chitter on the windowsill.

32 degrees celsius

June fanned herself with a paper plate in the afternoon of her father's monthly neighborhood barbecue. The Grillmaster 5000 was steaming, adding to the stuffiness and heat that was this weather sent straight from the fires of hell itself.

The party was in semi-boom. A couple people were still showing up, World's Best Cook as it stated on his apron was still working at the grill, the beer stock was only a quarter depleted, and Mr. Fieldman was still only inching his way towards the sound system. The company where he worked had a minor explosion last year, however, it still managed to handicap him and make his hearing extremely sensitive. Needless to say, the neighborhood turned 5 volumes lower ever since for the sake of him.

In the corner of her eye, she noticed a small round object fly over the hedge that divided the east side of their backyard from the Jones's. June walked over to where it landed to investigate.

It turned out to just be a worn out baseball. Some of the stitching had become undone and there were gray marks to where she guessed forceful impacts had damaged it over the years. She had just picked it up when a "PSSSSTTT!" sound called at her from between the hedge.

A head popped out of the bushes and she had to restrain herself mid-scream.

Nevertheless, no one noticed because as already stated, Mr. Fieldman hadn't gotten his hands on the speakers yet so her surprise was masked over the tune of the Twist and Shout.

It was an old head. She recognized it to belong to the old man that had moved in about seven months ago with the Jones's. He was probably their grandpa. Maybe senile grandpa.

He smiled a toothy smile even though a couple were missing from his gummy mouth.

"G'day little lady," He greeted in an old Southern accent. "Would you be the deariest and hand that catch-and-toss contraption back to me?"

She stared at the baseball in her hand. Catch-and-toss contraption?

"Uhhm, sure." She was about to take a step forward when he yelped. "No, no, no!"

June froze in half shock, half fear. "Wh-What?"

"You quite nearly stepped on the former President, little lady." He said kindly.

She looked down at her feet and was surprised to find a stray can of Busch classic lying there in the soft grass.

"What is this doing here....." She murmured to herself and picked that up too.

"Say," The old man reeled her attention back to him. "You're not old enough to drink yet, are yah?"

Her eyes widened considerably, "N-No, sir. This isn't mine, I mean, I wasn't even thinking about drinking this."

"Hmm," He said thoughtfully but there was a hint of boisterous air in it. "Y'know it's 32 celsius today?"

She frowned. I mean she understood how hot that meant but knowing that their country couldn't handle the metric system unlike the rest of the world, she would've guessed an old-timer and Southerner wouldn't even be accustomed to using its terms.

This bothered her so much that she just had to add in even if she was very uncomfortable about the whole scenario already, "Don't you mean, wait uh--" She took a second to do computations, "Don't you mean 89 Fahrenheit?"

He smiled slyly, "Ah so you're one of those."

June didn't quite hear him, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Sorry, but I did mean 32 celsius."

She was starting to get annoyed, "89 Fahrenheit."

"32 Celsius."

"89 Fahrenheit."

"32 Celsius."

"Okay, you're right. Sorry, what I meant to say was 305 Kelvin."

She blinked. All this talk about temperature in numbers was starting to make it feel hotter than it really was.

"Well, your papa's guests probably aren't going to like a warm brewski on a hot day like this." His hand emerged from the thicket of bushes and without really thinking about it, she handed him both the beer and baseball.

He smiled like a criminal in the clear. "Thank you lil' lady. I am terribly sorry for disrupting your partying. Please. Continue on. And have a wonderful day."

He disappeared back into the bushes, back to their side of their backyard.

And Juneau replayed the whole scenario that just unfolded and come up to a final conclusion: She just got punked by a 70-year-old-man.