My Buddy!

My friend managed a weary grin up at me, bent over her shovel. Her normally neat blond hair was waving in the hot air, and her pale skin had been tinted red with sun. She had dirt up to her elbows, and her tiny fingers clung stubbornly to the shovel handle. "I'm so sore," she muttered, not complainingly, but in her usual matter-of-fact tone. I gave a breathless laugh back, "You and me both!" Both of us heaved another shovelful of dirt to the side, our arms screaming in pain. We grimaced, but our synchronization simply gave round to another moment of laughter. She was older than me, but much smaller, and the two of us got along well. Maybe it was because we shared the same name, Abby. She paused again, adjusting the neck of her shirt. The frilly collar was stained with dirt, giving it a strange look. She groaned as mud from her gloves scraped against her sunburn, but once again, her actions did not come from complaining, but with good humor. Her dark eyebrows snapped together in a joking wince and she grinned sheepishly. She threw another pile of soil away, accidentally-on-purpose tossing it down one of leaders' shoes. He leaped away as she glared impishly at him; he had been doing the same thing to us moments before.