We headed down the street in search of a large, air-conditioned escape from the heat. As the herd got closer to the old Shaffner house, you could see two people sitting out in the front yard under a tree. It was simply too hot to be sitting out in the sun.
"Hey, Mer, are those the newbies?" I asked. Meredith peered up the road.
"Yup, that's them," she replied.
The others began to question Meredith about them, seeing what information they could squelch from her. She really didn't know all that much about them, so she suggested that we go say hi.
The two girls looked in our direction as we approached. Both of them had bright red hair. "Hi, there," one of the kids said.
"Hi," one of the girls said. She appeared to be the younger of the two. Her shiny, straight red hair was in two short pigtails that stuck out from her head.
"Are you new here?" Meredith asked.
"Yeah," the girl said. "Do you guys live here?"
"Yeah," we all replied.
"Oh. I'm Danielle," she said. She gestured to the other girl. "That's Quinn."
"Nice to meet you," Meredith said. "I'm Meredith Pinkham. I live 5 houses down."
We took her lead and began to introduce ourselves. "Hi, I'm Leena." "I'm Theo." "Hi. I'm Rayna." "My name's Chastity." "I'm Adelaide." "Catrina." "Taylor. Nice to meet you." "I'm Christianna." "Hey. I'm Margo." I was the last to say, "Hi. I'm Peetree."
"Peetree?" Quinn asked. "What an unusual name. Is it a nickname?"
I blushed. "Yeah. Short for Patricia."
"That's cute," she said, a smile coming over her face. I noticed then that she never seemed to quite focus on anybody, just stared in our general direction with her weird green eyes.
"What are ya'll doing?" Danielle asked.
"We're just walking," Chastity told them. "You wanna come with us?"
Danielle shrugged. "Sure. Let me go tell Mom." She went over and helped Quinn to her feet, and then ran inside. Quinn stood amidst us, gazing at nothing. I stepped closer. Her head turned in my direction. Her eyes were looking just over my shoulder.
"Whose that?" she asked.
"Peetree," I told her. "Um, are you okay?"
She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
I nodded and stepped back a bit. Just then Danielle came running out. She handed a cane and a pair of sunglasses to Quinn. It dawned on me then why Quinn had not been looking at me. She was blind.
I thought it was strange at the time, as we set back to walking down the street in a huge pack. I'd never known anyone blind before. Danielle took her elbow and helped guide her, although Quinn looked as though she was making it on her own quite well. Both girls began to engage in chatter with the others. I fell a few steps behind, and let the herd march on ahead of me.
Taylor hung back with me. "She's blind," he told me.
"I know," I said. "She seems to know what she's doing, huh? You'd think a blind girl would be stumbling around."
He shrugged. "She doesn't look that bad."
I looked at him. He was staring at Quinn's butt. I laughed and gave him a hard slap on his arm. "Asshole," I said.
He rubbed his arm and scowled at me. "I was just checking out the view."
"Whatever," I said, and hurried to catch up to the group. Taylor did as well, only this time he went to walk next to Quinn.
I, on the other hand, walked by Chastity and Catrina. They were never any good at keeping a conversation going, so I took the oppurtunity to let my thoughts wonder.
