One Saturday afternoon Annick and Marie were walking down 57th Street in
New York City. Earlier that day, they had gone to the Art Students
League, an art school, for a class. They were walking to Grand Central, a
big train station, to take a train home.
They had a while to get there, so they took their time and talked as they walked along. Once they had walked a few blocks, they turned a corner and kept walking. After they walked some more blocks Marie said they should turn right. Annick decided to go along with her, even though they both went to the city a lot and Annick thought they had come from the other direction, Marie knew the streets in that section better than Annick.
They got halfway down the street and found a large opening between two buildings. It was a big alley. It was a shortcut! So they walked on through. When they got out to the other side Marie started walking to the left.
"Wait!" Annick yelled. "We just came from that street. You said we should go right."
"No, we go this way," Marie said, pointing down the street to the left.
"No, Marie. You're getting confused. We just came from that direction. You said we had to go this way." And Annick pointed to the left.
"Trust me," Marie said.
"Fine, I'll prove to you we just came from there," Annick grumbled, and they went back around.
"You see," Annick said when they came out on to the big sidewalk. " We passed that statue down the block before."
"Oh, all right." Marie said.
They started walking down the big street again since they had many more blocks to go.
Later on Marie said again, "let's go right." Annick thought she was wrong again but agreed to try. They walked right and turned the corner. The two found another alley and went down it. Marie wanted to turn in a circle again when they came out.
"No!" Annick said, frustrated. She was getting angry that they were losing so much time. She convinced Marie that she really had said they should go left. They walked to the end of the street, where there was a big mess of chaos. Uh oh, they both thought.
"This is Times Square," they said together. So they turned around and started to go back. Now they had to run down the streets in order to get there in time. They ran and ran. When they got to the correct street, they decided they had to go left. They ran down two blocks with their backpacks banging against their backs. When they got to a light, they asked a couple if they were headed in the correct direction.
The couple said, "Yes, it's just over there."
"Thank you," the girls said. When the light changed to "WALK" they ran across the street and into the train station. They found where their train was, ran as quickly as they could, found two seats, and sat down. "Whew," they sighed. "Next time, we're bringing a map."
THE END