"Bye, Quill, I'm off to the post office!" I sang out, heading for the garage.
"Okay. Don't pick up my letters--I'll do that after I finish my house," my younger sister Quill responded absently, artistically adorning her new dwelling with a few new rooms.
I backed my "motorcycle" out of the garage, pulling carefully out onto the road and deciding to take the scenic route to the post office. As I rounded the corner, I almost crashed into my brother in his "car", who was going the other way.
"I think our road is too small," Nemesis complained; the understatement of the century, as I had seen spaghetti noodles that were wider than the road we had built. I shrugged and pulled off the road.
"It's okay," I reassured Nemesis, pulling a piece of chalk out of my pocket. "I'll make a new one. It will be a shortcut!"
This was one of our favorite summer pastimes; wasting gargantuan amounts of chalk on our blessedly large driveway, turning it into a maze of crooked roads and flat mansions and garnishing it with all the neccessities of a small town, drawing them in as we realized we needed them. As Mom refused us the keys to the car, we made do with bicycles (motorcycles) and tricycles (cars). Having yet to reach the double-digits of life, it would have required all four of us to operate the steering wheel, pedals, and horn of a regular vehicle; and since we were never able to accomplish anything as a team without a few minutes of debate before, during, and after an event, Mom and the law get great credit for foresight.
A few minutes of listening to us, I would imagine, would have left onlookers in a state of helpless laughter.
"We need to go to the store!"
"Wait, do we have a store?"
*One rapid chalk drawing later* "We do now!"
"Are there graham crackers?"
"Not yet. Quill, can you ask Mom if we can have a snack?"
"As soon as I finish mailing these letters. Where's the post office?"
"I don't know..." *draws quickly* "Here's one."
"Radar, you have mail!"
*CRASH* "Radar, drive on the other side!"
"There isn't another side! We need to make bigger roads."
"Pull over, I need to pass."
"I found the other post office! It had all the other letters under this rock."
"I'll draw a new road--one second."
"Mom said we could have the crackers!!"
"DIBS ON THE GROCERY STORE!!!"
Three vehicles attempting to enter the parking lot to the grocery store through an exit the width of a needle always made a resounding crash.
The youngest of my siblings, Quill, was the luckiest of us all; she was the perfect size to drive the small "Cozy Coop," a small plastic car that my height had long since rendered unavailable to me. Nemesis could usually fit if he left the side door open or stuck his head out the window. I couldn't fit well at all; besides that, Mom had requested that I ask her permission to use it after I had dragged into our plastic swimming pool in an attempt to make a boat. I didn't understand the principles of buoyancy, but the car made it readily apparent after I climbed on the roof. It flipped over violently, flinging me off, and sank. I thought that was incredibly fun, so I kept refloating and flipping it until Mom came to the rescue. Hence the new rule.
I've realized, after all these years, that amidst the furious construction and impact-heavy driving, name-calling and racing, we forgot to add something very important to our two-dimensional town.
We forgot to add a hospital!
"Mom, do we have any more Band-Aids?"
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