A quote: “It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” ~~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

I’ll start with a story …

***************************

“You can play outside but only until the streetlights come on.”

It’s how we spend our summer vacation. Bikes, skates, endless games of hide-n-seek or baseball at the end of the cul-de-sac.

High school is coming in September, so this summer I feel a little too cool to hang outside with the little kids. I sit on the porch in the gathering dusk, listening to them race up and down the street …

Olly olly oxen, free free free!

That’s Stevie. Too impatient to search for hiders. Gets upset anytime someone gets by him to get home free. I hear laughter mixed with exasperation.

“Geez, Stevie, you didn’t even get close to me and still call the game?”

That’s Debbie, the long-legged, sharp-eyed middle child of the Carter brood. She’ll be in my grade in the fall. Not lost on me that she’s still out playing. But she’s never cared about “cool”.

I shift, now a little uncomfortable on the porch alone. I’m still hearing Debbie marshalling the troops for a last game of Red Rover.

But today it’s still August and I’m not too cool, yet.

I get up off the porch, yelling “Hey wait! I want to play!”

***************************

Now, it’s your turn.
.
.
.
.
.
. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock Standard license

The post Friday Fiction: 200 Word Challenge appeared first on Victory Girls Blog.