spynotes ::
  May 20, 2007
Start your own parade

[Cross-posted at my new address: spynotes.wordpress.com

The Girl Next Door came over at 8:04 this morning.

I'm pretty sure someone must have told her not to ring our bell so early on a Sunday in case we were sleeping, because while I was washing the breakfast dishes, I heard the teeniest tiniest tapping at the front door. I dried my hands and went to open it.

"Can AJ play?" she asked in a quiet voice. The Girl Next Door is almost never quiet. Like most kids her age, even her whispers are noisy. She was dressed in pink shorts and socks inside pink sandals with a navy blue polar fleece jacket and an indigo denim hat which made her eyes look preternaturally blue. Her smile is now accented by the tooth she lost on Thursday when her dad helped her pull it out. I'm a sucker for a gap-toothed grin.

"I'm sorry, TGND, but AJ's not here."

"Where is he?"

"He went for a bike ride with his dad."

"Oh. Can I wait for him?"

"I think you'd better wait at your house," I said, knowing her ability to sit on our driveway looking forlorn for upwards of an hour. "I'll tell him you want to play when he gets home."

"My brother has a friend over and they don't want to play with me," she said sadly.

"That's no fun." Sometimes it's hard being the little sister.

"No. Can I just stay?"

"Not today, TGND. I'm leaving soon. But I bet AJ will be back soon."

"Okay. Bye."

I shut the door. AJ was back soon, but he and his dad opted to play checkers instead. Or so I heard. I was elsewhere.

Fairlywell and I went on a twenty mile bike ride this morning on a trail not far from the Spy House. It was the first ride of the season for both of us and it would have been absolutely perfect had we not been caught in a torrential downpour. Strangely, we kept riding and even more strangely, it was fun (at least for me, but I had a rain jacket), with the possible exception of the point where it was raining so hard that Fairly was shielding her eyes so she could see the road. But we saw lots of wildflowers and an odd riverside castle with a door that looked as if it were inhabited by pirates and a coffee shop with dangerous looking pastries and a place to go back to for breakfast some time. And how efficient was it that we got some exercise and a shower all at the same time?

When we got home, AJ was preparing to ride his bike, which, since he figured it out two days ago, has become an obsession. The Girl Next Door and her brother frolicked with AJ in the driveway as Fairly and I removed our soggy socks and made tea to thaw us out. AJ was excited about his baseball game, but unfortunately the rain, which had disappeared for a couple of hours, returned with a vengeance halfway through the first ending, so it was the shortest baseball game in history, and not just because the players were all under four feet tall. AJ, who has become petrified of rain, ran off the field in terror when the wind started to blow but recovered at home under the ministrations of his visiting aunt, uncle and grandmother, who are all smart enough to know that there are few problems from which six-year-olds suffer that cannot be solved with ice cream.

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