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 - I -

                 

A new girl had started at the school that day; the day of Sophie’s birthday.  The new girl was neither beautiful nor brainy.

 

It is always difficult to fit in mid-way through the school year when friendships have already been forged.

 

*

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The new girl sat on the wall beside Sophie.  Everyone else seemed to be in groups.  The new girl opened her snack.  It was a packet of cheese and onion crisps.   Not healthy, but delicious.  The new girl was ravenous, she had never had to wait until eleven o’clock to eat in school before.  Her hand was trembling with hunger and her hand was trembling with fear.

 

Reaching across, and holding the packet out, she asked Sophie if she would like one.

 

Sophie loved cheese and onion crisps.  Who doesn’t?  Certainly not a child. 

 

Tentatively Sophie nodded, and tentatively Sophie smiled at the frail creature before her; someone that was frailer than her.  It takes one to know one.

 

Sophie knew her name before the new girl even spoke it.

 

*

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“You’re Linda”.

 

*

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 - II -

                 

Sometimes kindness is engraved in our memories and Linda would show gratitude to the girl who welcomed her in the way she did.  Over the years Linda felt that there was not a more generous gift than time and Sophie always had time for Linda.  She had helped her settle when she was afraid.  She had helped her nerves when she got married.  She had helped her overcome her fears of motherhood and the pain it involved.

 

Sophie had always helped Linda.

 

 

*

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However, it was Sophie who felt the most gratitude.  She never forgot the cheese and onion crisps.  She never forgot that, although she was welcoming the new girl at school, Sophie was the one being welcomed, being welcomed as a friend.  She had never had a real friend before; no-one that existed.

 

*

**

 

Sophie and Linda remained the closest of friends, sharing anecdotes, memories, photographs, gatherings.  Gathering of their families – birthdays, weddings and christenings.

 

*

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Today Sophie did not want to attend this gathering.

 

*

**

 

Flowers, especially roses are the usual things, perhaps jewellery, perhaps something that was significant, of relevant to a remembrance.

 

Sophie did not care that the other mourners looked on her with distrust or distaste or even disdain.

 

Sophie did not care.

 

*

**

 

As they lowered Linda’s coffin into the ground, Sophie threw on top of this a bag of cheese and onion crisps.

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