Amy Lynn Styer, Age 12, July 1999

Story written for a fiction writing course.

Not Just Another Hot Day

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"All right, all right, everyone quiet down, we can't figure out in a fair way what to do if we all talk at once! We shall take a vote," yelled Amanda. The tree fort hushed. "We will go from youngest to oldest."

Oh, great. Dave, Kelly, and Greg are all going to want to play "capture the older kids," while Grace, George, and Lilly, the heroic 5 and 6 year olds, will fervently shout, "No, no!" I imagined the near future. (Oh, how could Mommy get this silly idea of us all playing together!)? Then everybody will start talking at once (against the rules) as well as—well, it’s already happening, so, I guess I was right!

If they would only listen to Amanda’s rules!

And if we had…Then we would vote and--- and we would have to play somebody's stupid idea of capture the flag or something that's torture on a 100 degree day like now!

It was the week after the Fourth of July and it had seemed like nothing was going to happen for the rest of my life except sit in front of the fan, in 100 hundred degree weather, in an unairconditioned house, and be hot. Our pool had been closed for construction, so I, my younger 8-year-old sister Kelly, and little brother George, felt like strangling the owner for picking such a day! (Johnny, a baby at three, hardly knew what construction was, and he didn't care about the owner. He just wanted to go swimming.) That was when Mommy had the great idea of inviting over the Thatches.

"We can invite over the Thatches for the day." She said, "Lauren, would you run across the street and ask Greg and Casey if they would like to join us?"

"OK, Mom!" I joyfully answered, happy to have something to do.

And that's how it went. It seemed like a great idea at first; it was, really, but Mommy's words when the guests first arrived flipped the whole day round. "I would like you all to nicely play together." Mother said smiling. And then, when we complained, "The more the merrier."

Yeah right, like that's really what everyone wanted, to play with everyone else. Why couldn't Mommy see sense in letting Amanda, Emily, Casey and me play together? Dave, Kelly and Greg play together. Grace, George and maybe Lilly play together. And Johnny, well, Johnny could just sit, suck on lollipops and watch Teletubbies!

But no, we had to play together, all of us. What a way to make life miserable!

"Lauren, make sure that everyone gets along and that Johnny is included in your games," Mom asked while walking up the stairs to her room. "I am going to take a nap and am not to be disturbed!"

What a mess-up to our day! For the next few hours we played every possible game that a hot, unhappy, group of mixed age kids could do. Further, those few hours were filled with arguing, crying, voting, that's not fairs, waa-waas, yelling, then finally five minutes of actual cooperation from an unhappy, sniffling, and uncertain though yielding group!

But then the chaos began again. I was sure that this aggravating day would never end!

"It's to hot to play any of the games we would vote for anyway," I yelled above the hubbub, "Why don't we just try to think of ways to get cooler!"

I hadn't thought that it might be taken seriously. I just yelled it in desperation hoping that someone would get my point. So I was surprised when after my outburst everyone quieted down and said, "Good idea!"

"OK." Now Amanda had taken over. "I think we all like Lauren's idea, but now we must vote on the most fun and efficient way to cool off. You all know, by now, the rules of voting? We shall again go from youngest to oldest."

"Johnny, you have to tell us what you would do if you were hot and want to get cold." Amanda leant down to ask the little boy.

"I am hot and want get cold." Johnny whined. "Lauhen, why can't we shwim? We could take eveybody wit us?"

I sighed. This was part of the reason that it took so long to find something to do. Johnny wanted not only to play and understand the game, but he also had to know why. Why he never got to be IT, even when he was tagged, and why a bandanna was called a flag and why we had to capture it. He was a very curious little boy; there would be different questions with this "game," but there would be questions. Johnny could find something to question about a maple leaf!

"What if you can't go swimming?" I asked.

"I would dump watts of water on me head!" Johnny answered.

"What if the weather man says that it's a drought and you aren't allowed to use to much water?"

"I would get ice cweam from the ice cweam man!" Johnny exclaimed.

I was about to remind him that his prized dime would not buy an ice cream cone when I had an idea. "What he's saying," I said, "is that we can sell juice pops and ice cold lemonade and use the money to get ice cream cones! I'll count that as my vote."

"Good idea, Johnny!" Casey patted him on the head.

"OK then," said Amanda "Lilly, your turn."

"I think," said little Lilly in the most important voice a 5-year-old could manage, "that we should put a big fan in the tree house."

"The fans are all being used and we can't move them," I sadly announced. "That's what Mommy says."

"We can we go to the yard sale down there," she said pointing to the sale a block away. "We stopped at it on the way here, and there was a big fan."

"It was only seventy five cents too. We can use the extra money from the lemonade and popsicles to buy it. Good idea, Lilly."" complimented Amanda.  

"Grace, George," Amanda continued, "since you are only a few days apart and are such good friends, you can decide on something together."

After a few minutes of whispering, Grace said, "We think it would be fun if we decorated this place to look like winter. We could hang snowflakes all over, and bring up the tape player and put in Christmas music. We could even go ice skating, by putting water in shoe boxes, the shoe boxes in the freezer, and tying the ice blocks to our feet!"

"It's Greg's time to state his idea," Amanda declared.

I whispered to my friend Emily, "I wonder what he’s been planning in his warped brain?"

"I think we should make mud bombs," laughed Greg, "to throw at the girls!"

"As you thought," Emily whispered back.

"May I alter your idea slightly?" questioned Amanda, "let’s make it mud sculptures and maybe a volcano, instead."

"Well, OK." consented Greg.

"What!" said Casey, "you mean to say that you, at age 12, almost 13, are letting mud pies be on the election list?"

"Yes." answered Amanda.

"But if it got picked, would you actually join them in making mud sculptures and a baking soda volcano?"

"Yes," Amanda again answered, "and if it’s voted you should too!"

"Well," said Casey, "I am glad that it is not the most probable thing to get picked!"

"It's my turn to say my idea. I think that we should all climb up these tall trees where there is a breeze." Kelly pointed at the trees surrounding the tree house. Even at twenty feet the wooden fort did not have the slightest draft, but the tops of the trees were swaying quite a bit. "Amanda and Lauren, you could help Johnny up to the first or second branch," Kelly answered our first thoughts.

"Mommy, as well as yourself," I commented, "would not like to see that beautiful fluffy pink dress you now have on torn to shreds, if your idea is selected!"

"Well, even if another idea is chosen, it won't hurt to have Kelly change." I thought, as she ran off to get into a pair of old jeans and a tee shirt.

"I think," said Dave, when Kelly returned, "that we should play monkey in the middle with that sponge ball over there soaked in water. But I rather like some of your ideas and won't mind if one of them gets voted."

"What everyone should do is split up, the girls sit in the tree house and do hair, and the boys go down and play tee ball," announced Casey matter-of-factly, jumping quickly to her turn.

"We have to play together," I reminded her, "and we decided to vote on ways to get cooler."

"Well," considered Casey, "than we will suck on ice cubes and have a nice chat. Oh, and if the little guys get bored they can get out chutes and ladders or something. OK, I’ll get the ice cubes."

"We're voting first," reminded Amanda.

Amanda said it in the sort of voice that I knew that she was thinking: why does Casey always act as if there is no doubt about it, she will get her way?

If she doesn't get it she just sort of, well, pouts, in her own grown-up way, so that everyone clearly can see when she disagrees. I play with her though, because she can be very fun, and, she lives across the street and is my age.

"I suggest," Emily stated her idea, "that we all have some ice cube relay races. We could run with ice on our heads and all sorts of silly stuff!" Emily chatted on in her own cheerful, carefree way, telling us of all the different ways that the relay could be played.

"Since I am the oldest and the leader here, and have no better ideas than you, I will not give my idea yet," said Amanda as Emily ended, "Let’s vote. When I announce the idea that you would like, raise your hand."

Everyone raised hands for their own idea.

"OK," said Amanda uncertainly, "I guess Lauren, Johnny and Lilly would win because Lilly’s idea uses Lauren’s. But I have a better idea. How about we do them all? It's only two o'clock, we have all the time in the world, how about that kids?!"

"Well?" we all seemed to ask each other, "We'll try it!"

A few minutes later we were filling cups with juice and putting them in the freezer. We made lemonade, a process that included: squeezing the lemons. Tasting the lemons. Tasting the lemon juice. Adding the water. Getting a drink of water. Tasting the lemon water. "Hmm, how much sugar?" Adding it teaspoonful by teaspoonful. Taste tests every time. "Just perfect!"---"OOPS!"

Spilled the lemonade. Cleaning up. Starting again… By the time the lemonade was ready, the juice pops where frozen and we could start our sale!

"Mm-mm," said Emily, licking at her quickly melting ice-cream cone, and swinging her legs while sitting on the curb, to the fading song of the Ice cream truck, "All that lemonade and juice pop work was worth it. In fact, I think even the sale was a bit fun, especially when Mr. Siltser paid us in pennies and got Juicy-juice all over himself because it took so long that the pop melted!"

"But then he paid for the next one with two whole dollar bills and said it would help pay for the paper towels." I reminded her, "And that's mostly what paid for these ice-cream cones."

"He seemed to like the lemonade too," said Emily, "even though that was the batch that we forgot to put sugar in!"

"We didn't know it then," commented Amanda, "but I'm glad we gave him the leftover good lemonade afterwards, anyhow."

"He might not want to try the leftover lemonade after drinking the horrible lemon water!" I exclaimed.

"I like lemon juice," contradicted George, "And I think he did too!"

And so we talked until all the ice cream cones were in everyone's tummies, clothing, and faces.

Now we used Lily's idea and took the remaining seventy-five cents over to the yard sale and bought the fan---almost. What we actually did was take out seventy five cents from the remaining seventy seven cents, bought the fan, and argued over the two pennies until thief Greg, in a wild dash with the enormous stash of money his theft had given him, lost them somewhere in the ivy under the tree fort.

After recovering from the loss of the pennies we cheered ourselves up with Grace and George's Christmas in July! We happily sang Joy to the World while folding paper snowflakes and an occasional paper fan when our last one had worn out. And as we tied on the ice block shoes, skated a bit to the tune Jingle Bells, and then realized that the ice block skates were again slipping off our feet, it really was quite jolly, the ice felt good to our hot feet! Only Johnny was unhappy; "It too cold!" he complained.

"No," said Casey in her cool confident voice, "I will not play with that gunk over there! Mud and water does not make sculptures, and it doesn't cool you off either. So if any of you had any sense," she looked at

Emily, Amanda, and me, "you wouldn't play with it either!"

"Well then you can just sit and watch the---Greg, stop that, remember, we AREN'T making mud bombs. If she doesn't want to play that's her problem. Throwing some at her won't make her want to join in!" I yelled at Greg as he poised a mud ball to throw at Casey.

"I will sit, but not watch it, and it's not fun either!" Casey said, defiantly stating her response.

But we began anyway, forming monkeys and elephants, and beginning the volcano in the cool, wet mud.

Casey, bored, began watching. And soon, as we went into the house to get the baking soda and vinegar she offered to help pour them. Casey got a little mud on herself, but didn't seem to mind. Boom, glug, glug, the volcano erupted getting "lava" all over Casey and though she complained, but not as defiantly as before. She even said "Thank you," when Johnny handed her a blob of mud and said it was for her. She just quickly set it down and went inside to wash her hands.

We worked on some more mud art in which Casey helped keep Johnny and Lilly's bridge from collapsing. You see, Lilly told her to, and every time she took her hands away from it, it collapsed, Johnny started crying, and Lilly reminded her that she had promised that she would keep it from collapsing. After a few minutes, Casey decided that it was no use trying to act like the mud was poison ivy and so she sat down in it and put both hands under the bridge. She didn't say it was fun, or even that it was "not so bad," but she didn't make any more remarks, so I guess that means something.

"Come," Kelly's muddy hand grabbed mine, "Enough art," she yelled, "let’s all climb trees while the sculptures dry!" As we ran toward our favorite climbing trees we trampled most of our globby creations, but it didn't matter, we never expected they would last.

Soon we had piled up all the chairs and stools and Johnny was climbing up the precarious tower to where he could just reach the branch he had picked for his perch. And just as he put his foot upon it, bang, crash, splinter, crack, the whole skyscraper of things toppled upon Amanda and me, ground crew. Johnny started crying and said he wanted to get down. "After all that work!" I whispered to Amanda, putting a Band-Aid over a cut on my leg where a wooden crate near the top of the deceased ladder had scraped me. Somehow or other without needing to open the next package of Band-Aids (however using the last of the opened one) we managed to get Johnny down.

Amanda and me did not join the other children who were happily playing in the cool tree branches.

"You're the monkey now!" I said throwing the soaking wet sponge ball to soaking wet Dave, "You had a good idea! But Johnny wants you to carry him so that he can catch the ball, so be ready for a load!"

After a few rounds of soaking fun Casey suggested that we do her idea as a time to dry off. Soon the little kids had out chutes and ladders and were deciding who would go first, while we were chatting about what a chat needed to have.

"A chat," I said, "needs to have some indecision in it, and every person needs to have private opinions that they try to let out in a polite way."

"I think," added Emily, "that it has to start out as something other than an argument: the weather, clothes, a band, or something. Then some argument comes from the comment."

"A chat is a boring thing that girls do!" teased Greg from the game table.

"I’m a girl and I don’t chat!" disagreed Kelly, who was seated next to Greg. She turned to Grace. "Which goes better with puffed sleeves, pink or blue?" she asked.

Meanwhile, Amanda put in her conclusion, "A chat does not have to have an argument. It just takes advantage of any difference and puts it into the conversation most often."

"I disagree with you all, I think that an argument is not a chat and that I asked for a chat and this is not a chat!" Casey said, just as Johnny tipped over the shoot and ladder board and sent pieces flying.

We never did finish, or begin (since Casey felt sure that what we had begun was not a chat) Casey's chat time, because, after looking all over for the pieces, (most of which will be slowly uncovered until the last ones will be priceless discoveries of future archeologists) we were ready for Emily's icy relays

Ice cube after ice cube was used: crab walked with, skipped with, tossed back and forth, and slipped off someone’s wet head after only one step of the three yards had been run. We hardly noticed that Mrs. Thatch had driven up our driveway.

"Time to go" she yelled, just as we emptied the last ice tray. The Thatch children were reluctant to leave, but Emily's idea was the last.

"Come again," we shouted, waving.

"Well how was it?" inquired Mother as we sat down for a cold meal in our fan filled, yet hot kitchen, "I know it was hard for you to play together, but I thought you should at least try it."

"Well it wasn't perfect," I answered, "but it turned out to be fun in the end."

"In fact," I thought, "maybe we could do it again someday, perhaps one freezing, below zero day in winter…"