Day 53 of 100

“Do you think she will notice?”

The summers in my neighborhood growing up in Mountain View, California weren’t that exciting. With both parents working, I had most of the day to wander around our streets and play with friends. My friend Mike lived up the street in a bunch of apartments that was on the way to our school. He lived with his mother (and I don’t remember if he has siblings).

Most mornings we would meet up on the street corner when our parents left for work and walked around kicking a newspaper we took from someone’s front stoop. We would take turns kicking it until it had completely disintegrated, and then grabbed another.

We both went to a summer camp at our middle school that kept us busy but didn’t really keep track of us. One day one of the counselors, who must have been 16 or 17 asked us if we wanted to go to her house and watch anime in Japanese. “Of course!” I mean it wasn’t a question. This was anime in Japanese after all.

We all piled into her car and we drove over to her house and ate snacks and watched Galaxy Express 999 and loved every minute of it. It was certainly a different time.

After we got back, Mike asked me if I wanted to go to his house. He told me how we could burn dead leaves off his ivy in his backyard and put out the fire with water in cups. Flick the lighter, burn the leaf, put it out with a cup of water. We did it over and over and over again. Then I flicked the lighter, set the leaf on fire and as I reached for my cup, I knocked it over. I looked at Mike and shrugged. Before I could ask him what we should do, the entire ivy plant was on fire. I ran to the hose and luckily was able to put the fire out.

“Think she will notice?” I asked as I left. “I hope not.” Mike replied.

A couple of hours later, the phone call my mom got told me that Mike’s mom noticed. Oops.