa said cheerfully. (It later occurred to me that Alyssa might be smarter than I gave her credit for and was probably trying to set me up.) I shrugged, "Okay." And I flopped down crosswise across his back, reveling in the moment for the second before everyone piled on top of me. Gods, I had no idea how heavy five middle school girls felt!

I sure as hell couldn't speak but against all physics, Max could.

"Get off me, I can't breath!"

A moment later my lungs filled with air. I rolled off Max, who jumped up and ran. I jumped up and followed. I highly doubt Jasper wrestled with his twin though, like Malcolm and I have done since we were babies, because otherwise he would've seen this coming.

He had just stopped and lain down again when I flying-jump-tackled him. He rolled right off the other side and I grabbed the ball and ran. Please note, I was in bare feet, running away from one of the fastest guys on the Arlington track team, and carrying a giant ball that I couldn't fit my arms around. I barely got one lap of the house before he flying tackled the ball away from me.

All that need be said is that it was a great day. I feel the need to tell all my readers though… it might just be because it's finally summer, but I feel so much happier now. I'm taking a break from writing this story. Maybe I'll take it back up again when the school year starts in the fall, but right now my life just feels better. So for now, this is goodbye.

- Call me Longstride