Unpublished Scene: Aviv and Emily

In my kindergarten class, there was a boy called Aviv. On the first day of school, we got outside to the playground and we ended up standing next to each other, looking around for someone to play with. He asked me if I wanted to be his friend. Nervous I might not have another option, I happily obliged and chased him around the playground for twenty minutes.

And so our friendship started and progressed smoothly for a while. Aviv was an energetic, smiley boy with a wonderful spirit and a joyful innocence about him, but he was also a little bit crazy in the way that Kindergarten boys can be, and I took to thinking I was better than him right away.

Then I met Emily. To give you an idea of what she was like, let me give you an excerpt form a journal entry in which I retell this particular story.

The crowning jewel in her character was her ability to speak, and speak plentifully in the tone of voice where you could just barely hear her fine, but if she turned the volume down even one notch it'd be too quiet. She never shouted, never even raised her voice even when she was angry... she simply spoke, even-tempered and with a straight face. She was beyond mature for her age; when we talked, it was about sophisticated issues and our opinions on people in the class...

In short, she was exactly like me without the shouting. I adored Emily. As luck would have it, she also adored me; I was the only boy at her sixth birthday party, and I was also the guest of honor. 

Okay. Let me put the pieces together here. 

In one corner, we have Aviv: small, smiley boy with crooked teeth who has never done a cruel thing in his life.

In the other corner, we have Emily: small, straight-faced girl, who despises Aviv, finds him childish, and has the weapon of less innocence, more wisdom, and total willingness to use nothing but the brute force of her words to tear him to smithereens. 

Both engaged in a battle for my affection, though only one was convinced that it needed to be a battle. This was war. 

No, literally.

"Emily! Aviv! You guys should play war!" I shouted during an indoor recess after which Aviv annoyed me greatly and I sought vengeance. I smiled cunningly at the glorious scene that was about to unfold before my eyes.

I handed them the deck of cards. "Emily gets to draw first," I explained. No one protested. Things were off to a fabulous start. One minute later and Emily was up fourteen cards to zero. Aviv was a pretty naive kid, but even he knew something was up when I was rolling on the floor laughing and he hadn't won a single round. 

"You stacked the deck!" he said, accusingly. 

I sat up, surprised by the power of his accusation. "Of course I stacked it. You don't ever leave me and Emily alone and I like Emily and I don't like you." 

Things perhaps might have gotten ugly there, but right about then I made a crucial mistake in my card stacking, and all of a sudden things flipped around. Emily start to lose every round, and by the time it was over, Aviv beat her, 38 cards to 14. He was perfectly delighted with himself, laughing at me as though I hadn't told him to his face I didn't like him seconds earlier. 

The next day at recess, he chased me around as though nothing had ever happened. And I, relieved my stupidity hadn't ended worse, was content to let him.