The little girl’s mouth fell open with a loud gasp.
“I am not!” she propped her hands on her hips and waggled her head at my brother. “We found Charlie.”
“Or,” Micha charged up to her with his chest puffed out, “you took someone else’s dog.”
I was too mesmerized by her pigtails swaying to hear what she said. They moved back and forth like slithering black snakes. My hand shot out, yanking on a bundle of hair. I’d make a good snake catcher.
“Ouch!” She spun around and shoved on my chest.
I tried to catch myself, but my feet slipped out from under me. Next thing I knew, I was barrelling down the slide, head first, on my back. I launched off the end and landed hard on the ground.
I was still trying to catch my breath when I heard Micha growl, “No one pushes my brother.”
Followed by a little girl’s screech.
There was enough time for me to blink my eyes open before she sailed through the air and slammed down on top of me.
“Ugh,” I grunted.
Little girls were heavy. Stupid Micha.
But it wasn’t over yet. There was a boy with brown hair standing behind Micha with a scowl on his face.
“You shouldn’t push girls,” he said, and shoved my brother down.
My brother was big. When he crashed down on the top of the pile, all the air left my body. I thought for sure I was flat like those cartoon characters that got pianos dropped on them. But my fingers were still normal, so I guessed I wasn’t completely flat. That was disappointing.
It would’ve made getting out of this kid pretzel a lot easier. The little girl’s arm was flung back, wrapped around my face, and Micha’s legs were trapping mine. I could barely move. Thank god there was no one else to be pushed down.
At least that’s what I thought, until I saw Parker climbing the ladder.
I wriggled my head out from under the other two and looked at the boy who’d pushed Micha. He was grinning and rubbing his hands together.
Oh no. I’ll definitely be flat if he comes down here.
As soon as Parker’s head came into view, the other boy stopped smiling and shifted his gaze to the swings. Preston was leaning back against one of the bars with his eyes narrowed and focused on the slide. The boy just smiled at Parker as he walked by and slid down.
Probably a good choice. I overheard my dad saying Preston wasn’t normal. I’m not sure what that meant. Maybe he was a superhero or something?
Once he was at the bottom Parker stood up, smiled down at us, said, “Hey guys,” and skipped off to the see-saw.
“Smug prick,” Micha grumbled.
I heard a muffled, “Get off me,” followed by my brother grunting as he rolled off us clutching his balls.
Guess the little girl got him good and hard. Good. Micha deserved it.
A second later she jumped off me and kicked some dirt in my brother’s face before running off. I kind of liked that girl. Her mom was not as impressed as I was though. At least that’s who I assumed the woman with black hair was.
She ran after her, yelling, “Riley Marie Adams, did you just hit that boy?”
I was glad she wasn’t my mom. She did not look happy and was really fast. When she called out, “Get back here right now,” I almost wanted to tell the little girl she should listen. But I had my own mom to worry about.
She came rushing over with her eyes all big.
Uh oh, I was in trouble.
I was about to tell her that I didn’t do anything and it was all Micha’s fault, but she spoke before I could.
