This is My Message to You

Orange

ORANGE

Kindergarten me loved soccer from the moment my mom signed me up that summer, and Connor and I spent long sunny hours in the backyard competing in goal-scoring contests. Our teacher Miss Connolly learned very quickly that Connor and I couldn't be trusted to play outside together, since our soccer games usually ended up in mud fights. However, she must've thought we'd be more behaved inside at the sand table.

Everyone knew the best part of playtime in kindergarten. The fake seashells and sand castle molds and shovels that littered the sand table in the back of the classroom were way more fun than any of the dolls or trucks in the corner. When it was your turn to be at the sand table – damn, you had it all.

Unless you were stuck there with the rowdiest kid in the class, like me.

I liked to methodically build sand castles, carefully placing sea shells around its walls and digging a moat with a bridge and everything. Connor liked to dig a super deep hole, fill it up with water from the sink, and then break down its walls so that the entire table flooded.

"Are there alligators in your moat?" Connor leaned a little too far into my half of the table, which made me suspicious: he liked to pull my pigtails as often as he could. "How're you gonna keep out the bad guys?"

"Of course there's alligators." I patted the top of the sand bucket and then slowly removed it to reveal a perfect turret. "They'll keep you out."

His half of the table already sported several holes, and he had sand in his hair. He peered even closer at my castle, poking at the moat with his bright orange shovel. "I don't see any alligators," he said dubiously. "Your moat is dumb."

"Don't touch it!" I pushed his hand away. "It's not dumb, neither. You're just jealous because you can't make anything cool."

Connor dug his orange shovel into the sand again with a vengeance. "I don't need to make dumb castles."

I tossed my pigtails and redrew the line down the middle of the sand table to make sure that he didn't try crossing it again. But I'd only placed a couple more turrets on my castle before his shovel started creeping towards my side again.

"Connor!"

"I'm out of sand!" he protested, gesturing at all his holes.

"This is my sand!"

He tried again to dig on my side. I grabbed the orange shovel, attempting to tug it away from him, but he held on fiercely to his end of it, yelling, "Riley, stop, this is my shovel!" as I yelled back, "Then stay away from my side!" Poor Miss Connolly was on the other side of the room, and before she could get to us in time to work things out, Connor gave one mighty yank and tore the shovel away from me.

And then – years later, I can still picture this moment so clearly – he raised that stupid orange shovel over his head and smashed it down right on my beautiful sand castle.

We both got time-outs (though on opposite sides of the room; Miss Connolly had finally learned her lesson). I sat on my little chair and thoroughly planned out everything six-year-old me could do to get Connor back, starting with stealing his favorite green soccer socks. By the time snack time came along and we were allowed out of our corners, I was deep into thoughts of revenge and hadn't learned anything from my time-out at all.

Some other girls and I sat cross-legged on the carpet to eat our snack. Apparently Connor hadn't really learned anything, either, because within five minutes he had scooted across the carpet to sit next to me again. I turned to give him the evil eye and declare that we were most definitely not friends just then, but when I looked at him, he gave me that huge, toothy grin and offered me his last graham cracker.

In kindergarten, friendship is simple.

~*~ Part two! Let me know what you think :)