🔪 Kitchen Island 🏝

       We got on our boat, seated next to the snacks, and pulled on the motor. My brother, sister, and I were going to have a picnic on the lake. The lake was actually our backyard, but, you know, it won’t stay.

         Halfway through the lake, the wind stopped as we started eating. The motor’s hum died out as we crunched our chips and swallowed our sandwiches. Minutes later, it would become alive again.

         Looking back at the day’s events, we have no idea who did it or what had happened. This motor was new, too.

         “Ah! Who pulled the thing!” My sister Elizabeth, shouted.

         “Not me!” My brother Matthew and I replied.

         Everything went everywhere, the food, water, our faces, the boat. The loud humming took up noise again, screaming over the once peaceful lake this time faster, more determined.

         The boat was so fast I swear it felt as if we were going to fall out. Scratch that, fly out. Water splashed everywhere, the wind whipped through my brown hair. It was all we could do to stay in our seats, let alone trying to keep our stuff inside and shutting off the motor.

         I peeked out the bow, just in time to feel a huge woosh and see an island appear in the middle of the lake where we were involuntary heading.

         “Take cover!” I announced, putting my head on my legs and throwing my arms on top of me.

Crash! The impact made everyone and everything go flying (again). Underneath me felt super strange. It was hard and made a loud clang when you moved. It was like the ground was covered in metal.

         Once I got the courage to open my eyes, I found my answer. Well, after a moment of an embarrassing struggle, I did.

 “Ouch!” I shouted. “Shut it off! Shut off the light!” I was lying face up, and the sun peeked between a couple of treetops.

I then collected myself and looked all around. The ground was covered with metal! As in metal, I mean there were kitchen appliances everywhere. So much so that you couldn’t see the floor.

Nothing was broken, thankfully. Of me, I mean. All these kitchen appliances looked like they were broken in some sort of way. Some blenders were cracked or missing a handle, forks and spoons were twisted in horrible ways. It was like a dumping ground for kitchens or something. I had a couple bruises from landing on this pile of stuff, but I’ll be fine; I’ve had worse.

“Is everyone alright!” Matthew shouted.

“Yeah!” Elizabeth and I hollered back.

From hearing them, I could tell they were behind me, closer to the boat. Whereas me, I was a few trees away from the crashed vessel.

“Man, you went flying, sis! I almost laughed at the sight of it. Your face looked like you were constipated while waiting for doom!” Elizabeth chuckled.

“Yeah, well, you try being at the boat’s bow when you crash,” I snapped. “I’m alright, thanks for asking. How are you? Did you get hurt?” 

Her little dress was torn, and her hair was very messy. Her eyes showed excitement, while her face showed that she was ready for anything.

“You’re welcome! Nah, I’m alright. Matthew cushioned my fall. But he was cushioned by his life vest. He got lucky,” she responded.  

“Well, looks like Matthew was right; we should make sure we have life vests on,” I sighed. “How’re you hang ‘in?”

Matthew’s usually messy hair was even more disheveled. His eyes were closed, so was his mouth.

“I’m… alright, I suppose. I think Elizabeth cracked one of my ribs though,” he said, standing up.

“If I did you’d be squealing like a pig,” Elizabeth smiled. “Where are we anyway? Since when was this place here?”

“I dunno. Maybe you’d know if you were good at navigation,” Matthew glared at her, standing up.

“Would you two stop fighting! It’s bad enough we’re stuck here! The motors’ broken!” I cried. “Before we crashed here, I was able to look out of the boat and saw this island just appear here as I felt a woosh.”

“That’s weird. Maybe it got us stuck here on purpose. Maybe it wanted to hear some of Matthew ‘funny jokes,’” Elizabeth suggested.

“Hey! What did I say about not fighting right now! Matthew, see if anything survived the crash. Elizabeth, go see if you could find a trail we could walk on,” I ordered.

“What’re you going to do?” Matthew wondered.

“I’m going to figure out how to get off this island. Now, get to work! Mom will kill us for how many hours we’re missing!” I replied. 

Traversing all the kitchen stuff on the floor was very tedious work. I cringed every time I took a step, for we had to step over all the kitchen stuff and boat wreckage. We are fortunate no one got hurt doing this nor from the crash. I swear sometime soon, someone will twist their ankle just trying to walk over all this.

There’s just one single question: Where on earth did this island come from? We’ve never seen it here before. What was that woosh? Was it a vast magical portal opening to let this island here? Are we still in Michigan? Or did we transfer to another world, like in the “Wizard Of Oz”? No, that can’t be true. I can see our house from here.  

“Did you find anything? Did anything besides us survive?” I walked over to where Matthew was.

“Not that I’ve found. There are a couple of snacks that managed to stay in my pocket, but besides that, nothing. Not even our picnic basket,” Matthew replied.

I walked over to Elizabeth. “What about you? Did you find any trails?”

“Yes actually. I found one,” Elizabeth answered.

“Well, guys, since there is nothing here, let’s go see if there’s anyone else on this island,” I announced.

Stepping over all of the metal on the ground, Matthew caught up to me, and together we followed Elizabeth to the trail.

The further we traveled on the trail, the less and less we could hear the lake and the less kitchen stuff was on the floor. Bushes had grown and died along the path to our sides, trees loomed over us and some of the bushes had berries on them. However, despite our hunger we didn’t dare eat any.

         We kept walking past the berries as the sun disappeared into the leaves overhead. The trail continued straight, and the smell of sap and fresh air continued being smelled. No one said anything; I think we were all too busy pondering over the occurred events.

         The trees were normal; however, when you looked up at them you could see birds made of spoons, forks, and knives with uncooked pasta noodles as beaks. Their nests were made of grass, uncooked spaghetti, and leaves.

         I feel like this island is a backward version of “Cloudy of a Chance of Meatballs”. Just with a lot less food.

         Reading my mind, Matthew commented, “Isn’t this a movie, but with food?”

         “Let’s take a break; we’ve been walking all day,” I suggested half an hour later. We are in a small clearing that had once again a ton of kitchen stuff on the floor. The only difference between this area and our crashing suite is our boat is not here, and there are a few rocks we could sit on.

         Matthew and Elizabeth collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily as if they ran a marathon. I rolled my eyes. We’ve walked further than this before; it’s not as if we were walking fast.

         In the split of a second they jumped up, Elizabeth yelping, “did the ground just move!”

                 As she said, the ground was moving underneath where they were sitting. All the pots and pans clanged together as something human-shaped stood up. Between each pot and pan was a spatula or some other kitchen utensil. The hands were oven mitts, with forks and spoons sticking out of them. Its face was a salad spinner, with lettuce as eyes, nose, and mouth, with blenders as feet. Its shoulders were bowls, the arms and legs were pots and pans covered with cookie sheets and kitchen wrap. His hair was old, oily, whole wheat spaghetti, yuck.

“Uh… who are you?” Elizabeth demanded.

“Get back! You evil! You… you… metal eaters!” it commanded in a deep voice.

“Um… we don’t eat metal… we’re humans,” Elizabeth helped steady Matthew, who tripped.

“That’s exactly what helpers of the metal-eating giant would say!” It responded.

It then did something unexpected, which could’ve really hurt our feelings. It started throwing pots and pans at us! The weird thing about it was they appeared right in front of it, and it moved its arms as if commanding a force to throw them at us! This guy’s magic! Also, I could feel the woosh, not from the pots and pans. It was the same woosh I felt before we crashed. 

“Get into the bushes! I’ll deal with this guy!” I ordered, then shoved Matthew and Elizabeth to the ground.

“Elizabeth, go!” Matthew hollered.

To my right, Elizabeth army-crawled to the bushes like she did before she could walk. The thing continued throwing kitchen stuff at us, and I rolled around to dodge them, realizing then that I didn’t need to do this. He was missing us anyway. Matthew managed to escape to the bushes as well.

“Cowards!” it shouted.

“Would you stop! We just crashed here! We didn’t mean to go onto this island! You will see our crashed boat if you go down that path!” I paused before shouting, “we just wanted to eat snacks on the lake!”

“All those who want to come here, crash here!” It shouted.

         The rate of pots and pans thrown at us faltered, then quickened again. If this guy… thing doesn’t stop, I’ll make him!

         I rolled to a stand, then dodged my way up to him. When I got there, I tackled him.

         “Would you stop! We are innocent!” I cried, taking his oven mitts off him.

         “Wait! You’re huge! You’re not helpers of the metal-eating monster! Who are you, then?” He questioned, shaking me off him.

         “Finally,” I sighed. “We’re humans, and we actually did crash on this island. We had no idea it was here, and we need a way off this place.”

         “Why didn’t you just say so? I could’ve really hurt you, you know,” he wondered as Matthew and Elizabeth came out of the bushes behind me.

         “She did say so. Either you couldn’t hear or ignored her,” Elizabeth snapped.

“Probably both. I have bad hearing, probably because of my spoon ears. I tend to ignore people without meaning to. But I will tell you this; I think it was because I thought you guys were metal eaters,” it said.

“So, not to be rude, but what are you exactly?” Matthew asked, hesitating.

“I am the guardian of this island. Whenever someone or something enters the shield, I’m supposed to validate whether it’s good or bad, and go from there,” it replied. “What am I? I’m what the island likes to call an all-clad cooking ware,” it said.

“Oh. What’s your name?” I wondered.

“Frank,” he responded.

“Alright, Frank, is there a way off this island?” Matthew asked.

“If you could fix your boat, yes. I have a friend who is a healer, as he is to us, or to you guys, someone who could fix things, like us. The humans call us metal,” Frank explained.

“Great. Could you take us to this machinic?” Elizabeth wondered.

Frank nodded, then we went on our way. We went toward the same way we were going before we met Frank, but this time we took a different path that ran along the one we were walking on. The scenery hasn’t changed, the birds sang, the trees were the same. The only differences were that Frank made huge clanking noises with every step he made and that there was no more kitchen stuff on the ground. Instead, they were in a huge, long line facing the direction we were going. They were talking, moving. Some of them stepped out of the line when they saw us and hid in bushes. When they did that, we could see their vast eyes glowing in the darkness of the trees. At least, I think they have eyes.

There was a massive clearing and an even bigger hill, no, mountain of pieces of scrap metal. The line goes up the mountain on a ramp, and at the top, we could see a human working on fixing up a salad spinner that had a crack in it. Yes, a human! We aren’t alone on this island! Not that we were alone, but we were the only humans on the island that we knew of. Also on top was a house. Yes, I said house. Poles were going from under it, connecting to the mountain, and some, all the way to the ground. Man, that house must be so unsafe. Why not just have it on the side of the mountain instead of on top?

“Do we seriously have to wait this line?” Matthew complained.

“No, the mechanic up there is a good friend of mine. We never know why or how these guys keep getting hurt, but we get quite the crowd daily. Maybe the magic of this island is fading, or something,” Frank commented.

“How’re we going to get up there with that huge line?” Elizabeth queried.

“On the right side of the ramp is some space where you could go down. Since not many people are using that side, we could probably just go up there,” Frank explained.

Many minutes of pushing and shoving later, we made it up the flimsy metal ramp and on the top. The mechanic wore steampunk glasses, he had old-looking clothes on, and he was working on gluing a handle back onto a blender. He had one of those helmets they wear when you are blowtorching something, but through the glass, I could tell his face was oily, sweaty, and dirty. Gross. But that wasn’t the worst part. His hands were the same as his face but much dirtier. Like, five times dirtier.

“Oh, hey Frank,” the mechanic said, putting down the glue and lifting his helmet.

“Hey Herald,” Frank replied. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure, I could use the extra break,” the mechanic, Herald, answered. “You’ll be alright, Mr. Bland. If you lean on the handle while I’m gone, it should stay together”

The blender sighed as Herald took off his helmet completely, put the glue on another counter, and took off his gloves. He then led us inside the house.

The house was a one-room house; there was just a bed and some clothes inside. Whenever you moved, you heard a creak, but nothing would move. Even though the place was totally stable, it felt like it was swaying back and forth.

“Where’s the bathroom? Do you ever shower?” Elizabeth demanded.

“My bathroom is in the woods and my shower is in the lake. But I shower every two weeks. For living in a paradise, I’m very busy,” Herald replied.

“This is… actually, I didn’t catch their names,” Frank hesitated.

“I’m Maria. This is my sister, Elizabeth, and my brother, Matthew. We unexpectedly crashed on this island, and we needed to get home. Unfortunately the motor on our boat broke. Frank told us you could help,” I introduced.

“Well, Miss Maria, Frank is right; I can help. I just have the right parts for it, I think. Of course it depends on how much damage was done,” Herald explained.

“Thank you,” I said. “Um… how’re we going to do this? Are you going to bring the parts and fix it there? Or do you want to see it first?” 

“I’ll come and see it. You said you crashed? It sounds to me your motor isn’t the only problem,” he said.

“Well, let’s just take a look at it and determine what it needs from there. We’re in no rush,” Frank said.

“Alright, can we do that tomorrow morning? I still have a lot of ‘people’ to fix,” Herald agreed.

“Sure, these guys can crash at my place for the time being,” Frank offered.

“Thanks, guys. We probably would not get off this island without you,” I smiled.

“No problem,” they both said.

We left Herald’s house, or shack, and slid down the scrap mountain. We walked the path we walked on twice today. It was just after lunch by now. The surroundings changed only a little bit, that bit being our disappointed mood and the lower sun. As we walked on the desolate path, we heard a growl.

“That was me; we haven’t eaten in a while,” Matthew announced.

“That’s alright. I can make lunch when we get to my place. We’re not too far now,” Frank resolved.

Instead of going straight like last time, we turned right at the fork in the road. The woods were quiet; no birds sang and there were no clang of metal whenever we took a step. Only Frank made the sound. No one was around; I guess they were all at Herald’s workshop getting fixed.

“Hey, Frank,” Elizabeth shouted, or at least it sounded that loud. “When we first met, you thought we were metal eaters. What are those?”

“Long ago, before I was created by young Herald, there was a war on this island. You see, giants used to live here too, at least until they grew a hunger for us. We almost became extinct; no one knew how to nor wanted to fight, so no one did. There were just a few of us left until the miracle happened. The island protected us. It created a shield all around our island home, which prevented them from having the strength to move. Eventually, they began to die off from hunger while we regrew our population. Ever since then, they never came back,” Frank told as we approached another clearing.

“So, you told them the story,” the toaster said. “I head the metal-eating giants were going to come back tonight. It’s a full moon,”

“Don’t believe in that, guys. That rumor has been going around for years now, and it has never happened. These kids are hungry; could you heat them some toast? Please?” Frank demanded. “Kids, this us Colin, Colin, this is Maria, Matthew, and Elizabeth. I’m going to go find some aprons to act as blankets, so you guys don’t freeze to death during the night.”

The toaster, Colin, shoved a piece of bread onto a fork, which flung the bread to the coffee pot, bounced, and landed in one of the bread slots on Colin.

“Where does this food come from? Surly a bunch of kitchen appliances don’t farm on a magical island?” I wondered.

Colin raised an eyebrow. “Are you questioning the abilities of alive kitchen appliances?” When he said alive, he said it in a mocking tone.

“No, I just thought, you know, that you guys don’t eat, I guess, I dunno,” I reasoned.

“Well, you’re right in that sense; we don’t eat. The food here appears every day by magic, I think. The food amounts to how many humans are on the island,” Colin grunted. He’s been grunting ever since he put the toast inside himself to be heated. I think this is how he can heat it. The sounds are making me a bit uncomfortable. 

Once the toast was made, Colin tipped over and had the toast fall onto a plate. He then pushed the jelly closer to the plate with a knife, making a gesture for us to eat.

“Thanks,” I said as we sat down.

As we ate, Colin just sat (stood?) there watching us.

“So… uh, do you have any hobbies?” I wondered.

“Besides making toast, no,” Colin said. 

“So what, you just sit there all day and make toast?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yup,” Colin replied. “Actually, no. There is something I’ve been working on. I think you could help with it,”

“What are you working on?” Some food was spat out of Matthew’s mouth as he talked.

Colin lowered his voice. “I’ve been working on a plan. A plan to get my power tonight at the full moon, and eat every metal on this island, then expand outside the island.”

“You’re the metal eater! But that makes no sense; you’re not a giant!” I shouted.

“Well, duh! He’s probably his helper!” Elizabeth responded.

“No, I’m no helper. I’m the giant king. Well, I’m not a giant. You see, I spread the story of the giant, and people believed it. It was actually me who did all that. Why did I do it? Because I’m a scientist, a human. I tried to harvest the magic, but instead, the magic harvested me. Now, I’m a boring, stupid toaster, my human spirit trapped in this so-called ‘body’. Tonight, my research continues, when my body comes back,” he explained.

“I trusted you!” Frank ran out of the bushes to our left, dropped the aprons, and tackled Colin.

We couldn’t see what was happening. Frank was so huge compared to Colin that we could not see Colin at all. A few minutes of clanking and banging later, Frank finally stopped and stood up.

“He’ll be down for a while. Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Colin had a few dents in his metal, and one of his “eyebrows” fell off. But other than that, he looked alright. The red lights that were on are off. He was knocked out.

Frank led us back to the trail after grabbing the aprons.

“What now?” I wondered. “We’ve gotta stop him,”

“We? No, us. I’m going to rally everyone on the island, and we will make a plan. Meanwhile, you three and the mechanic will get out of here,” Frank objected.

“But… What if we don’t want to leave?” Matthew asked.

“Well, too bad. I cannot let a few kids get mixed up in this,” Frank fought.

“But everyone else on this island is in that line getting fixed. They aren’t able to fight, and you can’t fight alone. Plus, if you let us help, you’d have an advantage. You would have three kids with you, and kids are high-energy. We can take him,” I told.

“Oh.. grapes! Fine, you can help. But as soon as this ends, you get out of here,” Frank gave in.

“Are we still going to Herald?” Matthew questioned.

“Yes, he’s the smartest guy on this island. Plus, who knows how long it will take for him to repair your motor,” Frank replied.

Once again, for the fourth time in this story, we walked on the trail which led to scrap mountain.

“Herald! We need to talk to you a-sap! We’ll be up there in a couple of minutes! Finish up with the patient you’re working on!” Frank shouted once we got there.

We pushed and shoved through the concerned “people”. “He’s back! The giant! Well, I dunno about back, but he will be tonight!” Frank shouted once we got up there and into Herald’s house.

We explained everything that happened, Frank helped us, and we helped Frank. We told Frank and Herald everything Colin told us; Frank had not heard everything. I guess all he heard was that Colin was a traitor.

“Oh my, that’s very… crazy,” Harald responded.

“Do you think we could fix our motorboat now?” Elizabeth wondered.

“Yes, I suppose. What about the ‘people’?” Herald queried.

“We’ll, have them go to their homes after explaining a gist of what’s happening,” Frank resolved. “You’ll have to fix them later.”

So, after we talked, Frank shouted down Scrap Mountain, explaining that the giant was back, but this time as a toaster. He ordered them to go to their homes and hide.

Harald, Frank, and us three kids then went down the ramp and sprinted to our boat once we got to the woods. As we traveled, Harald’s tools in his toolbox jangled together, along with Frank’s pots and pans. Those two things together made such a noise, that I could swear our parents at home could hear it.

“Ooh you crashed that boat pretty good, alright,” Harald cringed.

As we left it, the scene was pieces of the boat everywhere along with the scraps of kitchen stuff.

“You can fix it, though, right?” Matthew asked.

“Alas, I’m afraid not,” Harald answered.

“I knew it! I knew it was too good to be true!” Matthew shouted.

“All is not lost yet. I have a boat, the boat I came here with. I fixed it up, and it works perfectly now. I was saving it for an emergency, but I can make another. Plus, emergencies don’t happen often, do they?” Harald resolved.

“Oh… well, why can’t you just make us a new one? We don’t wanna take your emergency boat,” I objected. “Especially with Colin on the loose.”

“It’s alright. You guys deserve to go home more than I do. Plus, this is my home now. I’ve lived here for a century. Why I’ll have a heart attack learning of all the new technologies created!” Harald replied.

“What do you mean you lived here for a century?” I demanded.

“Well, this island stops growth for humans while we’re on this island. So basically, you can live forever when you’re on this island,” Harald explained.

“Wow. So you just sat on top of scrap mountain and fixed kitchen appliances since you got here?” I asked.

“No, I used to do other things. I can’t remember what I did, though. I think I mostly just built a scrap mountain, my house and a cave,” he replied.

Harald led us out from the crash suite and onto a trail on the beach. From this lake view, we could see our house and our neighbor’s houses. Man, I never realized we had so many neighbors before! I knew we had a lot, for the people across the lake from us are even our neighbors.

“How do you think Mom is?” Elizabeth queried.

“I think she thinks we’re having fun and just staying out here for a while longer,” Matthew answered. “Or she’s worried sick that we drowned, that too.”

We walked on, no sounds except for that of the water, Frank, and a few jet skis. I miss home. It’s almost sundown, and I could see the last afternoon shadows falling upon our house. I could smell freshly grilled barbecue from a nearby place and the smell of lake water. Dad would be off work by now, and Mom probably finished making lessons for the next school year. This day was supposed to be our last “splash” before the new school year started. At least we have an exciting story to tell everyone. Ha, I could just imagine it now, the teacher asking us how our summer was as a warm-up question, and me replying with this sick story about kitchen appliances and evil toasters. No one would believe me, though.

We came to a cave going inside the island, Harald leading us inside. All the sounds of the lake slowly dissipated, and to replace them were the sounds of water dripping. I looked up, ensuring there weren’t any bats that would poop on us. The ground was very uneven, and I almost tripped while looking up. Being a cave, it was difficult to see in here. All sunlight was gone and the only light remaining was our eyes getting used to the dark, which was hard to do since we were in bright sunlight all day. 

We walked on, now and then tripping. We had to army crawl at some points, which got our clothes dirty, ripped and wet.

“How far… is this thing?” Matthew panted. “How’re we going to get the… boat out?”

“It’s not much further, and there is an underground passageway to the lake,” Harald replied.

Just like he said, we were almost there. As we approached an opening in the cave, Herald grabbed a torch and a lighter from against the wall and lit it. Because we could see now, I noticed that the cave walls had different layers of rock and stone. From school and vacations, I could tell what some of the various layers were. Most of it was hardened clay and stone, but some were also dirt: metal or ore. I couldn’t identify what metals and ores were there; I just knew they were those things. The floor to the cave was weird. It had gooey, gross stuff.

We came to another opening in the cave, it wasn’t as big as a cavern, but it was a little bigger than a grove. There’s a little pathway or passageway to the left through an opening in the cave wall. Floating on the water was a small rowboat, which could seat about two people.

The seating wasn’t going to be an issue since Elizabeth is super tiny for her age.

“Well, here it is,” Harald motioned toward it.

“It’s… small,” Elizabeth commented. Matthew elbowed her in the side.

“Thank you for helping us,” I smiled. “But, what are we going to do about Colin?”

Harald and Frank exchanged looks. “About that, Harald and I both agreed we would take care of him alone. That’s why we brought you here, to say goodbye,” Frank said.

“What! But you said we could help!” Matthew shouted. Our voices echoed through the cave.

“Yeah, but then Harald made a fair point. We already have the advantage. We’re faster and much taller. If we could get you three safe quickly, we probably could finish off Colin before he gets his power back,” Frank explained.

“Come on guys, let’s go,” I suggested. “We could always come back tomorrow, right?”

“Um… I don’t think so. You guys said this place was invisible, correct? You will likely have difficulty finding here again,” Harald responded.

We then said our goodbyes, Harald explained that we just had to follow the path where the water goes, and we’d be out of here.

Once we got on the rocky boat, Harald and Frank handed us the paddles, untied the rope tying the boat down, and we were off. Matthew and Elizabeth waved at them while I rowed.

It was super quiet without Frank’s clanging and our talking. The only sound was the soft water being pushed away from the boat. If I weren’t rowing, I would’ve fallen asleep, especially after our adventure.

It wasn’t long before we started hearing the lake again. The water had us take a left, and then we saw the lake and the sunlight.

After a minute of rowing away from the cave, and the island, I stopped rowing, turned the boat, and took one last look.

Now that we have a better, less rushed view of the island, we could see Scrap Mountain with Harald’s house on top. The line of “people” was gone, and we could see the sad-looking trampled on-ramp. The rest of the island was just trees, a cave, and the beach.

From the beach, around where the cave was, we could hear shouting. Coming out from the mouth of the cave were Frank and Harald. As they turned to our left, we could see Colin hopping furiously behind them. Frank and Harald stopped to confront Colin. With one giant step of his right foot and the swing of his arm, Frank scooped up Colin and slammed him on the ground. He then picked him up again, Colin laughing, and threw him into the lake. 

“Yeah! Nice work, Frank!” I shouted.

Frank’s head went up; he saw us and waved.

“Kids! Come in and wash up! It’s lunch!” Mother shouted.

That’s when everything changed. The waves from the lake froze, turned soft and green like grass, all the water underneath it turned to dirt and stone. The island, jetskis, and trees lining the lake were replaced with houses lining our shared backyard, with a few trees popping up here and there. All these houses, including ours, had a back patio. A couple of electrical boxes appeared with a woosh. One was tall and skinny; the other was short and square. The square one is what we used to pretend to be the island. Of course, it was not big enough. We had to let our imagination fix that for us.

Matthew, Elizabeth, and I were sitting on a boogie board. I had a baseball bat in hand as if I were rowing. We were facing the square electrical box, looking at it longingly.

We then got off the board, I grabbed it, and we ran for our patio. I threw the board and bat into the toy bin while Elizabeth shouted, “that was so fun! We should play after lunch!”

Our neighbor’s window opened before we went inside. She poked her head out and shouted, “Be quiet, would you! I’m trying to sleep!”

         I shook my head and sighed. “Grouchy old neighbors. I don’t think we can play anymore.”