My friend Shari

Why is everyone staring at her and asking her so many questions?  I was so excited to bring my friend Shari to the ball game in town, but now I’m just confused.  I am always eager to come into town from the farm to watch a ball game, but today I am especially enthusiastic.  All my friends are here who I have not seen all summer.  I feel quite important that I have a new friend to introduce them to and am pleased that she is someone no one else in the whole town has ever met. 

Not only is she a teenager at 13 years old, which of course makes her cool, she is from outside Saskatchewan.  Shari is so nice to everyone.  I can’t talk to adults the way she does.  I have lived here all of my 8 years and I know every single person here, yet I don’t answer any of their questions like Shari does.  She talks to them like she’s known them forever, yet she has never met them before in her life.  She doesn’t question why they are inquiring about where she is from and who she is visiting.  I want to be like her and have the confidence she seems to possess.  Maybe she thinks I’m a pest because I follow her around.  I don’t make her play Cabbage Patch Kids with me because I think she would think that’s too immature, so I don’t ask.  To be completely honest, she is really here visiting my neighbours who live on the farm next to ours.  She lives in Toronto and was adopted by my neighbour’s sister.  But even though she’s not visiting me specifically, and I just met her 3 days ago, I still act like we’ve been friends forever.   I don’t mention any of this to my life-long friends.  

Shari is unlike anyone I have ever met or seen in real life.  She has dark black skin and I am very pale.  She has short, black hair in braids and my hair is long, fine and blonde.  She promises she will send me a picture of her hair when she takes the braids out so I can see what it looks like.  My hair is only curly for a day after I’ve taken out my braids, yet she tells me hers will last until her mom does something different with her hair.  I don’t know why it takes her mom hours and hours to put the braids in her hair; it takes my mom only a minute or two. 

As I stand beside the bleachers outside in the blazing Saskatchewan sun, smelling the popcorn and BBQ hotdogs mixed with the fine, red dust from the ball diamond, I am perplexed.  I wonder if the people in my community are talking to me and Shari because of the colour of Shari’s skin.  Are they curious about her because she is a stranger in a small town or because the shade of her arms and face is unlike anyone else who lives here?  I think it is interesting when my future grade 3 teacher asks if she’s from Regina.  Maybe they are just being friendly.  I typically don’t like being the centre of attention, but I like this interest in my friend.  I am bewildered and don’t feel like I can process the response of all these adults.  Regardless, I am happy to learn from my new friend and I cherish the time I have with her.  I hope our paths will cross again someday soon.