(untitled-- for now) By Lindsay

              My best friend, Jenny Hayes, was kidnapped exactly one year ago at age thirteen. Jenny Hayes was taken at 1:11am by an unknown intruder as she was asleep. How do I know this? On her bedside table was an inscription:

1:11. Gone.
-unknown

Jenny was my best friend. Jenny meant everything to me. Jenny is gone.

             And now, I stand here, waiting for the bus, wearing only some worn out jeans with holes, a windbreaker and old, fallen-apart Nikes, kicking stones across the cracked street on this frigid late-November morning-- the anniversary of my best friend's disappearance. Wiggling my toes to keep them from going numb, I sigh and am thankful that my mind is distracted by the frigid weather so as not to think about anything else too intently. But how can anything really distract me when only a year ago, Jenny and I were standing in this same spot, waiting for the bus to come and drive us to school. Our discussion is still burned into the back of my mind, although I barely even thought about it at the time.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Jenny asks.
I look at her in the corner of my eyes and her green eyes look back at me with great empathy.
"There's this kid," I hesitate, then continue, " He's a ninth grader who goes to our school, and yesterday, as I was walking  to the bus he told me he would beat me up if I didn't give him some cigarettes tomorrow. Today is tomorrow, Jenny. I have no cigarettes." I talk quietly, trying not to make a HUGE deal out of things.
"No worries, my friend. I bet you could take down some ninth grader thug, any day." 
A smirk forms on my lips. 
Jenny always knew what to say.


More coming next week!!!