Overly Energetic

Prologue

Light flashed off the pavement and I had to squint to see in front of me. The heat ripped into the back of my neck as I pushed forward, gripping the tiny hand pressed into mine. I ran behind two food vender trucks and crouched in the shade. Sweat dripped off my back as the little hand let go of mine. “You didn’t have to run so fast!” the girl said as she wiped my sweat off her hand and into her blue dress.

I looked between the trucks we were couched behind and pointed a finger at a boy just a few years older than me across the busy parking lot. His face was buried into his arms and he was leaning against a tree, counting down. “He almost counted to zero! I had to run fast or else we would be caught.”

The little girl plopped down onto the grass below her, dirting her summer dress. “I didn’t even want to play tag, it was his idea. Why do we always have to play what your brother wants to play?”

I folded my eyebrows together and felt myself repeat what I had heard before. “My brother is bigger than us, so he gets to choose.”

I sat next to the girl and began picking the dry grass near her dress. I thought about her leaving in a few weeks and immediately wished I hadn't. When she came to visit in the summer was the only time I had someone my age to play with.

Oil crackled from one of the trucks we were sitting behind and the smell of deep fried bread filled the hot air around us. I lifted my head and thought about asking my mom for the elephant ear she promises us each year. I felt a pulling on my arm and I realized that once again, the little girl’s hand had found mine.

“Next time, I want to play what you want to play.” She said, her brown curls twisted around her head like a bundle of coils.

I blinked down to notice a brown spot on her hand and realized it was one of many that were sprinkled up her arm. When I looked back up to ask what they were, she had taken something from me.