“I think I just met the happiest person in the world!” Jenny sighed happily as she sank into her galaxy patterned bean bag. I picked at the fuchsia shag rug under us in nervous anticipation.

“Who?”

“Benjamin.”

“Benjamin who?”

“I can’t remember his last name,” Jenny said dreamily, staring up at a mobil of the planets. “You know him though, the guy who wears all black.”

“Benny the Goon?!” I squeaked. “That freaky goth kid?”

“He is not a freak,” Jenny said evenly. “He’s really nice. He doesn’t even care that people call him that.”

“He doesn’t? Like not at all?”

“You’re surprised,” Jenny had a self-satisfied smile.

“Well, yeah…I mean, I guess it’s not the first thing I’d like to be called.”

“He doesn’t care. He wears what he wants and thinks for himself, he doesn’t give a fig about grades and that’s why I think he’s the happiest person I’ve ever met!”

I propped up my chin on my hands and frowned at the planetary mobil. This was a profound and foreign concept for my young mind.

“What about that frog he ate instead of dissecting it?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “He released it into the pond by his house.”

“Released a dead frog?”

“He did a little froggy funeral with a eulogy and everything! It sounded like a solemn event but like it was kinda funny too. He named it Bartholomew.”

I nodded, that certainly made more sense and was far more interesting. “Maybe I’ll start wearing black,” I said finally. “Just to see how it feels.”

“I was thinking that, too,” Jenny sat up excitedly. “But not just plain black, I want to splatter my clothes with glitter and paint so I’m wearing the galaxy!”

My mouth dropped open in awe. “That is so cool! Do you think you’re mom will let you?”

Jenny jumped up and started grabbing everything black in her wardrobe.

“Mom won’t be home for another two hours and they’re my clothes.” She pulled out a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and a nice dress that she only wore once to a cousin’s funeral.

“Grab the glitter and paints in my cabinet,” Jenny said. “I’ll grab some fabric glue from Mom’s sewing drawer!”

I hopped up and filled my arms with glitter, paint and brushes. We spread newspapers out on the back deck and carefully laid out Jenny’s finds plus my socks and sneakers, which were the only black things I had. Jenny poured some glitter into a blob of white paint I’d squeezed out onto a paper plate. She dipped a brush in the mixture and held it up, pausing. We both looked at her hand and then up at each other, the air was thick with the sense of taboo. Then Jenny looked down, bit her lip and flicked the paint at her black dress.

We both gasped at the streak of glittering white across the black fabric. We looked at each other with wide O mouths, waiting to be struck down. When lightning failed to take us out I began to giggle wickedly and started flicking paint at my sneakers. We fell into a frenzy of creativity. Yellow comet streaks arched across my socks and colorful planetary splotches made their new found orbits on Jenny’s shirt and jeans.

“Pass the white paint!”

“I need a different brush!”

“Are you done with the glitter?”

“Where is the glue?”

We became incensed. In a fervor to sprinkle glitter before my glue dried I asked Jenny for the canister, only she poured some glitter into my hand instead. I stared at it for a minute and then dumped the handful on my shoes. Most of it stuck to my sweaty hand so I rubbed it of in Jenny’s hair screaming “Asteroids!!!”

Jenny looked horror struck for a moment before flinging the glitter at me, I yelled and flicked paint at her as we fell into a giddy dance of glitter and paint combat. Jenny’s Mom would yell at the mess we made and both of us would get mixed compliments at school but we wouldn’t care. Because every time we wore our galaxies, we’d remember that moment we were friends dancing bare foot, covered in glitter and paint, the happiest people in the world.