Yay! It's Saturday

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Saturday, the best day of the week, I wake at six just to watch cartoons all morning, watching everything from Bugs Bunny to Superman. After every cartoon is off I go to play outside. I slide down my grandmother’s wheel chair ramp on the bottom of a roller trashcan until I fall off and scrape my knee. Heading in the house I am sidetracked by my Grandma making me get something to drink. I drink some ice-cold water and then grab a Band-Aid and head back outside. I play in the tree behind the house until it’s almost warm enough to cook eggs on the concrete.  Walking across the dirty road we live on to Ashley’s house to see if we can play in her back yard. Spot and Socks, Ashley’s two dogs, guard the house as if we have a lot of traffic around here. Slowly walking up, I yell hoping someone hears me. I see Ashley’s Mother come to the window to see what the dogs are barking at. Watching as she walks back away from door, and hear Ashley asking where her shoes are. Ashley tells her mom she’ll be back in by dinner. Four hours enjoying no parent supervision, just playing our hearts out.2

Walking to the playhouse we remember we need our snack for our tea. We go to the barn and find dog biscuits her dad makes for a living. Each of us grab two and head back to the house. Stumbling on an unstable cinder block I fall in the door and giggle until I can barely breathe. I grab the tea pitcher and put water out of the hose in it to be our tea and set down at the table with a full pitcher of “tea”. She hands me the two tea glasses and I pour our glasses full. Giggling, we take a drink of the cool water and take a bite of our biscuits. We act like we are ten years old, so mature and talk about things mature ten-year old girls do. 3

Alex, our neighbor, wants to play with us. I never get along with him and it’s always a bad idea, but I always agree to let him play with us. He climbs over the fence and falls off the other side. Ashley helps him up and I try not to laugh behind them.  The barn to the side caught our eye so we head that way. The chickens squawk at us as we enter the building. Alex makes sure to shut the door so it’ll be really dark and Ashley and I scream, telling him to open the door. We walk farther into the barn and decide to play a game of Simon Says. We play this for what seems like an hour and finally go back out in the back yard. 4

We walk to the swing set that comes up off the ground every time you swing on it. I push Ashley until she’s so high she’s screaming with fright. I ask Alex to push me so I can get some speed. He walks away as though he doesn’t hear me. Instead of starting a fight I walk away to the playhouse. Ashley comes to find out what happened. She knows what happened, every time Alex and I have to play together it almost ends up badly. I insist I go home, Ashley drags me out of the playhouse and tells me to get over it and stay until she has to go in for dinner. Angrily going back to the swing set, I push myself knowing Alex would be a jerk about it again. 5

Getting bored with the swing set we decided the water sprinkler sound like a lot more fun. Fully clothed I walked straight threw the sprinkler. The water was so refreshing. Still mad at Alex, I tripped him and acted like it was an accident. He walked over and pushed me and I told him I didn’t want to have anything to do with that. I walked out of the backyard and head back across the dirt road. Ashley runs after me trying to get me to come back for the last hour. This time I’m not agreeing to go back even though I started it. Ashley calls me when Alex finally goes home and tells me to meet her by the trashcan tomorrow after her church service. I agree and tell her I had fun today even though Alex is a spoiled brat. I eat my dinner and watch news with Grandma until I have to go to bed. 6

Now I lay in bed waiting for next Saturday, hoping I have as much fun as I did this one. Hoping Alex won’t come over this time, knowing he’ll be there to try to mess up another great Saturday. Drifting off to sleep, I remember school again on Monday and this will help the Saturday seem to get here faster. I fall asleep smiling at how great my life is.7