The Best Kind Of Friendship

Cupcake has a "Little Friend" from school. At their school older kids are matched with younger kids for mentoring, field trips and just play time. The pre-k kids are matched with sixth graders and at the end of the year the graduating sixth graders parade through the campus holding hands with their little friends and everyone throws Froot Loops at them. The fifth graders' little friends are in junior kindergarten; when Cupcake was in JK she was chosen by TWO fifth graders, who both liked what they saw on the playground and shared her all year.

Last year Cupcake was in fifth grade and could not wait to select her Little Friend.

But -- the Little Friend Draft happened to occur on Rosh Hashanah, when we don't work or go to school, so when Cupcake returned to school the next day she learned, to her horror and annoyance, that her Little Friend had been assigned to her and she would have no say in the matter.

Well.

Cupcake was distressed and affronted and convinced that whoever had been assigned to her would turn out to be some scary, horrible kid with fangs that nobody else had picked, and she moaned about her sad lot for days and days. Once they finally met Cupcake grudgingly admitted that her LF wasn't entirely hideous, but still complained about how the draft had been operated and remained convinced that sooner or later LF would turn on her and eat her brains when she wasn't looking.

As the school year progressed Cupcake occasionally let slip a hint of admiration for LF, who waved excitedly from the little kids' playground whenever she spied Cupcake and enjoyed having Cupcake push her on the swings. The deal was sweetened even more when it was discovered that LF's grandparents have been long time friends of Cupcake's grandparents, which makes Cupcake and LF almost long lost relatives. I have it on reliable authority that when Cupcake came in second in the school spelling bee, LF went home and swooned from the excitement of seeing the big friend she idolized on the stage.

By the end of the school year Cupcake couldn't rave enough about her astounding good luck in being assigned the best, most intelligent, most excellent Little Friend in the history of friendship.

She and LF had a playdate before Cupcake left for camp. They exchanged addresses and promised to write each other. Cupcake took a babysitting class so in the fall she can help take care of LF.

Little Friend's mother informed me that Little Friend was delirious upon receiving Cupcake's first note from camp, and insisted on writing an immediate response. According to LF's mother:

She asked me to make lines on the paper, and occasionally shouted out to ask how to spell something, but otherwise, it's all her.

And here it is, a fan letter from a five-year-old:

Way to go, Little Friend!