Mariona and Laia are lying on their tummies on the carpet, drawing all sorts of colorful lines on a big piece of paper. Laia draws a rainbow that stretches from one side of the paper to the other, and Mariona draws a t-shirt covered in colors of all shapes.

“When we’re old, I’ll make you a cake,”
says Laia very seriously, without stopping her drawing.

Mariona nods and keeps coloring. Now she’s making a purple circle that’s almost perfect.

“It’ll be a chocolate cake with whipped cream,”
Laia goes on.

“And I’ll put a cherry on top.”

“Can it be a strawberry instead? I don’t really like cherries. I have to take the pit out and if I forget, I might swallow it. And it’s probably so hard that my tummy won’t like it. Pits probably taste yucky.”

“Okay, I’ll put a strawberry then.”

“Can it be a lot of strawberries? ‘Cause I love strawberries, and they smell so good. My mom makes really good ones with sugar — but don’t tell Eduard that she puts sugar on them ‘cause then he won’t eat them. And sugar’s great. Well, not if you eat too much at once, but sugar is really good.”

“Okay. I’ll put ten strawberries. No — twenty strawberries on top of the chocolate cake with whipped cream. It’ll be super yummy.”

After agreeing on this, Laia and Mariona keep drawing in silence for a while. They share the colored pencils, even though Mariona doesn’t like it when Laia keeps the red one for so long, because it’s Mariona’s favorite color and she wants it now. But she waits, and when Laia drops it on the floor, Mariona quickly grabs it.

“Well, when we’re old, I’m gonna read all your books!”
Mariona says, coloring with the red pencil and staying inside the lines.

Laia stops drawing and stares at Mariona.

“But I don’t like writing!”
she blurts out, a little annoyed.

“You’ll like it,”
says Mariona, making that wise face that Grandma says she has.

“You’ll like it because you talk a lot, and you talk really well, and you say lots of interesting stuff and even funnier stuff. And people who talk like you have to write it down so everyone can know what you said. It makes me laugh so much when you tell that story about the snail your dad found on the stairs at your house, and how he almost tripped on it, and then he walked all funny to avoid stepping on it, and then your dad fell right on his butt and went splaaat!”

“But I’ve already told that story. I don’t need to write it.”

“Yes you do, ‘cause then it’s written down forever and anyone can read it whenever they want. And I’ll read everything you write.”

Laia thinks about Mariona’s idea for a bit. And after a little while, she decides she likes it, so she smiles and starts drawing again. This time with a blue pencil.

“And when we’re old, we’ll know tons of songs by heart and we’ll sing them out loud while we walk holding arms. And everybody around us will turn and say, ‘Wow, those two old ladies have such pretty voices!’ And everyone will want to listen to us, but we won’t stop, we’ll keep walking and singing all kinds of different songs, because we’ll be so old we’ll know tons and tons of them.”

“Oooh, yeah! Right now I only know…”
says Mariona, thinking hard. She sits cross-legged on the carpet and counts in her head and on her fingers all the songs she knows.

“I know four whole songs!”
she says, super proud.

“But when we’re old, we’ll know loads more! And we’ll only sing the ones we like!”

“And I’ll brush your hair and put flowers in it.”

“What kind of flowers?”
asks Laia.

“Because the flowers I love the most in the whole world are those tiny sky-blue ones we find with Grandma when we go to the farmhouse. The ones I have to be careful picking because they’re so tiny and sometimes I mess up and break them. And I don’t wanna break them.”

“Then I can put those ones in your hair, ‘cause they’re your favorite. And will you put daisies in mine?”, asks Mariona.

“Of course! How many?”, says Laia.

Mariona counts in her head and on her fingers again.

“Fifteen and two!”
she says at last, super happy.

“Yes!”
says Laia, grinning.

The two friends look at each other and smile.
They have so many things to do when they’re old!
They should probably start writing them down so they don’t forget any of them!