Charging past the other students like two little kids, they reach the playground first.  A few quick swings and they will be surrounded by the others.  Knowing this they seek a different destination – a desire to be separate, a need to be different.

  Into the distance the top of what promises to be more play equipment can be seen.  His blue eyes catch hers, her hair wild, blows across her face and they race to the other play equipment.

  Clambering up the ladder one after the other, going down the yellow slide, stumbling across the wonky bridge they laugh and smile knowing they have each other.

  Up, down, up, down.  Bang, thump, thump!  Sprawled momentarily on the ground they hoist themselves back up.

  “Again, again”, they cry simultaneously.

The hippopotamus takes a beating.  As it rocks back and forth it hits the ground time after time from the weight of the two fifteen year olds on its back.  It throws them to the ground and they show no hesitation to getting back on.  Its springs creak as they try their hardest to make it move and they find themselves on the ground once more.

  Lying there laughing the girl glances upwards.  Sitting idle on the edge of the tunnel are a boy and a girl.  The boy’s curly hair is barely hidden under a hat and the girl’s red locks glint in the moonlight; friends of the girl. 

  She reaches for them and tries to drag them over to the hippopotamus.  She wants them to join in on the fun but they refuse.  She grabs their hands and pulls harder but they just plonk back down on the tunnel.

  She returns to the hippopotamus, her lip quivers for a second but breaks into another smile and she continues to play with one of her best friends. 

  The other two now rise from the tunnel, solemn, they walk past, returning to the rest of the students who are now being led by the teacher up the street.  As the boy with curly hair walks past a woodchip hits the girl’s back with surprising force.  She looks up and catches his eyes.  They look at her stone cold and she wonders why he threw it.

  The children watch the two reach the group then run to join up.  The boy, carefree, races to the head of the pack, out to cause mischief.  But the girl wanders a bit back.  She stumbles as someone steps on the back of her thong.  She stops and turns to pick it up but it is in his hands already; the boy from the park, the one who threw the woodchip at her, has a firm grasp on it.

  She smiles at him like an innocent puppy.

  “Jaaacob, give it back”, she plays.

  Nothing is said and he walks on. 

  She grabs for it but he moves his hand with such agility, like the move had been predicted.

  She looks up at him,

  “Please, Jacob?”

  His emotionless eyes gaze at her, and then he continues to walk.  He follows the rest of the students while she stands for a second to watch him.  Her mood rapidly changes.  She finds herself feeling like a rainy day; cold, miserable and gloomy.  She watches him, her other best friend, march up the street and wonders what she did wrong.