Summer Days

There is a cliché that comes with summer. The weeks before it begins, every child, teenager and young adult are eagerly awaiting its arrival. Toward the end, however, these same people, who were so elated at the beginning, are now bored with it, and find themselves almost wishing that school would arrive once more. Almost.

Lacey and her friends, Alex, Michelle, Rebecca, Sara and Steven were, unfortunately, were not able to escape this cliché. They sat silently at Lacey's house, completely bored out of their minds. Long summers that dragged on for what seemed like forever tended to do that to the six teens.

Suddenly, Sara piped up with an idea to rid her and her five friends of their boredom. "Why don't we go to that one park? You know, for old time's sake? This is our last summer together."

Lacey jumped up from out of her seat. "Ooh, I'll take my camera!" She bounded off to her room to retrieve the piece of technology. The remaining occupants of the living room also got up; putting on socks and shoes and patiently waiting for Lacey to reappear with her camera. Lacey was a bit of a photography buff, so she took pictures of her friends' shenanigans, if only for the memories.

She skipped over to the group, slinging the strap of her trusty Canon Powershot around her neck. "Alright!" she exclaimed, pointing off in a random direction. "Let's go!"

They chattered excitedly about their plans for that day. The park wasn't really a park, but rather an open field with a lot of trees and long grass. Their parents used to take them there often on their days off, as the field somehow kept them occupied all day.

They arrived at the "sacred land" and stared out at the scenery, taking it all in one more time. Memories rushed over them of their childhoods, coming here every Saturday with one of their parents. Not once did their time here fail to be amusing; they assumed that the park could keep them occupied as such one last time before school started.

Steven, who was standing towards the end of the group, simply said "Hide and go seek." The five females grinned at him and all ran off, scouting out the perfect place to keep away from the boy.

As Steven counted, Lacey snuck up in front of him as quietly as she could, and took a picture of him. She ran off just as quickly as she got there. Lacey ran to her usual hiding spot, a nice oak tree, climbed up it and sat on one of its branches. She looked at the picture she just took, and smiled slightly in satisfaction.

"Lacey."

She looked down, and the smile that was just occupying her face turned into a dissatisfied frown; staring back at her was the last person she wanted to see.

"Steven, stop being so good at hide and go seek."

He grinned victoriously. "Shut up and help me find the others."

She sighed in defeat, and jumped off from the tree. The two of them found Sara hiding behind a bush nearby, Michelle crouching in the tall grass and Rebecca and Alex conspicuously giggling behind Michelle.

After this came various games of tag, staring up at the sky, running around like idiots, general chaos and of course, Lacey took pictures throughout the whole span of time. They all collapsed on the ground after an intense game of freeze tag.

"That was fun," Alex said, still breathless from running after the oh-so-nimble Michelle. "What now?"

Sara drew in a deep breath to equilibrate her breathing. "Dinosaurs," she said.

The remaining five stared at her, wide-eyed. Dinosaurs was their favorite game when they were children.

They all stood up, totally prepared to make fools out of themselves.

The game of Dinosaurs is simple: act like a dinosaur. And that's just what the six of them did.

Lacey was well ahead of the group in her dinosaur-ing, so she turned around to take a few pictures of them. She searched through them, stopped at one and started laughing. She motioned her friends over to look at it.

"You all look like creepers." All except Sara were crouched in the grass, and they all were looking at the camera strangely when the picture was taken.

"This," Lacey laughed, "is staying in my memory book forever."