Our Last Weekend

It was the last weekend of the summer of 2013. Since I had moved back to my hometown of Morton, Mississippi, after my graduation of Lake Middle School, my friends and I hadn't seen each other at all after school let out for summer break. The move practically broke my heart. I was torn between homes, between friends. I knew that once school started again, we wouldn't be able to hang out or even see each other. Not until the next summer break from school anyways. So, my friend River and I decided that we were going to ask our parents to let us spend the last weekend of summer together.

River and I both begged our moms to let us spend the weekend together. For days all we talked of was what we would do for the weekend and, finally, our moms both agreed to let me stay at River's house the coming up Saturday. Ideas zoomed back and forth between my cell phone and River's. Eventually, we settled on the idea of a day cascaded with water and slam-packed with nothing but laughter and fun.

Friday night River called up her cousin Jesse and his friend Cole, her brother Jojo, and our bestfriend Ashley . We all met up at River's house early Saturday morning before the sun had a chance to peek at us over the tall pine and oak trees surrounding the opening where the house was built.

"O-M-G!" River squealed. "I can't believe your mama let you come!'

"Yea girl! Et shocked me too!" I hollered back at her from the driver side window of my stepdad's 2001 Chevorlet Silverado. "Where Jesse 'n' Cole et? Ain't they 'pose to be here by now?"

"Lord knows where those boys are!" River said as she was walking over to the truck. Just then, a loud Screech came from right above the hill where the driveway met the road. "Up! There's them idiots now! They gonna tear up the road with all that skiddin'!"

Spinning up a cloud of dirt and gravel, Jesse's jacked-up matte black Tacoma was barely visible as it raced down the driveway with Cole hanging halfway out of the passenger side window shouting words that we couldn't understand.

River shook her head at their antics, waved at them with her left hand, turned back to me, and said, "Lord help us! Come on Lasha. Let's get inside before they decide to spin up some dust on us!"

"Just let me git tha water balloons out tha back 'n' I'll be rite in."

When I walked up the back porch steps to the back door, I could hear Jesse's southern-raised voice yelling at Jojo. "Boy! Git out hur 'n' help us git tha tires out tha back o' the truck!"

"I's a comin'!" Jojo quickly shouted back at him from the front door. Not two seconds later, a short, stocky body lumbered across the yard to where Jesse had parked his now quiet and motionless truck.\\

I opened the back door, stepped inside, and was immediatly attacked with slobbery kisses by Tootsie, River's twelve-year-old rednose pitbull. "Ugh! Ew! Tootsie! Git down!" I crinkled my nose and laughed as I ran to the living room where Ashley and River were now dancing like drunkards and singing off-key to "Benny and The Jets". I jumped right in with them and so did Tootsie. All the while, Sodapop, Jojo's Chocolate Labrador, just sat laid back like an actual person in the black, leather Lazyboy recliner beside the stereo and watched us as if he thought we were crazy lunatics. Maybe so. But we were having fun!

Just as the song was coming to the last chorus, Cole and Jesse burst through the front door and yelled along with it, "B-B-B-Benny! Benny! Benny! Beeeeenny! Benny and the Jets!", and then we all started laughing uncontrollably.

Red-faced and breathless, we all, including Jojo who ambled in at the end of the song, plopped down on the floor and tried our hardest to catch our breath and cool off.

"Wellp. I recken we better git that tarp spreaded out thur. Uncle Jimmy'll be back in a minit frum tha doller general with tha baby oil 'n' soap! River? You thank you, Ash, 'n' Cass can go roll tha tires up tha hill for us while we git tha tarp out?"

"Yea! We can git 'em!" I answered before the question had even registered into River's thought process.

"Whaaaat?" River asked with her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

Ashley and I looked at each other, giggled, and in unison said, "Nothing River!"

As we were rolling the four heavy, old tires up the hill in the backyard, River's dad pulled into the driveway with his subwoofers blaring "Muddigger ft. Colt Ford". "I got tha stuff ya'll asked fer!" he hollered, "ya'll got tha slide fixed yet? Or do ya'll need some help?"

"Naw! We got et!", Cole yelled back. "You gon' slide with us when we git the water runnin'?"

"Yew bet I am boy! I ain't lettin' all you younguns have all tha fun!" River rolled her eyes at the thought of her dad, a younger version of Santa, sliding down the hill on the tarp and crashing at the bottom in a huge puddle of soap, babyoil, mud, and water.

We all raced back to the house to change into our shorts and tees, (River, Ashley, and I just were not the kind of girls that liked swimsuits) and once we had took turns changing, we ran back outside to take a look at our masterpiece. It was an enormous waterslide made from several large black tarps held down at the corners by old, dry-rotted truck tires. It was our "redneck" waterslide and we were proud of the little bit of creativity that we had mustered up to put it together, but that only lasted for a brief few seconds.

We excitedly skipped to the top of the steep hill carrying along with us three medium sized floats (the kind you were supposed to lay on in a pool, not jump on).

No one else wanted to take the first turn because of how terribly steep the hill looked from above, so, I walked backwards a few yards, took off running at full speed, jumped feet first onto one of the floats, and went soaring down the slide surfer style. It had been a bad idea but I realized too late that I wouldn't make it to the bottom standing on my feet. Halfway down the hill, my body tilted too far backwards, the float slipped out from under my feet, and down I went.

When my head hit the ground, stars burst into my vision and I heard someone yell, "There goes the last of your common sense, Cassie!", and then laughter following not even a second behind.

After I eventually came to an abrupt halt in the messy puddle at the bottom of the hill, I struggled to stand up in the slippery bog and twice failed miserably. Defeated by the sludge, I crawled and slid haphazardly to the edge of the tarp and just laid in the mud giggling at my own futile attempts.

As I stood clumsily, I heard Jojo yell, "Look out!", but it was too late. River and Ashley side-swipped me and sent all three of us tumbling into a dirty heap in the sludge that I had only just acheived escape from.

"Ahhh!" River screamed as Jesse and Cole came crashing into us. The shock of the impact took a few seconds to seep into our minds.

"Mhmhm!"

"What?" Cole said as he tried to stand.

"Ugh! Gross!" Ashley exclaimed in utter disgust while she was crazily brushing dirt from her mouth with her hands. "Your foot was in my mouth!"

Cole, Jesse, River, and I immediately began snickering. Ashley, whose face was crinkled with indignation, stumbled off the slide and marched straight inside the house to wash her mouth out with soap.

"Ba-ha-ha-ha!" cackled Cole. "I bet it was good!"

"I-haha-bet she-hahaha-loved-ha-it-hahahaha!" River struggled to say through breathless laughter.

Right when we started walking back towards the house, Ashley stormed out of the back door and viciously assailed us with numerous rainbow colored water balloons filled with ice cold water. "Take that! And that!" She yelled.

"Run, Cole, Run!" Jesse managed to shriek before he was blasted in the face with a jet stream of water from the waterhose that River was now using as a weapon of defense.

While Ashley, Jesse, and River were having a full on war and Jojo was hiding behind a broken picnic table splintered with age, Cole and I switched into ninja mode.

"When we break through tha front barricade, yew rush ta tha ammo station 'n' load up on grenades", Cole whispered steathily. "I'll be et tha back barricades waitin' ta bust us out inta tha combat zone."

"Yes sir, commander!", I retorted with a salute and a mischievious smirk planted childishly upon my face.

I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a bag of water balloons, and began filling them with as much water as they could bear to hold.

Cole peeked around the corner of the bar that separated the back door from the kitchen. "Hurry up, soldier! War's a ragin'!"

"Wud yew shut up! Thur's only one sank! 'N' I don't see yew tryna help me any!" I rapidly filled one balloon after another and when we decided we had enough ammo, we gathered every grenade at the back barricade. Then we shoved the door open and began our assault on the three enemies that were still bombing each other with such ferocious intensity that they didn't even notice the back door burst open or the bombs that were now hurtling towards their faces.

"Chaaaarge!" Cole grabbed several balloons and ran headlong off the porch chunking balloons at everyone within short range.

Right as I started to launch another balloon at Ashley, Mrs. Jordan, River's aunt and, also, our eighth grade computer discovery teacher, came out of the back door and yelled as loud as she could, "Ice cream! Ya'll come get it a'fore it melts!"

I couldn't stop the balloon from flying out of my hand, but I was the one at an extreme advantage. I was already at the back door. I was closest to the ice cream. "Tha ice cream shall be my victory!", I boldly stated while lifting my fist into the air over my head. I turned swiftly and bounded into the kitchen where a huge bowl of homemade ice cream awaited my arrival.

Not twenty seconds later, River, Ashley, Cole, Jesse, and Jojo all rushed into the kitchen wide-eyed in disbelief and out of breath. Their bowls had vanished!

The satisfaction of watching their faces twist in dismay was too much for me to handle. A devilish grin creased my face and I began snickering evilly. "Did I not tell you 'the victory shall be mine'?"

"Victory my butt!", Jojo shouted.

"Where's et at yew villian?" Jesse questioned me with concern falsly written across his face.

I couldn't take the heat rising to my face. I began to laugh. Then, I turned around towards the marbled counter top and magically produced four ceramic bowls, each striped with colors of brown, orange, and fawn. A bright silver spoon dipped in vanilla protruded from the edge of each bowl. I stepped aside as each of my friends cautiously approached the counter, snatched a bowl, and went skipping happily back outside to sit on the wooden porch steps while they enjoyed the smooth deliciousness of the velvety vanilla flavored richness created by Mrs. Jordan's clever hands.

"Mm-mmm! So-good!", Jojo mumbled between mouthfuls of ice cream.

"It is good ain't it", Mrs. Jordan said proudly.

After we aggressively scarfed down the last of the ice cream, Jesse and Cole breifly glimsed at each other, mentally connected, abruptly stood in the same moment, barreled off towards the the pool's sun sprinkled deck, and leaped into the pool's icy embrace.

"Ahh! Oh-my-garsh! It's-frickin'-cold!" Cole managed to chatter between shivers while Jesse, who loved everything cold, laid back in the water, floating like a hollow feather.

"Aw dude et ain't thet bad."

"Says you! You're like a daggum snowman!"

"Snowmen ain't warm and cuddly like a stuffed teddy bear", Jesse lazily said with a half grin and a slight snicker.

Hearing what he had said, River, Ashley, and I began to laugh hysterically. We laughed so hard that our legs couldn't hold up our weight any longer. We collapsed into a mess of happy tears, muddy grass, and gut-twisting laughter.

Within the same moment that we hit the ground, Jojo ran to the pool's edge and pounced over the side into the water like Santa dropping into an ash filled chimney. The splash from the impact was so gigantic that it showered over us even though we were at least seven feet from the base of the pool.

We looked at each other with wide eyes but then instantaneously stood and ran to the pool following Jojo's lead. We landed at close intervals and were enveloped by the clear, cold, breath-snatching liquid.

When we rose to the surface seconds later, Jesse, Cole, and Jojo savagely attacked us with floats forcing us to retreat from the pool.

Since the boys had proclaimed themselves "Kings of Aquatic Underworld", we girls labeled ourselves "Queen's of Ship's Deck Island Chain". We turned on the outdoor stereo, amped up the volume, plugged it into River's iPod, and started dancing to "The Wobble".

When the boys heard the song blast through the stereo speakers, they clambered up the pool ladder and joined us on "Ship's Deck Island Chain", and started dancing along with the music. As the turn part of the song started to play, River, Ashley, and I smiled. The boys turned with the song. We ran like wild animals. Splash!

Having conquered "Aquatic Underworld", we glanced back at our abandoned kingdom and realized the boys hadn't even noticed. They were so absorbed in the moves of the song that they had not even the slightest clue of what major victory had occured. They, boys, were defeated by us, girls. The queens had at long last outsmarted the kings.

Our victory, however, was short lived. When they finally became concious of the ambush, they glared at us with such animosity that it felt as if holes were being seared through our heads. Then, as if on impulse, all three of the boys tumbled into the pool pushing us off of the floats we had been lying on. This ensued a major battle of splashes, and dunks, and ended in a glorious game of chicken.

When the boys finally defeated us, we all climbed out of the pool, each on of us utterly exhausted. As if on perfect cue, "Hotel California" sounded from the stereo speakers. We all laid there on the deck listening to the soothing music and silently singing along with The Eagles while pink clouds illuminated by golden sunlight slowly traveled across a baby blue and lilac purple canvas. Our last day together had been simply wonderful. It had been so much more than what River and I had planned. It was now a beautiful memory etched permanently into our minds.