“Mom, do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to. They’re your new neighbors, so let them feel welcome,” my mother was telling me.

It was the sunny Saturday that my big scary neighbors moved in. My mom wanted me to just run over there to some stranger and say…

“Hi, my name is Rachel. Over there is my family and we’re your new neighbors.” To my surprise that’s exactly what I did. Also to my surprise, they weren’t scary at all. Their names were Harley, Stephanie, and Daniel. They liked the same things that I did: playing pool, snakes, skateboarding, and building stuff. Their snakes’ names were Angel, Striker, and Whippet.

One was Harley’s snake, Angel. She was the biggest of all three snakes and her colors were, white, black, orange and red. She kept coiling around my arm like I was some kind of a tree.

Then there was Striker, Stephanie’s snake, who was just plain white and was named Striker for a good reason.

Finally there was Whippet, Daniel’s snake, who was red, white, and black and kept trying to escape my brother’s hand.

As we were just getting to know our neighbors, my mom called to tell us we had to go home. To my surprise, it turned out the neighbors weren’t big or scary at all.