Crayons & Cuties

"He stole my crayon...AGAIN!"
Stupid Mark Harraway. He is cute, but he has cooties and is a jerk. He ALWAYS steals my crayons. Not just once or twice, but everytime I have the dumb things out.
Like last week, around last Monday or Tuesday, we had to color this turkey for Thanksgiving, and I needed the peachy orange colored crayon, and as I reach for it, he somehow manages to grab it before I can, and he never returned it. And now that I think about it, I don't think he ever did return it.
"Mark," I whine. "Give it back! I need it to color my pony!"
Ah, my pony. My marvelous piece of artwork. Okay, first grade may seem like a young grade to be a little sure of yourself, but I know for a fact that I'm gona become one of the world's best artists one day. I just know it. Why else would I be drawing at such an early age? Okay, I just used a quote from a movie I heard, but it sounded cool and this was the perfect time to say it.
"Mark," Mrs. Whindcimer, our teachers, chimes back at us, casually. "Give the crayon back to Alanna." She never really minds any arguments in the classroom. Except for last week.
So the story goes that Mark stole my crayon, right? I sit there complaining and complaining until finally I realize nobody's doing anything to help me get my crayon back, so I stand up, grab my large box of crayons, and toss the whole box at him! Seriously, no joke! And so one of the crayons, (I think it was a green colored one) flys up in the air and BAM! It smacks Mark right in the middle of the eye.
Obviously Mark starts whining and crying and I get in trouble, blah, blah...
"I'm using it," Mark finally replies, glaring at me. "To color my ninja."
I almost believe that until..."Wait a second, here! You don't need a BLUE crayon to color in a ninja! You need black and maybe red!"
Oh, I' m good. I just KNOW that I stunned him, until he snaps back, "It's a COOL ninja, but you wouldn't know that because you're too STUPID to know that."
My jaw drops down to my chin and I want to march over there and rip his ugly poop-colored hair right out of his head! But I restrain myself.
"At least I'm COOL enough to know a secret." I say proudly, though I haven't quite thought up of af secret just yet. I'll need to come up with one sometime in case he asks me what the secret is and somehow I'm FORCED to say it.
Mark always has a comeback or SOMETHING that will just get on my nerves. He says melanchalantly, "Hmm. . . what's the secret?"
"I'm not telling YOU," I say, a grin bearing my face. "You're not cool enough to know."
"Well you're not cool enough to tell me." Mark says.
What is this--some sort of mind game? Is he tricking me into something? I can't tell if he is or not. He probably is...that's how MEAN and DUMB he is.
"You think that," I say, as I pick up a pair of creme colored scissors and slice into a fresh piece of green construction paper, which I will paste onto my picture later on to appear as grass in the background of my pony.
Loudly, a bell rings suddenly, startling many in my class, alerting us that it is recess time. I quickly drop my scissors on my desk, with paper flying onto the floor. Recess is recess!
I'm the fourth one out of the door, and Mark gets stuck having to wait for everyone to leave before he can, since the doorway is so blocked. I run out to the playground, breathing in the fresh air, the odor of freshly cut grass out on the playing field, where older kids in about fifth and sixth grade gather around to play "football" and "soccer' and so on with other field sports.
As for me and my best friend MaryAnn, we stuck to our daily four-square, where you bounce the ball into someone's elses square and ya..it's a long description. Mark came out of the room, finally. He walks up to us slowly, eyeballing the ball we're using to play 4-square. "Can I play?" He asks, his eyes opened quite wide. "Please?"
I glance at MaryAnn, who's not too enthused, but she never minds having more players to play with. She answers for me, "Ya, you can play."
MaryAnn notices my glare at her for allowing Mark to play. She says, on the verge of whispering, "Just let him play, we needed another player anyways."
"No," I say harshly. "We didn't need another player. We already have 5 players. One person will be rotated out each round, it's not like we're required to have another player."
"Just let him play, Alanna, don't be so uptight about everything." MaryAnn says, irritated.
"Fine."
Mark taps my shoulder lightly as he walks by on accident.
After many bounces and "getting out"s, recess ends twenty minutes later, the sun blazing and nearly everyone in my class is perspiring, you can tell from their sweaty foreheads. At our school, every class has to line up in lines before they are excused to their classrooms. I'm usually the one to point out gross stuff, in case you haven't noticed.
Standing in front of me is Mark, who smells like a pig. He turns around and says, "Sorry about stealing your crayons."
WHAT?! IS THIS A DREAM?! Oh, somebody pinch me!
"It's ok," I reply, trying to hide my blushing.
The hiding doesn't help though, he notices the blush anyways. "You likkke me!" He teases, pointing his index finger at me. "Alanna likes me!"
"I do not!" I scream, glancing around to see who heard him. Everyone. "Boys have cooties!" I add.
"You LOVE me," Mark continues. "You wanna KISS me."
"No!" I screech. "I don't!"
Our class is excused, so we start walking in a single file line, still arguing. "You have cooties," I say, trying to act disgusted.
He finally stops teasing me, and peace and quiet is restored once again.
About twenty minutes later, he hands me a crumpled up piece of paper. I open it up to see a large red heart in the center of the paper, with our names in it. When Mark had seen that I'd read it, he started laughing loudly.
~20 Years Later~

I'm glancing up and down at a perfectly dressed manequin in the mall. "Excuse me," Says a dark haired handsome man. "Can I help you find anything specific?"
As I look up into his eyes, I wonder.Have I seen this man before? I even inquire the employee the same question.
He extended his hand and smiled broadly. "Even if we haven't, the name's Mark Harraway."

~55 Years Later~
I never knew it was thet same Mark, until now, after our lives of our 30 years of marriage and still going. Not even once I began to question if it was the same Mark.



Not even once.