A Day in the Life of a Six Year Old
by Jewell Phenakite
"I hate you Michael Guerin!"
"I hate you too, Maria DeLuca!" He watched as his six year old companion stomped away.
"What was that about?"
"Hey, Max. She told on me and got me in trouble. Now I have extra math homework."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing, except throw dirt in her sandwich." Michael said with a smile.
"Dork. Well, it's not like you do your homework anyway."
"Yeah. You wanna get some ice cream?"
"I can't. I'm supposed to go directly home after school. You wanna come, we're having sloppy-joes for dinner." Max asked.
"I can't."
"Maybe I'll bring you some tomorrow for lunch."
"Ok, bye."
"Bye."
Michael looked as Max walked away. He turned to where Maria had left from and then started to walk home. On the way, he was passing the park and decided to swing because it was way more fun than staring at books. When he got to the swings, he saw Maria sitting on one of them. He came up and sat on the swing next to her.
"What do you want?" she asked without looking at him.
He could tell she had been crying. "I was gonna swing."
"I was about to go home."
"What are you going to do there?"
"Homework."
"I'm more fun than homework," Michael remarked.
"Why do I want to play with you?"
"Why do you want to do homework?"
"Homework doesn't put sand in your lunch."
"You haven't forgot about that yet?"
"No, and I won't until you say sorry."
"No way. I have extra homework 'cause of you."
Maria grabbed her bag, "I'm going home!"
"No wait. Fine! I'm sorry," he conceded.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"I don't think I did," she said sarcastically.
"I'm sorry. Are you happy?"
"Better, but a little hungry."
"Hey, I just remembered, I have half of a peanut butter and jelly Isabel gave me." He handed Maria the sandwich from his brown bag. "I can't believe you told on me."
"You put sand in my lunch."
"I know but I do things like that all the time."
"And this time I got you back good."
"You only did it to get back at me?"
Maria smiled at him. "I'm sorry you got more homework though."
"It doesn't matter."
"You wanna play in my tree house at home?"
"Sure."
"So friends again."
"Friends again." Michael agreed.
"Let's go."
Michael and Maria walked to her house. As they approached the tree, Michael cleared something up. "By the way, it's my tree too, even if it is in your backyard."
That day, like many previous ones and many to come, they climbed the tree in Maria's backyard. They would pretend that as the sun was setting, Michael wouldn't have to go home. It wasn't true, but for them on those endless afternoons, anything was possible.
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