The sound of the alarm clock awoke me. I stretched and got out of bed. Stumbling to the bathroom in the dark, I stubbed my big toe. I moaned quietly. " This is going to be a miserable day again. ", I thought. As I started to wash my face, I thought back to that day when she had first come into my life . . . There was fresh snow on the ground that morning about two months ago. I looked out of my bedroom window. Everything on the street was white. "Breakfast is ready. Are you up yet, Satish?", my mum called from the kitchen. "I'm up, mom.", I yelled back as I rushed to the bathroom. It was the start of the holidays and I was eagerly looking forward to spending it doing as little as possible. We had moved into this little town about a week ago. Mom had been promoted to manager at the travel agency where she had worked for a year. And now she was to manage the agency's office here. "Morning." ,I said walking into the kitchen with a huge smile on my face. Mom looked up at me and smiled back. It was good to see her smile. Life had been rough for a while for her. She had lost her smile since dad had passed away. "Good morning, Satish." ,mom replied. "Remember that today is my first day at the office and I will be back late this evening." ,she said. "I will be fine. Don't worry mom." , I said. " OK then. I better get going. I wouldn't want to be late on my first day." ,said mom. "Have a lovely day mom. I love you. Bye." ,I called as she made her way to the front door. "Bye son. Love you stacks." ,said mom closing the front door. I finished my breakfast, alone and in silence. Just as I was drying off the last of the breakfast dishes, there was a sudden thud on the back door. I went and opened the back door. Peering outside, I saw two groups of children. I noticed that one group had four boys, while the other group had five girls. They were each building a snowman. I noticed one of the boys slowly roll a ball of snow in his hands and suddenly he threw it at the group of girls. "Hey, no fair." , a girl shouted. I looked at the door and sure enough, there was the remnants of a melting snowball. I stepped outside and walked over to the groups. I saw her first. The sunlight caught her watch and drew my attention to her. I drew a deep breath of icy air. She was gorgeous. I just stopped and stared. She must have felt me staring because after a few moments she turned around and looked straight at me. Embarrassed, I turned towards the group of boys and walked over. "Hi." , I called out as I reached them. They stopped building and looked at me. "Hi." , said the nearest boy, "Are you the new kid?". "I am not sure how many new kids there are in this town, but I am new here. My name is Satish and my mom and I moved in last Friday." ,I replied. "Well, my name is Colin. This is Tom, James and Hank." , Colin said, "And YOU are the only new kid in our little town.". "Great." ,I smiled, "Lucky me.". The boys all smiled back. "Nothing much happens here and you are pretty much the main attraction here now." ,said Tom. The group of girls had gotten curious and made their way over. "Hello, my name is Jane." , said one of the girls. "Hi, I am Satish." , I said. "Yes, he is the new kid." , said James to the girls who were looking questioningly at me. "Oh, well this is Michelle, Mary and Melissa. They are sisters." ,said Jane, "And the one you were staring at earlier on is Nisha." I felt the blood rush to my ears as I blushed. "Will you be joining us in our game today?" asked Mary. "Yes, I think you should. The boys are currently one short and they are always using that fact as an excuse when they lose." , said her sister, Michelle. "We were just going to invite him." ,said Hank. "Great. Then it will be even and you boys will have no excuse when we beat you again." , called out Melissa as the girls walked backed to their snowman laughing. "Right, each group builds a snowman and then we each try to completely destroy the other groups snowman." ,said Tom. "It is not that easy. Each group protects their snowman and tries to hit the other teams members with snowballs. So we have to dodge the snowballs and if we are hit then we are out of the game. If all team members are out, then that team loses." ,he continued. "Sounds like fun." ,I said. The boys all grinned. "Trust me, it is lots of fun." , said Colin. "Ready ?" ,called out Jane after a few minutes. James looked around at us and then shouted back, "Ready. OK Satish, you stay here by the snowman and protect him as best as you can. The rest of us will fan out and attack." ,said James. With that the boys split up and started running in the direction of the girl's snowman. I looked for the girls, but they had all disappeared. Everything was silent. Even the boys seemed to have disappeared. I looked around. Nothing. Suddenly, something went flying passed my right ear. I instinctively dropped face flat onto the snow as three more snowballs missed me. Crawling behind our snowman, I cautiously looked around. Again nothing. And then I saw them. Two girls were on the right and the other two were on the left. They were slowly circling me. As quick as I could, I started rolling as many snowballs as I could. When I felt I had enough, I looked up for the girls. They were gone again. "Damn. These girls are good." ,I thought to myself. And then there she was, just behind the closest tree. The gorgeous one. Nisha. She was busy making snowballs and did not see me as I made my way towards her, a snowball in each of my hands. I stared at her as I moved closer. She truly was beautiful and I was just about to second guess throwing a snowball at her when suddenly from behind the other trees around me the other three girls emerged and hailed snowballs at me. Nisha looked up and smiled at me. It had been a trap and I was now out in the open, unprotected. Once I had been struck, the four girls whooping with joy descended upon the boys snowman and demolished it. Hearing the girl's shouts of victory, the boys came running back. "Damn. What happened? " ,asked James. I looked at the ground sheepishly as the other girls just smiled. "We won again." ,said Jane. "Losers are buying lunch as usual." ,called out Mary. The group started making their way towards the town center. I stayed back, not sure what to do. The boys had lost because of me after all. "Aren't you coming? " called Nisha with a broad smile. " Yeah, It's just a game." ,called Colin. I ran and caught up with the group. I saw Jane nudge Nisha and wink. Making friends was not as difficult as I had thought. "Satish, breakfast is ready." ,called out my mom interrupting my daydreaming. The holidays had been great. Nisha and I had become best friends. But the holidays had ended and Nisha, who had been on holiday with her cousins, went back to her home. And that had been that. No word from her, no news from her cousins, nothing. I was feeling miserable. I dearly missed Nisha. "Good morning sleepyhead." , greeted my mom. "Morning mom." , I said with half a smile. "You had better hurry up. You don't want to be late on your first day of school." ,said mom rushing out the front door. Just as she was about to close the door, she called back, "Oh, there's a letter on the desk for you. Love you. Bye." The door clicked shut. I ran to the desk in the front room. And there on the top was a pink envelope. As I picked up the envelope I got a faint scent of fresh flowers. Nisha wore that very same perfume. My heart started to pound. I breathed in the scent again and smiled ... Nisha.
