April 8th, 2000,
On a beautiful Saturdayafternoon in April, the sun was beaming in London while five-year-old Mira Evans—dressed in her Tinkerbell costume—rode her pink and blue Tinkerbell bicycle, decked out with pretty flowers and pink tassels, up and down her street. Her long, mousy brown hair pulled up into pigtails, swinging as she rode along her road, humming to herself.
A mover’s truck pulling up on the opposite side of the road caught her attention, and her pedalling slowed as she observed the people jumping out and starting to move boxes into the house opposite her own. Momentarily distracted, she hadn’t realised she was steering into a tree and went crashing into it before toppling off her bike and hitting the floor with a thud.
Mira sits up and looks down at her scraped knee and pouts when she sees the blood seeping through her torn tights. Her large, almond-shaped, meltingly soft amber eyes glisten with tears at the sting of her wound. “Ouchie.” She hisses, blowing on it softly when a shadow emerges over her, causing her to look up at whoever it was standing over her.
“Are you okay?” Mira blinks when a boy, no older than she was, perches down in front of her and lowers his deep brown eyes to look at her cut and then at her again.
“I fell off my bike,” Mira tells him with a sniffle, and the little boy nods in response.
“I saw.” He leans over and looks at her wound again. “Does it hurt?” He questions, and Mira nods slowly.
“I’m Devin. That’s our new house over there.” He says, pointing at the house opposite, with all the movers. “What’s your name?”
“Mira. I live over there.” She replies, pointing to the house just behind her. Devin nods and looks at her and then her outfit before he frowns, perplexed.
“Why are you dressed like that? It’s not Halloween.”
Mira shrugs and looks down at her costume. “I like Tinkerbell.” She admits, her cheeks turning rosy.
“I like Spiderman, but my mummy doesn’t let me wear my costume all the time.” Devin sighs woefully. “I wish she did. That would be so cool.” Mira giggles and nods.
“My mummy lets me wear what I like. I can wear this every day if I want to.” Mira gushes with a big grin that lit up her eyes even more.
“Mira?”
“Devin?”
Both children turn and look at their mothers walking toward them. “Oh, sweetheart, are you okay? What happened?” Kate Evans, Mira’s mother, asks while she kneels in front of her daughter and brushes the dirt off her outfit.
“I crashed into a tree and hurt my knee,” Mira tells her mother, who looks at her knee with a frown.
“Devin? What are you doing over here, darling?” Nora King, Devin’s mother, queries whilst brushing her son’s soft brown hair out of his face.
“She fell, and I wanted to see if she was okay,” Devin answers, lifting his gaze to his mother, and she smiles warmly at him.
“Are you okay, Tinkerbell?” Nora asks, leaning over and looking at her torn tights. “Looks like you’ve got a cut on your knee, and you’re not even crying. You’re a brave girl, aren’t you? I have some princess plasters. Would you like one?” Mira’s eyes light up, and she looks pleadingly at her mother, who smiles and nods. “Your mummy can come too. I could use a friend to drink coffee with?”
Kate smiles and nods, holding her hand out to Nora. “Sounds good to me. I’m Kate Evans.”
“Nora King. We’re still moving in, and I am up to my eyeballs with boxes. I could use a break.” While the adults got acquainted, Mira and Devin smile at one another.
“I think we are friends now…Tinks.”
Mira blinks and then smiles at the nickname. She shrugs, “Okay, Dev.”
Following that day, the Evans’ and King’s became best friends. Devin and Mira’s parents got on like a house on fire. Devin had an older brother Levi who was three years older than him. And Mira had an older sister, Ayla, two years older than her. Growing up, they spend quite a bit of time together. They attended the same schools, hung around the same circle of friends, and what Dev and Tinks thought would have been a lifelong friendship quickly changed when they became teenagers and started secondary school.
Gone was the sweet little boy and adorable little girl riding bikes together and playing hide-and-seek. Dev and his Tinks, still close with one another, now live to annoy the hell out of each other.