empty and Steven in charge. It took a while to fill up the bucket because every time it got close to being full it would get too heavy and one of us would drop it right back down into the tub and all the water would go swooshing down the drain. We finally decided it would be fine only half full so we lugged it outside, through her yard, across the road, and over to my playset. “What took you so long?” Steven was sitting on the top of the monkey bars trying his best to look cool. I responded while Nadiya dumped the water into our hole. “We kept dropping the bucket so we had to refill it. But don’t worry, it only splashed a little on the floor. It’s okay, we—” “It just soaked right up,” Nadiya interrupted me. She was really good at doing that. “What?” Steven peered down from his perch above us. My best friend pointed at the now damp sand at the bottom of our hole. “The water didn’t stay in there. It just soaked right up.” Steven groaned. “This is going to take forever with you idiots doing the job. Go get the hose!” I looked up at him confused. “But you said we couldn’t—” “I know what I said but I take it back. It’s going to be a cold hot tub I guess.” Steven interrupted me this time. I should have expected that one; he was Nadiya’s dumb brother after all. “That Thronton family and their bad manners,” my mom would say. So, back over to the hose we went. After it was stretched across the grass and into the sandbox, Steven turned the faucet on. Of course, the one thing he got to do was the most exciting part of the whole endeavor. The stream of water was quickly soaked up in the ground. Nadiya and I looked at each other in defeat. I let the hose go and watched it slop into the muddy mess at the bottom of our little hole. “Steven,” I called, “it’s not working!” His only response was to turn the faucet up, even more. After a few minutes of watching the water gush into the ground, something began to happen. It was very slow going, but the water was rising. It wasn’t getting all soaked up anymore! Maybe Nadiya’s dumb brother wasn’t so dumb after all. “Come look! Steven! It’s filling up!” Nadiya and I screamed over each other. Steven took his sweet time coming over to our mini party by the sandbox. After examining the hole, wiggling the hose a little with his foot, and nodding silently to himself, he spoke. “Go put on your swimsuits. What Page 10
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