(no subject)

There's a girl I keep seeing around the neighborhood, bossy little thing telling the other kids what to do as they play their various games. Maybe it's unfair of me to call her "bossy," though. She seems to be popular enough. Maybe she only seems bossy to clueless grown-ups like me. Anyway, I've been seeing her ever since I moved here, almost a decade ago. Any other kid would be a teenager by now, asking to borrow the family car so she can go to the mall to hang out, but instead still she's this little girl hanging out with the neighborhood kids, riding bikes and playing with toys and never seeming to change at all.

Logically, of course, I know this can't be true. Probably I've only been seeing this kid around for the last two or three years at most and projecting memories of her back farther in time, back before she was even born. Or maybe there have been several sisters, all growing up and leaving childhood behind, with a new one taking the last one's place before I've had the chance to wonder where she's gone. But I like the thought that there's this child in the neighborhood, always telling the other kids the best games to play, with the other kids always listening because she's been a child longer than they ever will be, and she knows the best ways of doing things around here.