The Chocolate Egg by Tiffany Buck
When I was eight years old, my best friend Beth and her mother Janice lived with me and my family for about a year. A slumber party every night, right? We shared a room, Beth and I. I had my little twin bed with the brass post and she had her big white princess canopy bed. We made it work. That’s what best friends and sisters do.
A few weeks after Beth and her mom moved into our house, Easter arrived. They spent it with family in South Carolina while we spent Easter in Douglas, Georgia with our family. Beth and I both made lists for the Easter bunny. These lists included very reasonable requests like clothes, shoes, a jewelry box, earrings, and chocolate. Both of us decided late one Friday night that chocolate was the world’s most perfect food. Needless to say we did not get the shoes, clothes, or the jewelry box we wanted even though they were at the top of our list. However; we did get Merle Norman cubic zirconium earrings, a plush bunny, and chocolate. Beth’s Easter basket was loaded with chocolate. She got about fifty pieces of chocolate. I was amazed and jealous. All I got was a small bag of Hershey kisses. The rest of my candy was jelly beans. Gross. I gave them to whoever wanted them. My mother when she saw Beth’s basket of chocolate was appalled. She didn’t understand why her mother spoiled her so.
The prized possession in Beth’s Easter basket was her gigantic Easter egg made of solid milk chocolate. She promised to share the egg with me after school started. Both of us were counting down the days until that moment. Until then, we decided to treat ourselves every Friday night with a movie and one piece of the other chocolate.
This went on for a couple of months. Around 7:00pm every Friday night we would put in a movie which we usually got from the video store and devoured a small morsel of chocolate. That spring and summer, I remember watching Star Wars, E.T., Mary Poppins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the super scary Watcher in the Woods. The movies were great and the chocolate mixed with caramel and mint was divine. All week long I would count down the hours until our Friday night movie session.
One day in August after ballet class, I came home to find Beth screaming, “my egg!” My heart dropped to my stomach. The egg Beth was saving so we could eat it when school started. Only one person could have done this evil deed, my little brother Trey. While I was learning how to do an arabesque at the bar, Trey was stuffing the chocolate egg down his throat. My dad caught him biting into this thing with all his might. Trey had chocolate all over him and half of his clothes in his closet. As any eight year old would do, I yelled at Trey and told my mom that he was never allowed in my room again. Beth told us all that she hated Trey. My mom just laughed at the whole event. I think secretly she was glad the egg was gone.
For about a week, every time Beth saw Trey she gave him the evil eye. With me, her best friend and surrogate sister she barely spoke. I was honestly ticked off at her. Like Beth, I was looking forward to eating that egg too. I was also not responsible for what my little brother does. There are just some things an only child does not understand.
-Tiffany Buck, Gainesville, GA
Favorite Chocolate: dark chocolate with sea salt