are you waiting for, idiots?” We were gone in a flash. I raced into my room and pulled my swimsuit on in record time. “What are you so dirty for? You’re tracking mud all over my house,” my mom yelled after me as I slammed the door shut. Somehow, Nadiya beat me back to our makeshift hot tub, and one sloppy cannonball later, she was out of the sandbox screaming about how cold the water was. I couldn’t take her word for it, so I stuck my toe in the now half full hole. She was right; absolutely freezing. “Steven, it’s not even a hot tub!” Steven hadn’t moved from his spot on the swings. “Well, duh, what did you expect? You couldn’t carry the bucket full of hot water over. Now it just has to be a cold tub.” “Cold tub? This is more like a freezing tub!” “Do you want to have fun or not?” He was quick to respond. At that, Nadiya and I gave each other a look and jumped into our homemade “cold tub,” making sure to splash Steven at least a little bit. Our skinny little bodies didn’t get used to the cool water very quickly, but the sticky, hot humidity that day made up for whatever body heat we lost. The hole was big enough that we both could sit comfortably, with even enough room for Steven to fit if he wanted to. He, however, did not. He sat on the swings just grinning down at us and telling us we should dig the hole deeper so we could fill it with even more water. Looking back at it now, this was obviously his master plan. If he wasn’t in the so-called pool, he wouldn’t get in trouble. His idea was simple: watch us slave away at the stupid hot tub and then witness us get in trouble for it. He really was an evil genius. And of course, his plan worked. Just minutes after we had finally adjusted to the cold water, my mother came outside to see what we were up to. What she found was two dirty girls splashing in a pool of muck and Steven laughing down at us. Then the yelling started. “What are you doing?” My mom marched over to us and dragged us out of the muddy sandbox. “Why did you think this was a good idea? Huh? What do you think you are doing?” Nadiya and I stayed silent as she continued her speech. Steven seemed to be enjoying it from his spot on the swings. It was his grand plan after all. He had to try really hard to keep from giggling as my mom scolded us. His snickering quickly stopped when she turned on him. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?” “Well, no, I just—” Page 11
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