Hometown Borrow
Emma Prokop | 8th Grade, Room 213
A little Gray Building
38
I was out of breath, partially from running and partially from excitement. I could see my destination a block in front of me, the rocky sidewalk lead me right in front of 5718 Walnut Street, my best friend’s old house. I took off towards the navy blue pillared porch, jumping over the lip in the sidewalk that caught me almost every time. I jumped up the steps and banged on the front door as I looked through the golden mail slot on the left door. As I saw Gracie’s mom approach the door I quickly shut the mail slot as to not be rude. The door creaked open just as my parents finally reached the top step of the porch, but by the time the first “hello” was exchanged I was running up the stairs with Gracie to the third floor. I kept looking back to check that we weren’t being followed; I felt like a bank robber, just less extreme. I took off up the first flight of steps to where Gracie was waiting for me. We looked at each other with a knowing look and ran, straight up to the top of the second flight of stairs. I looked up from my bear-crawl-run to see the lip of the gray carpet that covered the third floor. We were on autopilot as we made a sharp left turn into the small guest bedroom. Against the wall was a bed with a patterned blue and white cover that looked as though it had the texture of silk. Next to the bed was a tall brown cupboard that stood twice as tall as me. For all I knew, the cupboard held nothing, maybe some old clothes or games, but I didn’t care. Because, most importantly, there was a white window seat with three doors on top of it. Above the window seat was a large window that overlooked Walnut Street, with yellow checker board curtains that draped over the small doors of what we called Hometown Borrow.
I didn’t know why we called it Hometown Borrow or how that name came to be but I cherished it nonetheless. We escaped the reality of the real home and dove into our own - we were in charge here. I looked out the window to see a dog walker, a family with coffee, and a business woman and I thought how strange it was that even though they might be able to see us standing in the window, they would never guess what we were actually doing. It was the biggest secret of our friendship at the time, not even our parents knew what we were doing. I thought about what could happen if my parents found out, or if her parents found out. All the possibilities of what could happen flooded my brain as I stared out the window. “Emmy?” Gracie looked at me with a curious eye, and as I heard her voice I was brought back from my thoughts. As long as I wasn’t the only one getting in trouble for this it would be fine. We climbed through the small doors, Gracie going through the left one and me through the right, no one went through the center because then they would sit on the chocolate chips and flashlight. I laid down in such a way so that the wood panes inside the box-like structure wouldn’t poke me too much and so that my feet could curl around so there would be room in front of me for go fish, shadow puppets, and chocolate chips.