Jessica Nelson My sister Katie is 7 and I am 11. We just finished wolfing down our dinner and run out of the house in our bare feet, across the warm floor of the porch and down the steps into the back yard grass. My feet feel cold as they sink into the mushy grass where we had played with the sprinkler earlier today. Mom yells out the kitchen window, "Make sure you come in before dark." There's not much time. We head straight for the trampoline. I leap on up without using my hands while Katie climbs up cautiously using the foot stool. I immediately start jumping vigorously. Katie copies. We don't care about our full stomachs because this is our favorite thing to do. Katie has a huge smile on her face. Her blond frizzy hair is wild and her arms and legs are all over the place as she jumps. We play our favorite game "Crack the Egg." Katie folds into a ball holding her toes. I double bounce her as high as I can, over and over. After about 10 seconds, Katie tumbles to her side and lets go of her toes, her body flailing. I'm laughing so hard that my stomach aches. She's laughing too. We play a few more rounds and then I fall over onto my back, still bouncing, laughing, and breathing hard. Katie does the same. I catch my breath; get up onto my hands and knees to face my sister. My long hair is covering my face and sticking to my sweaty forehead. I whip my head up so my hair flips up and out of my face. I yell the letters "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." I don't know why. That song just popped into my head. Katie starts laughing very loud; her face starts to go red. I peel over again onto my back laughing too. She gets up onto her hands and knees and tells me to do it again. I do. Then Katie whips her head up in the same motion that I had used and adds in "Find out what it means to me." "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," I say. We keep yelling out as many lines from the song as we can remember, each time whipping our head and hair up. I'm in a very silly mood. I don't care about anything around me, nor does Katie. We don't even realize that it's dark. We hear mom's voice, "Time to come in girls." It was then that I realized it was pretty late. Mom had let us play past dark. My feet are slightly wet from the dew on the trampoline and the sky dark enough to see the moon and stars. We jump down off the trampoline, landing in the mushy grass again. It made my feet even colder. We run up the steps of the back porch and into the warm house. Katie and I sure get along well. We love to play together. Little did I know, this was the last fond memory of "playing" I would share with Katie as a child.
Thoughts about Music: Music Uncomfortable
Moments: Return to: Students Stories | Teacher's Comments | Issue 24 | Home Page
|
