Dear Highlights Forum,
Melissa and I had been eating our snacks together during recess for two weeks. Sometimes we would share our snacks or she would trade me potato chips for some of my gummy snacks. Melissa is cute for a girl. She has pigtails and carries a Barbie and Ken lunch pail. We hadn’t done anything serious yet, only going down slides and pushing each other on the swing set. I was perfectly content with the pace of Melissa and my relationship, and I thought she was too.
When it gets really sunny outside, our kindergarten class is allowed to have an extra long recess so we don’t get too antsy. We stepped out into the beautiful sunlight and Melissa’s hair was really shiny. Then Melissa whispered in my ear that she was ready to take things to the next level. I was excited, naturally, and I thought she meant we would play house or hang upside down on the monkey bars together, something innocent like that.
We made our way onto the playground and I started to head towards the monkey bars but Melissa grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the see-saw. I couldn’t believe it; I was finally going to play on the see-saw with a girl. Me, on the see-saw, with a real actual girl. We could jump up and down real slow.
A lot of the other boys like to brag about having been on the see-saw with girls. But I always thought they were kidding around and trying to seem grown up, you know, big boy talk. I never thought that this kind of thing could happen to me.
Before I sat down on my side of the see-saw Melissa stopped me and told me to close my eyes and count to twenty. I usually don’t like to close my eyes because it means I’m “it” in hide and seek, but this seemed kind of new and exciting. By the time I had finished counting to twenty and opened my eyes Suzy and Katie, the girls with pigtails from my arts and crafts hour, were standing right in front of me. Melissa wanted us to use the see-saw with four people. I had only ever done the seesaw with two people, and now I was about to do it with four people!
Melissa sat down first and I sat down behind her, then Katie and Suzy sat down on the opposite side. I got ready to see-saw and put my hands on Melissa’s shoulders, they were so firm.
It. Was. MINDBLOWING. Every time Melissa and I went down, Katie and Suzy would go up. The world looked so different from up there; it must have been at least five feet. At the highest point Katie and Suzie looked so far down and then before I knew it we were close to the ground and Katie and Suzie were really high up. It was the most amazing new experience I had ever had in my whole life.
I looked around the playground and everyone was staring at us. I didn’t care though; I was so caught up in the moment that they could tease me and say I have cooties all they want.
And then Mrs. Wilson, our teacher, blew the recess whistle, meaning recess was over. I started to climb off the see-saw but Melissa stopped me and said, “One more time”. I sat back down and Melissa and I launched ourselves into the air as Katie and Suzie sank down in front of us. I was on top of the world. And then we came back down and got off of the see-saw.
Mrs. Wilson blew the whistle one last time and Melissa, Katie, Suzie and I went inside for nap time.
-Billy, Andrew Garfield Elementary School
Pat Feehan is an English major at Penn State and the Head Writer for Penn State’s Phroth Humor Magazine. He has a Twitter account and not much else.
The Humor Section features a piece of original humor writing each week. To submit to it, send an email to Becca O’Neal.
