Arm and a Leg? Maybe Just an Arm

I’m jealous. Every time I go over to Caitlin’s house, we do something incredible. She’ll lend me her brother’s scooter and together we go rolling down the steepest hills in the neighborhood. The wind in our hair turning our ears and noses pink, and my right foot locked steadily over the brake in fear. A few days ago we decided to beat the system. Lemonade stands were for kids, and we’re too smart for that kid stuff. Being the marketing geniuses we are, we know what adults want. Within two hours of daybreak we were on the far corner of her street, selling ten-cent paper cups of coffee to bewildered adults sitting sleepily in their car on their way to work. Hide and go seek, manhunt, and kickball are played all throughout her neighborhood, but sometimes we like to invent games of our own. Creatively inventing characters of higher standard than we, or completely fabricating an intense murder mystery, we see no boundaries. We play out these characters all the time down by her creek. Plot lines emerge from a mere odd-shaped branch, and an hour later I am the begging merchant prepared to sacrifice my life for the sake of my daughter, but the evil wizard man holding the odd-shaped branch like a staff continues to insist he’s taking my daughter. Dialogue is of course the finest of her abilities, and I usually manage to perform a heartbreaking death scene strewn across the moss-covered stones next to the creek before her mother calls us in for dinner. I’m so jealous.

Last Saturday, we were playing around with the manmade pond in her backyard and happened to notice a yellow jacket bee floating helplessly in the small wake of the water. I watched her carefully fish it out and set it on her wagon. She has one of those little plastic toy wagons and sometimes she puts her cocker spaniel, Pepper, in it and roll it around the neighborhood. Anyway we let the bee sit in the sun to dry off atop a small leaf, and eventually it flew away, free from its near watery grave. I wish I was that bold and adventerous. I never come up with creative things to do. It’s not fair.

Today is Saturday, so I’m going over to her house for a long time. I love days like these. We usually spend all day outside and when my mom comes to pick me up, Caitlin and I put on our pouty faces and I usually get to spend the night.

My mom drops me off and we head to her garage and she pulls out the wagon. After rolling Pepper around in it for a while, we both sit in it and look out her extremely steep downward driveway.
Suddenly she says to me, “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
“I dunno”, I reply, “Cause’ I’m thinkin’ this wagon smells like dog pee.”
She laughs, gets out of the wagon, pulls me over to the edge of her driveway and says nothing. Suddenly she gives it a harsh shove and jumps in. We are flying downward. Halfway through we hit a crack and Caitlin is thrown from the wagon, the front wheels crushing her arm. Still jealous? Maybe a little.