The Famous Five

Prologue

When I packed up my bedroom of fifteen years into cardboard boxes that afternoon, the last thing I expected to find was a letter from Jimmy.

It was buried under a stack of certificates, school photos, returned exams, all from the bygone days of primary, shoved unceremoniously into a single shoebox and pushed to one corner of my bookshelf.

I smoothed out the crumpled, old sheet of paper, reading the childish handwriting forming the words that must have been so painful for Jimmy's ten-year-old hand to write. This was the letter he had given me the very last time I saw him, lying there in his hospital bed with the stark, white sheets, surrounded by flowers and 'get well' cards as he smiled to try to mask the haunted look in his eyes.

I had abandoned my packing to sit and lean against my wardrobe, engrossed in the long-forgotten letter, trying my best not to let the tears that were threatening to fall from my eyes to damage the already-smudged pencil strokes.

As I sat there, I thought about us. Us, as in Jimmy, and me and the rest of our friends. And about our plans to do great things.

I thought about how not everything worked out.

There were five of us. The Famous Five, our teachers called us. Jimmy, Leah, Jack, Adrian and me. We were the best of friends―inseparable, ever since we had first met at Preschool after Adrian and I tried to break up a fight between Leah and Jack while Jimmy told the supervisor all about what he witnessed.

That was the day of our forging. By some stroke of luck, when we started school, we were always all in the same class, giving us the maximum amount of time to spend together. But even that didn't seem to be enough―weekends, afternoons, swimming lessons… if even one of us were not there the group wasn't complete. We shared all our childish secrets with each other, and never once did we ponder the possibility that one day, when we were 'all grown up', we might not be there for each other.

First, there was Jimmy. Jimmy the entertainer. It was always he who cracked the jokes, cheered the rest of us up when we were down, and, most importantly, got us out of trouble from the teachers when we did something wrong. Jimmy was constantly cheerful, always smiling and charmed everyone around him. This was the boy who saw the bright side of everything and could never be faced down by any challenge, not even if it was something revolting like kissing Janelle James on the lips. Not even when he was merely hours away from his last breath.

Next, and no less important, there was Leah the tomboy. Having come from a family with two older brothers, she preferred to play with boys rather than girls―in fact, as far as I knew, I was the only girlfriend she had. Leah was never afraid to do something daring, and she was very happy to punch the rest of us if she thought we were being chicken. She was the one who taught us the few profanities were knew at that time, and also the one who informed us where babies really came from. Sometimes she would be so crass as to hurt someone else's feelings without knowing to and without meaning to, but Leah's loyalty to our group was solid.

I guess I could call Jack Leah's 'right-hand man'. Well, less right-hand man than Wonder twin. Jack had a retired AFL player as a father and was training, just like him, to be the next athlete. He was just as daring as Leah, just as stubborn but less wordy. I remember my mum saying, once, "that boy is going to be a real man one day." I guess she had her reasons for saying so. Jack was the 'protector' of the group, the one who would take the blame if it looked like one of us was getting treated unfairly. A real 'Protector of the Small', a real 'Knight in Shining Armour'.

Adrian was the quiet, brainy one. Any flaw, any little loophole in any of our schemes to cause trouble and he would see it and set it straight. I think he was responsible for the success of most of our plans. Adrian was also a musician. I remember our disappointment when Adrian's mother announced that Thursday afternoons were no longer play-days because Adrian now had the new commitment of piano lessons. But we were all supportive of our friend―the rest of us filed into the front-row seats of all of his piano recitals, which soon became cheering him as he won prizes at eisteddfods and waiting outside as he went through those tedious examinations. It was him who brought us back to reality when we were being too imaginative, him who mediated the fights Leah got herself into, the 'adult' of the group.

And then, of course, there was me. Kate. I was pretty nondescript. I was quiet, like Adrian, but nowhere as intellectual. I was girlier than Leah―I remember her teasing me about playing with Barbie dolls and nail polish. I wasn't brave enough to climb

the tall trees, or to sneak into the school kitchen, or to go on the rollercoaster―most of the time, I think the other spent more time coaxing me to join them than actually performing the mischief. It was at my house where we spent most of our time, my attic that we explored, my living room where we held our sleep-overs, my mother's video camera that we borrowed… sometimes, when we got all tired from running around, the five of us would collapse on the floor of my room and I would open up my notebook and read out loud the latest story I would be working on. I was the writer, the story-teller. I guess I still am―that's why I'm writing this particular story.

So that was the five of us. The five who met at the age of four and were the epitome of best friends. This was the way we were for the next six years, until we lost a fifth of our quintet. The lively part, the ideas part, the part that unconsciously held us together for six years.

And after Jimmy went, we were missing that very link. We were no longer complete, and we began to drift apart.

This story starts seven years later, when we remaining four had separated so much we were no longer acquaintances. And the story starts with Jimmy's last letter…

Clarifications:

AFL: Australian Football League... also known as Aussie Rules.

'Protector of the Small'... the term does not beling to me!

Just a little struck by inspiration andI thoughtI might try my hand at writing something deep... Like it? hate it? Please review!