"I can still make you a card Jill." She gave me a sweet smile. Damn, this was probably the easiest kid ever to get along with.
                              
I took a seat next to her. "Thanks Emma. Seatbelt?" I looked her over.
                              
"Seatbelt!" She answered.
                              
It was a short ride to Jake's place and Emma talked the whole way through.
                              
The first thing I did was marching to the kitchen. I was hungry and so was Emma. After our cookies she told me she didn't have homework. Yeah, right. I knew that trick.
                              
I checked it myself and was surprised to see she actually didn't have any homework. Lucky kid.
                              
"I'm gonna make you a birthday card now." She grabbed a piece of paper and crayons and that was that. Well, this was boring. I just watched some TV and checked on Emma every once in a while.
                              
"Jill, do you know the colors of the rainbow?" Emma asked suddenly.
                              
"Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain." I said without looking at her. When I didn't get a response I went over to the table she was sitting at.
                              
"Those aren't colors Jilly!" She giggled. So she didn't know that phrase to remember the colors.
                              
"That's how you remember. Just think about the first letter of each word. So it's red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain." I explained to her. What did they teach these kids anyway?
                              
"Ohhh. What if you can't remember that phrase?" She did have a point there. It wasn't really an easy sentence to remember, especially as a kid.
                              
"Okay, let's make our own phrase then." I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote R O Y G B I V down vertically.
                              
"Royal Oysters Yield Greasy Big Invested Vampires!" That wasn't my best. Emma giggled.
                              
"Really Old Yogurt Grows Bad In Vanilla?" These sentences didn't make sense whatsoever.
                              
"I like that one" Emma smiled and she gave me a high five which is a big honor if you get one from a nine year old.
                              
"Alright. Let's test it. Emma, give me the colors of the rainbow." I said in a fake serious way.
                              
"Really Old Yogurt Grow Bad In Vanilla. Red orange yellow green blue indigooo.... Violet?" She got a little lost at the end but nailed it anyway.
                              
"Great!" Emma beamed.
                              
"I'm done! Happy late birthday." She handed me the card.
                              
She told me it was a drawing of me, her and Jake with a rainbow. Best birthday card ever.
                              
"Thanks!" I gave her a big hug. "So what do we do now?" I asked her. We still had more than an hour to kill.
                              
"I don't know, the iPad needs to charge." Damn, that's sad. She just played the iPad when it was such a beautiful day outside? It wasn't hot or anything but the sun was shining and that should be enough.
                              
"We should hopscotch!" I shouted enthusiastically and Emma joined in.
                              
"I'll show you where the sidewalk chalk is." Emma grabbed my hand and guided me to the cupboard of awesomeness. There was chalk and water balloons and even stuff to blow bubbles. Like I said, cupboard of awesomeness.
                              
"We should draw 100 squares!" Let's not. We'd never get to the hopscotch part that way and let's face it, that was the best part.
                              
"Let's start with 20 Emma." We didn't really draw a lot of squares, more like hearts and stars and moon and even Jake's face. And by Jake's face, I mean a pig's face. Not my idea, might I add. Emma was an evil genius for her age.