Six years old

Vanilla ice cream was my favorite. I was always real excited when my mama let me have some. I'd eat it as slowly as possible, hoping it would just last forever. Today, though, the sun was making that harder to do. The cold, sweet goo dripped down the sides of my cone and all over my hand. No matter how fast I tried to eat it, it seemed to melt twice as fast.

"Ya got ice cream all over yer' face." A voice said.

I glanced up from my ice cream. A boy stood in front of me. I knew I had never seen him before. He had on a striped shirt with a pair of dirty, tattered jeans. His sandy brown hair was sticking up everywhere. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"I don't care." I said smugly, taking a big bite off the top of my ice cream. The cold stung my mouth.

"Ya look stupid." He shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. I glared at him hard.

"You don't gotta be so mean. Go away." I stood up, wiping my free hand on my dress. I knew mama would be mad if I got it dirty, but I didn't care. I hated dresses anyways. "You're just jealous you don't got any." I turned to leave and head back up my driveway when the boy started talking again.

"My daddy never lets us have none." He said quietly. I turned around, shocked. He had a sad look on his face.

"Never?" I asked.

He shook his head and was quiet. I stared at him hard before finally thrusting the rest of my ice cream cone at him.

"Here. You can have mine."

His eyes shot up to mine, looking surprised. They were blue, like the sky on a nice day. I decided they were the nicest thing about him.

"Why?" He asked, but didn't object, taking the cone out of my sticky hand.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Cause you don't got none and I'm already full anyways." He bit into the cone and I giggled. "Now you got ice cream all over your face too."

He gave me a small, unexpected smile.

"What's your name, anyways? Mine's Charlie. C-H-A-R-L-I-E." I spelled out for him proudly.

The boy took a break from the ice cream cone and gave me a weird look. "Charlie? Ain't that a boy's name?" He asked, wrinkling his nose at me.

I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest. "It's short for Charlotte, dummy. Now what's yours?"

Just then, a harsh voice called out and made us both jump. "Where ya at, boy? You best git' ya ass home in the next five minutes!"

I stared curiously down the road. We didn't have many neighbors out here. "You live close by? Is that your daddy callin'?" I turned back to look at the boy and was surprised to see a frightened look in his blue eyes. His grip had tightened so hard around the ice cream cone that he had crushed it and the vanilla covered his whole fist.

"I gotta go." He said quietly. He dropped the cone and bent down to wipe his hands on the grass. He stood up and gave me one last look. "See ya', Charlie." With that, he turned and ran down the road towards the voice that was still hollerin'.

"DARYL! I said to git' ya ass home NOW!" It called again. It made me shiver a little. His daddy sounded real mean. I watched him run home until he disappeared down a distant driveway and was out of sight. Daryl. That must have been his name. I looked down at the ground where the ice cream had melted into a puddle and already tiny little ants were marching through it.

He never said thank you for that ice cream.