A Present to the past

I took the second street. I didn't take the usual route again. I didn't take it yesterday either. Nor the day before. Well it couldn't be the usual route any more. I guess, this is my new route. I am not taking the usual route because? It is embarassing to say but there is a new dog there. I know it's silly but i have always been afraid of street dogs! It's just that you don't know what they might do. They are really unpredictable and that scares me. It's only human nature to fear the unknown. I haven't really talked about this to anyone because i know they would ridicule me so i always tend to keep the embarrassing stuffs to myself. I mean who wants laughed at.The dog is a pitbull and he has taken the entire first street to himself. There is not really much traffic there because of him. Maybe that's just me because honestly it has been quite a while since i went along that way. I wonder if even the residents are safe from him. I honestly don't know why they have not called the animal control yet. I am telling you no one is safe from him. I am not just paranoid. He has not attacked me or even barked at me but it's his eyes! it almost seems like death glare. his eyes just tell me to keep my legs off from wandering into the first street ever again. Okay maybe now i am a bit paranoid. I bet some people might say he is the nicest dog they have ever seen maybe he is, but not to me. It only gives people more reason to laugh at me when i tell people i am 16 . It gives even more reason if they know the meaning of my name Ester which menas 'better than the best'. You can't help it. i mean everybody has their own fears and pet peeves. In my case my case it is an actual pet .In fact i have named the pitbull peeve.I am the only one who calls him that but i bet he does not even know that because i never really said it out loud . Speaking of pets i have one too! She is a cat. I named her pikachu. i think you know what i named her after. She is just like any other cat, pushy and bossy.I think ,maybe she is the reason that pitbull doesn't like me or so i think. Her scent on me might give the pitbull a reason to attack me. Okay now I am definitely paranoid. She is queer though. She loves to collect strange things . Especially shiny things. She is bit of a raven. She always brings a pile of trash to our backyard. And I am the one who cleans it. Mom really cares about her so much but she wants me to take responsibilities and learn from it. I should have named her as peeve instead of the pitbull . But i must say she is a great help. I am talking about the cat by the way, Mom does help too. I mean a different kind of help. She helps me to get rid of the test papers that i don't want to show. I mean i don't feed her that but I blame her if anything happens to my papers which i would have damaged. But since it's a classic technique and a very old one at that, mom knows that i am the who does it and she laughs at me instead of scolding me for the stupid reason I come up with everytime. Like one time i told her that pikachu took the papers and climbed up the tree backyard and went over to neighbour nancy's house and flushed it down the toilet. I know that was stupidest reason to come up with but I can't lie with a straight face. I always mess it up. Especially with people I am close. It's not just this kind of stuff , , Pikachu really helps us in some situations. One time mom lost her engagement ring and we were all so bummed about that. But we found it in pikachu's "treasure trove" that is the trash pile. I know i come up with weird names. The other time I lost my key to my locker but thankfully I found it in the treasure trove. I call the incident as 'the nightmare'.I know how it sounds but it really felt like a nightmare when I lost those keys ! The real question is whether pikachu steals them or we just loose it and Pikachu picks them up. Either way we always end up finding them in the treasure trove so it does not really matter. I am a bit of a "loser" myself so i guess in most of the cases it's just me. Let's just say that i am not best at remembering things. I mean everybody forgets. It's just that i forget a tad too much. It has not really caused any problem . Actually it has caused quite a commotion in the past but not anymore trust me. In fact the last time i ever lost something was 10th of.......july which is actually today. i mean it was just a small error. i just lost my test papers,what's the big deal. Okay it is a big deal. But in the end i found it. So there was no issue in particular except that i spent the last three classes searching for it. Anyway I am not going to let it happen again. Today was a big day. We had the school carnival so there were so many events and so many stalls so people were bound to loose something. I heard that a student from section-C even lost his friend in the big crowd. You can not blame them it was a really big event considering our school is more liberal and has only a few restrictions. But tomorrow is a bigger day. Because tomorrow is my best friend's birthday! She is Annie, who has been my happy place for five long years. She gave me so many memories to cherish. Maybe i should not speak about memories considering how well i remember things. I even forgot that it was her birthday tomorrow! But thanks to mom i am saved. She knew that i would forget Annie's birthday so she reminded a week before, But what good did that do? I still have not gotten her any presents. This is the part i hate the most about birthdays . That too but the whole socializing part. I hate it. Annoying kids running all over the place. Wasting enormous amounts of food. Okay it might seem like I hate every part of birthday but the part I love the most is seeing people surprised and happy on their birthdays . Especially when opening my presents. It is ironic that the thing i hate and love , both has to do with presents. I also don't like clowns in birthday parties. I am not coulrophobic but clowns freak me out to a fair amount . But it's not like I am just paranoid like with the dog. I have my story as to why I don't like clowns but i can't ponder about it now. It's almost evening and i still have not decided what to present Annie. I have thought about all the presents that i could possibly gift her but i just don't see her being surprised with any of them. Annie is a great detective. She could easily sniff out what i am about to gift her . It has been that way for the past five years, that's why i have to surprise her this time , for sure. Actually you can not call her a detective because most of the time it's just her intuition which she calls a "woman's intuition". if she has got that then i should have too , I mean I am a woman too. I bet she is doing some sherlock holmes on the side to get all the information. That's the only possibility i can come up with to explain how she can get all those gossips. I am telling you, her detective skills are being wasted on those petty gossips. She can do better. But that's not the only issue. As much as I want her her to be surprised I want her to be happy with the present as well. Maybe i could give her a present that might cherish the past memories. But i want the gift to be new. I don't want to give something old to wish her a fresh start. Something cute and simple like a keychain might catch her off guard. In fact i gifted her a chain last year. That caught her off guard because she thought i would not gift something so obvious. It even made her happy , she loved it! But then she lost it a week later. We both were really sad. She don't lose things as easily as I do so it was a genuine accident . I got her a new one that week but that did not make her happier. It was truly unfortunate. So I can not get her a chain this year too, it might bring back bad memories. And who gets the same gift for every birthday. What if it makes up to previous year's loss? But what if it does not? I really don't have time to worry about what if's. "Hello young lady!". I heard a voice call. I snapped back to reality. " You dropped something'. She said. I turned and looked at the ground . It was my wallet! I had the money I saved to buy Annie's birthday present in it. I could have lost it. I was very much lost in thought of buying Annie a present that i almost lost the means to it! I can not believe i almost let another incident happen because of my forgetfulness. Truly the person who called was a life saver. I turned to look at them. It was an old lady in a very old stall by the other side of the road. I have been by this way for almost a month now but i have never seen this lady before. She was selling some weird and peculiar things. It was so random a candy box, herbs, Indian pottery, quills and something that looked like a rabbit 's skull. It was spooky but not frightening. I thought that i should repay her somehow for her help and she looked pretty old and poor. So i crossed the street in hope of finding a diamond in that dirt. But as i got a closer look, I regretted my decision to have crossed the street. Those items she had for sale were damn expensive. How does she expect to do any business with that amount of money. She even chose a place with poor traffic. First Street does not have enough traffic but Second Street is no better either. If she had wanted to do business she could have chosen the Fourth Street where there are many passerby's. Maybe she couldn't get the rights there or wanted to sell it here to have a spooky atmosphere and let the rumour do it's work and bring people here. But this price is going to shoo away people even if they do come. I should probably choose the cheapest one and get out here quick. As i was going through the items a strange stuffed doll caught my eye. An idea popped up. Maybe i could gift Annie this! It will surprise her and will make her happy because she loves dolls and most of all it could scare her! I know scaring someone on their birthday is not a bright decision but i know for sure Annie's going to love this one. AND OH MY GOD! It was the cheapest one in the stall. I coud not imagine it to be coincidental, if it is then i am truly grateful. Without a second thought i stretched my hand to give the old lady the money and pointed to the doll , " I want this one". She sat there silently staring at me. She was awfully quite for someone who sells. Her eyes , I felt something odd about it. It didn't reflect experience as most old people have, instead she had eyes that reflected the future. She replied with "Very well". Just as i gave her the money a coin fell from my hand. I leaned down to search the coin while once again reminding me of how clumsy I am. "You are on it!". "Your leg is on it" , she said again. I moved my legs to have a look and there it was! The coin that fell from my hand. But how did she know it? how could she have possibly known it? She had her eyes on me all through the encounter. She never took her eyes off me ,even now . It was eerie. I gave her the coin and took the doll and thanked her for her for her kindly gesture. " Don't lose the things precious to you, cherish the present" , she said. It was odd but sweet. I thanked her and just as I was leaving, I heard her say " Have a great day" ."tomorrow" she murmured. I thanked her again and started walking home , unknown of tomorrow.