I would have liked to have spent more time with Meek and Pepper. Despite Peppers initial excitement at meeting me, he turned out to be a really cool guy. I also wanted to spend more time playing with Joey and Jacquelyn. Besides, since they live closer, it was more likely that I would get to see more of Meek and Pepper than I would Joey and Jacquelyn.
It took some doing, but I managed to talk Joey into letting me take him on my surfboard. The way I got him to try surfing with me, was to tell him that if he would do it, then I’d help him build a big Sand Castle. However, he only agreed to try once and when I got him out there, he was so scared, that when the wave came, we wiped out while trying to stand up. After that, there was no chance of talking him into trying it again.
When Joey’s head came back out of the water, he spat out a mouthful of water like a human water fountain, swam to the edge of the pool, pulled himself out, and said rather unyieldingly, “Now we got to build a castle.”
“But we didn’t surf, we just wiped out.” I argued.
“Alvin!” He stomped his foot, “You promised!”
“Oh alright!” I surrendered and made my way out of the pool.
What was so cool about building the sand castle was that at first it started out as just Joey and me, but after a while Jacquelyn came and joined us. Then some other kids started helping too and before long there were more than a dozen of us building, digging, and forming the castle. We had bridges, a huge moat, and lots of tall towers. Our castle got so big, that we were running some of the adults off, so that we could have the sand under them.
We played in the sand for nearly two hours, prior to deciding that we wanted to go swimming one more time before our wonderful day at Aquaboggin Water Park was over. I even got to surf a few more waves before Daddy Phil and Mommy Beth announced that it was time to leave. All three of us must have been tired, because not one of us objected in the least about having to go home. However, there were two more memorable events that were due to take place before we left the park.
Mommy Beth and Jacquelyn slipped away to the girls changing room while Daddy Phil and Joey stood by the pool holding my surfboard and waiting for me to come down the big slide one last time. In hindsight, I should have left without that one last trip down the slide.
When I reached the top I found that same little kid that I’d seen with Meek earlier. He was too scared to go down the slide by himself and was carrying on, making a scene. From that high perch I scanned the entire park for Meek but couldn’t spot him among the throngs of people. I then turned my attention back to the boy. At first I couldn’t remember his name and had to ask him.
“Do you remember me?” I asked.
Sobbing with a big snot bubble hanging out of his nose he nodded his head.
“What was your name again?”
“Sheller,” he whimpered.
I looked up to the slide attendant who looked both irritated with the sobbing child and longingly hopeful that I might take him off his hands. I returned my attention back to Sheller.
“Sheller, would you like to go down the slide with me?”
Sheller hesitantly nodded and the snot bubble popped.
I looked back to the slide attendant whose eyes expressed genuine relief that someone was getting rid of the problem child for him.
I lowered myself into position and without telling him to do so Sheller jumped down onto my lap. For a dreadful split second, as he seemed to hang in the air, I feared that my poor balls were about to suffer from the sudden impact. Thankfully he missed them and instead my legs took the full brunt of his weight.
“Hold me tight!” he grunted and I wrapped both arms around his middle.
“Tighter!” he squalled as we started out decent.
I’m surprised his head didn’t pop off, that is how tight I held him all the way down the slide.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeee!” he squealed as we flew down the tube.
