Tugging my hair into the tight-high ponytail my mother loved, I surveyed the rest of the kids in the 5th-grade class. Today was the first day of our last week and one of the teachers decided it would be fun if we played organized games outside.

Well, there’s no way out of this. I’ll just play the first game they call and sit out the rest. No one can say I didn’t participate.

Smiling to myself, I blindly volunteered for the first thing on the list. Ten minutes later, I was willing to break my leg to get out of it.

“On your mark! Get set! Go!” Screamed the teacher and the kids not playing.

An obstacle course in the playground? What kind of sicko was this guy? No one needs to run this much!

Two of the kids from another class pulled ahead. But there was no time to worry about them, I had to worry about myself. 

I have to climb across the monkey bars how many times? Five?!

After the third time, my palms began to sweat and my arms couldn’t swing anymore. 

Do people do this willingly? No, I shook my head, only weirdos.

I finally finished and reached the slide, there were three people in front of me, including the original two who pulled in front.

Why did they stop?

“Hey,” the girl in front of me shouted, echoing my thoughts. “Why’d you stop?”

But as I raced to the top, two steps behind her, I suddenly knew the answer. The tube slide. 

Years ago, before I even went to this school, the principal had started raising money for a new playground. But not many people would help. In the end, he only had enough to replace one thing, the slide. He put in a huge tube slide. All the kids were excited to use it, except one, Amelia Levine. She’d been going to the school longer than anyone, a two-time fourth grader on her way to failing 5th. She only graduated when I was in the second grade. But she alone knew the truth of the slide. 

“If you look down the slide, from the top, you’ll never see the end. You wanna know why?” She’d ask us. “Because there is no end. If you slide down you’ll be trapped inside of it forever!”

No one believed her, of course. But no one dared go down the slide either, just in case. After she left, the legend grew until it was bad luck to even climb up the ladder to look down into the tube. But now here we were, dared to slide down by a teacher who clearly had no idea that this slide had never been used and that we would probably be cursing our entire family if we went through with this.

“Why’d you stop?” the girl repeated.

I turned to her, about to respond, when I suddenly recognized her. The green girl! The one from the play!

Now isn’t the time for proper introductions. 

“It’s the slide,” replied the boy who was in first, “it’s cursed! We can’t go down there.”

It was true, even the cheering from the other kids on the ground had stopped, this was uncharted territory. 

“Oh please, it’s just a slide.” She rolled her eyes, stepping forward.

She has to be new. That’s why I didn’t recognize her at the play.

Every Greenwood Elementary kid knew the story. Some of us were still in school when Amelia was! That slide was haunted, and none of us were about to go down there and risk a curse.

“Whatever,” She said, after we explained. “You guys can chicken out, but I’m going down there. I’m winning this race.” 

She began to move towards the slide.

Wait a minute, race? I thought this was just an obstacle course. No one said this was a race!

Blame it on my father, but I’ve always been competitive, and I wasn’t going to let this new girl beat me. Even if she did help me unlock my color. 

Pushing the others out of the way, I ran for the slide entrance. But she must have seen my sudden ambition because the girl quickly sat and started to push herself down the tube.

It was too late, I was going too fast. I crashed into her back and we both shot down the tube like bullets. 

“Oh, my God! Are you crazy?!” she shrieked as we clung together down the slide.

“Probably!” I yelled back.

The tube went on forever, twisting and turning with no sign of daylight at the bottom to signal the end. But just as I started to give up hope of ever escaping, and just as the girl started to believe in what we had said, we saw a light.

“Go into the light! Go into the light!” I screamed in her ear.

“What makes you think I can change direction?!” She threw back.

Tumbling out into the woodchips from the tube we both lay there for a moment, disoriented, but alive. 

“We made it!” I sighed happily.

“Not yet,” She said as she stood up and dusted herself off. “I’m not done yet.”

Then she took off running towards the last obstacle, the race to the finish line.

The race!

I suddenly remembered where I was and why I had gone down that slide in the first place. 

We pushed and shoved at each other as we rocketed through the basketball courts and towards the finish line, where water and glory waited. 

I began to think it might be a tie, but then we reached the tree stump.

It had once been a beautiful and shady tree but was chopped down a few years after the slide was put in to make room for playground equipment that was never put in. And while the stump was visible, the roots weren’t. They were covered by grass and woodchips, every Greenwood Elementary kid knew that. But as she proved when she went down that slide, this girl wasn’t a Greenwood Elementary kid.

She tripped over a root and fell. I slowed down and looked back. She was hunched over and struggling to stand up again.

Now I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to turn back and half-carry her to the finish line. We would tie and her leg would be magically healed by tomorrow. That’s what I was supposed to do, but the crowd was cheering my name, and I wanted to win. 

She’s probably fine.

Turning back, I sped up as much as I could and crossed the finish line. Surrounded by friends, I didn’t feel very guilty. Especially when I saw her get up and cross the line, becoming second. 

“No hard feelings?” I smirked at her.

She looked at the hand I held out skeptically, “No hard feelings,” she grabbed my hand. “But next time, I’m coming in first.”

I looked her up and down.

She might be a problem.

I introduced myself, “I'm Red.”

She grinned at me, “I know, I saw you in the play. I’m Green”

I raised an eyebrow, “Why were you there that day?”

“My brother wanted me to go. Something about meeting new people and putting myself out there.” She untied her hair and began braiding it over her left shoulder.

We stared at each other for a moment before she sighed and smiled, “So, you guys like scary stories, huh? I’ve got one that’ll creep you out!”

As we walked off towards a bench to watch the others in their events, she rambled on about a ghost. 

“I mean obviously you can’t see them but shouldn’t you sense them coming?” She exclaimed.

I looked at her and smiled.

She’s going to be a friend.