Page 3

Rio

Age 12

“You need to keep working on your balance,” my dad says, helping me up from yet another fall. He makes sure I’m steady on my rollerblades before letting go of my arms.

“My coach said—” The wheels of my skates fly out from under me before I can finish my sentence.

I fall right on my elbow, but my dad made me put on my pads before coming out to practice so the impact doesn’t hurt that bad, and I try to get up as quickly as possible so I can keep practicing with him. He works a lot but will help me practice a couple of times a week and I do my best to impress him each time.

With my hands on his arm, he helps me wheel from the driveway to the grass where I drop onto my butt to sit.

“My coach said the dance classes I’m taking are helping with my coordination.”

He chuckles. “I bet they are. Hey, I got to go help your mom with dinner, so let’s call it a night for the skates.” He bends to make himself eye level with me as he unclips my rollerblades. “Are you still enjoying hockey? Because if you’re not having fun, we can try football or baseball or even soccer. There are a lot of other sports where you wouldn’t have to skate, you know.”

“No, I like it. I think I’m getting better. I want to keep playing.”

He unhooks my helmet, tossing it to the grass. “Okay. Then we’ll keep playing. Be inside and washed up for dinner soon, yeah?”

My dad ruffles my messy hair before jogging into the house to help my mom.

He’s always helping her. He’s always kissing her or dancing with her in the kitchen. It’s pretty gross, but all my friends say I have the best parents, and I totally agree with them. They met when they were my age, which is so weird to think about.

Pulling my feet out of my rollerblades, I unfasten my elbow and knee pads. I grab my hockey stick and gather my pucks in a pile in the middle of my driveway. The net is centered in front of our garage where I always practice. The garage door is peppered with plenty of dings and dents from my missed shots, but I’m getting a little better at making them in the net.

With my socks on, I shoot, but it goes wide, bouncing off the hanging light on the front of the house.

Thankfully, it doesn’t break. My mom would be pissed. She’s already upset that the garage door got dented, but she also didn’t tell me to stop practicing either.

I wish I had a friend on my street who I could play defense against, or they could play goalie while I shoot, but there are no other kids around here.

Everyone on our block has lived here forever. That’s just how it works in this part of Boston. Our house is the same house my nonna grew up in. She raised my mom here, and now I live here. I’ve had the same neighbors my whole life. Some have kids in high school and others are having babies now, but no one is my age.

Last night at dinner I asked my parents if our new neighbors had kids, and my mom said she wasn’t ready to think about someone moving into Cecilia’s house yet, so the conversation ended there.

Cecilia was my nonna’s best friend and had always lived in the house right next to mine, but she died a couple of months ago and her family didn’t want to live there, so they sold it.

I didn’t bring it up again at dinner, but when I went to bed last night, I prayed that my new neighbors would have a kid my age.

I work on the stickhandling drill we learned at practice this week, moving the puck back and forth along my driveway before shooting it at the net.

I miss again, and when I turn back for a new puck, I watch a car pull into Cecilia’s driveway and park in front of the house.

It’s a normal car like my dad has, but this one is dark green and looks new.

Standing in my driveway, I watch as a lady gets out and looks up at the redbrick exterior of the house attached to mine before rounding the trunk to lift out a small moving box, carrying it into the house Cecilia used to live in. The lady has dark hair and looks around my mom’s age.

A man gets out next and carries in a bigger box behind her. Then the back door of the car opens and a blond boy steps out. He’s holding a lacrosse stick and he’s my same height.

He looks up at his new house before noticing me standing next door.

I wave. “Hey.”

He waves back. “Hey. Do you live here?”

“Yeah.”

He walks in my direction, gesturing to Cecilia’s house. “I’m moving in there.”

“That’s cool. I’m Rio.”

“I’m Luke.” His eyes are trained on my hockey stick. “You play hockey?”

“Yeah, but I’m not very good.”

He holds up his lacrosse stick. “I play lacrosse, and I’m really good.”

“That’s cool. How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Me too.”

He smiles. “Cool.”

My attention returns to the car to watch a girl climb out of the back seat too. She’s shorter than me and Luke but her hair is dark brown and wavy like mine. She’s wearing jeans that flare out at the bottom and a pink sweatshirt with a big yellow smiley face on the front.

She doesn’t look over in our direction. Instead, her eyes are locked on her new house. She’s got headphones over her ears and a cassette player in her hand.

“That’s my sister,” Luke says. “You don’t have to be friends with her since she’s a girl.”

“I have a lot of friends who are girls. And they’re all really smart and funny. I take a dance class and there are only girls there.”

“You take a dance class?”

“Yeah. It’s helping me skate better.”

“That’s weird.”

Luke’s sister is still staring up at the house next to mine. Her eyes follow the roofline, watching where her roof connects to mine until finally, she looks down and her attention lands on me and her brother.

“Hallie!” Luke shouts, waving her over.

She holds up a finger, silently telling him to wait before refocusing on her house.

Luke shakes his head. “She’s so annoying sometimes.”

I don’t have a sister, but a lot of my friends think their sisters are annoying, so I guess that’s a common thing. But I’d love to have a sister. Or a brother. I don’t care. It’s lonely being an only child.

Finally, Hallie pulls off her headphones, draping them around her neck, and joins us on my driveway.

She looks exactly like the woman who walked into the house earlier, but a younger version.

“Hi.” She grins at me. “I’m Hallie Hart.”

Luke groans. “You don’t have to tell everyone your first and last name.”

She simply shrugs, completely unbothered. “I like it.”

Luke rolls his eyes at his sister.

“I’m Rio DeLuca,” I say, giving her my last name too.

She smiles bigger.

“Luke!” their dad calls from the front porch. “Come help your mom get the dishes unpacked.”

Their dad waves at me and I lift my hand to wave back. He seems nice.

“You don’t have to help too?” I ask Hallie.

“Nope. I packed them. Luke has to unpack them. How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“I’m eleven. Today.”

“It’s your birthday?”

“Yep. March eighth. When is your birthday?”

“August third.”

Her brows turn in, her head tilting to the side. “So, you don’t get to have a birthday at school?”

“No. It’s always right before school starts.”

“I usually get to have a birthday at school, but not this year. We drove here today from Minnesota.”

“That’s pretty far away, right?”

“It’s so far away. My friends are all there. But my mom said I get to paint my new room any color I want, so it’s okay, I guess.”

“That’s awesome. My room is just white.”

“I think I’ll do yellow. Do you like yellow?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be yellow.” She points up to a window facing my house. “That one is my room. Luke got to choose first and he picked the bigger room.”

I point to the window on my house that faces hers and shares a roof. “That one is my room.”

“You can watch me paint my room from your room!”

“Okay. That sounds cool.”

“Do you want to be friends?”

Well, that was easy. Just last night I was praying for a new friend, and here she is. “Sure!”

“My brother will probably tell you not to be my friend.”

“I don’t care. I’m friends with a lot of people. I can be his friend and your friend. Or we can be secret friends.”

Her smile grows. “Okay.” She looks down at my feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“I was practicing my skating, but I had to take them off because my dad went inside, and I fall too much. But I’m getting better at skating.”

“Do you like music?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. I love music.” She presses the rewind button on her cassette player.

“CDs are way better than tapes,” I tell her. “You should start buying CDs.”

“I like tapes. CDs scratch too much when you rewind them and then they don’t work right.”

“What are you listening to?”

“I don’t know the name. I just picked a song to remember the moment.”

Huh?

She must realize how confused I am because she adds, “I pick a song when something cool or important happens so I can remember it. Then when I want to relive a moment, I rewind it back and start the song from the beginning.”

That’s kind of weird but I don’t tell her that. I also don’t think it’d bother her if I called her weird. I think she’d keep doing what she’s doing.

And that makes her pretty cool.

“Are you trying to remember moving?” I ask.

“Yeah. And meeting a new friend. You should try it sometime.”

“Okay. Maybe I will.”

Her smile turns proud.

“Rio!” my mom calls from the front door. “Dinnertime, Tesoro .”

She glances at Hallie quickly before peeking out the front door to look for our new neighbors. My mom gives her that signature kind smile she always wears and goes back inside.

“I have to go,” I tell my new friend.

“Okay. See you later.” She waves as she skips back to her house.

I stop on the front step of my porch as she does the same, looking over at me. “Happy birthday, Hallie.”

Her smile is so big I can see all her teeth. “Thanks, Rio.”