Lucy's Bright Summer Day

Eight-year-old Lucy walked out of the house onto her patio wearing her new yellow sundress. She held her head high so the diamond barrette in her hair would sparkle in the bright sunlight. Her barrette was placed in just the right spot in her hair. She knew that because she had placed it there herself.

Lucy looked down and admired the pink Crocs her dad had given her last week when he returned from a business trip to somewhere she couldn’t pronounce. She looked around the back yard and up at the sky and said, “Florence, look how bright the sun is today!”

“Of course. It’s the first day of summer, like your mom said.”

Then she pointed at the tall old tree in the back yard. “Look at how bright the colors of the leaves are. Let’s go look at the tree’s bark. There’s something funny about it.”

Lucy ran to the tree and looked carefully at the crevices in the dark brown bark. It looked odd. “Look, Florence, it’s moving!”

“Yes. Let’s look closer.”

Lucy leaned in and scoured the old tree trunk for anything unusual and suddenly found signs of life … ants. They were crawling up and down the trunk of the tree looking very busy. “What are they doing?”

“Dunno. Maybe taking sap or something home.”

Lucy looked down at the worn grass around the trunk. She found a line of ants moving toward the back fence and saw the alley behind their yard. She saw old man Barchie slowly driving his ancient Ford past their house. She could smell the exhaust of his old car as it passed. She shrugged as she watched him turn the corner at the end of the block.

“They’re marching! They’re all in a line going toward that anthill in the corner.”

“Follow them. Let’s see what they’re doing.”

Lucy carefully stepped on the old grass that looked tired rising between patches of dirt and watched the ants move quickly toward their home. She saw that some of them were carrying small items, probably pieces of bark. She focused on the moving ants and slowly walked about two feet away from their marching soldiers. She stopped about three feet away from the anthill. Lucy stared at them and murmured, “What are they doing?”

“Stay there. Don’t move. Maybe they won’t notice us.”

“Okay,” nodded Lucy.

She looked down at her left shoulder and, in the distance, noticed the flowers that Mom had planted along the white fence. They were starting to bloom and looked fantastic in their bright individual colors, as if the plants had put on their favorite costumes and had all come out together to admire one another. There were hydrangeas in blue hats, daisies in yellow dresses, and pink carnations in whatever they called their pompom-looking outfits.

Lucy turned her head and watched the ants for a while and became bored. “They aren’t doing much that I can see.”

“Okay, let’s go look closer at the flowers. Maybe there are more coming up out of the ground and we can look for other colors. Maybe some will be purple.”

Lucy turned and walked to the white fence which shone in the sunlight. She held up her hand to shield the glare from her eyes. She stood by a small green bush and watched the breeze move the leaves. “I like the smells of the flowers, but I wonder why Mom planted a green bush in the middle of the row of flowers. The bush doesn’t have a smell.”

“Yes, it does. Get closer.”

Lucy leaned down and discovered that the bush had a distinct smell of green. “I can smell the color. Weird. It smells like a bush and not like a flower at all. It’s kind of, well, green smelling. Like a pine tree or something.”

“Yup. All the plants have a different smell. Different even than the grass.”

At this point, Lucy suddenly threw herself on a large patch of green grass and laid there smelling it. It was wonderful and she scooted herself around getting grass stains on her sundress, while leaning her head here and there at different angles and planting her nose wherever she felt the need. Then she rolled over on her back and looked up at the clouds in the sky. She noticed one that looked like a dog sitting as it gazed upward. “That’s Bruce. He was my dog. He’s saying hello.”

“It’s possible. Bruce loved you a lot.”

Lucy said, “Remember the times when we played with him? He was so much fun! We chased him around the yard, and he jumped on us. Then we squirted him with the hose, and he tried to bite the water. That was so funny!”

Lucy laughed, then she rolled over, and stood up. She wandered over to the patio where she turned around to take in the view of the whole back yard. Off to the right was the garage with its door tempting her to go in, but she wanted to stay in the sunshine for awhile longer. It smelled so wonderful outside. She breathed in the vibrant warm summer air and sighed.

After turning around in circles with her arms stretched out and viewing the yard, trees, flowers, hose rolled up against the house, sidewalk to the garage, and sliding glass door to the house, Lucy sat in a red Adirondak chair that had been positioned at the edge of the patio. She pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, leaned back in the chair, and looked up at the sky again. It was still blue. She looked for Bruce, but he had sailed away in the wind by then.

Mom came out onto the patio and said, “There you are! I was looking for you. Then I heard you talking to your friend again.”

“Yes, Florence is here.”

“Were you talking to her all this time?”

Lucy nodded, “Yes. We talked about Bruce.”

Mom said, “Is she happy out here? Does she like the outdoors?”

“Yes, Mom, of course she does. She lives out here most of the time.”

Mom answered, “Oh, of course, I forgot.”

Lucy looked up at the sky shaking her head. She wondered what her mom wanted out here, then she saw the tray in her hands with lemonade and cookies on it.

Mom asked, “Is she still on your shoulder?”

Lucy answered, “Yes, Mom, she’s a fairy.”