The candy exploded in colorful bursts along our tongues, sticky rainbows of red, green and blue. Our breathing was short and fast after racing back from the convenience store, our loose rubber soles flapping wildly against the concrete. In front of the house on our corner Mrs. Bellamy had squinted up from behind her daisies, shaking a large watering can at us that we thought too heavy for her bony arms as we passed. But we didn’t mind, the spray of cool droplets felt like kisses on our sunburned skin. 

High overhead the sun was glowing like a ball of fire, baking the afternoon to a crisp. It didn’t matter that our heads were light and dizzy from dangling upside down from the tree branches jetting off the roof, our legs sore with at least a dozen new splinters. Our imaginations soared with the trees - if we stretched out our arms far enough we could almost touch the cottony puffs of cloud sweeping the sky. My friend Mia was in the corner, strands of yellow hair flaring gold as she smacked huge bubbles between her lips. Her eyes, changing colors in the sun like a mood ring, flickered mischievously between blue and green. She had her upper body bent over the chipped blue railing as if daring me to push her over. 

She was near the tipping point, about to dive down into the thorny bushes below, when I screamed, “Mia, I really don’t feel like spending my summer visiting you in the hospital.” 

“Blair, you’re such a worry wart. Your parents don’t even let you out of the house when you have a runny nose!” She screeched. 

For the moment our bickering was interrupted by the barking of dogs and the splashes of our neighbors laughing in the pool. We spied enviously as they cooled off in the refreshing blue water. 

Mia, always jumping from subject to subject, blurted, “We really need a tire swing around here or something like that. Maybe we could hang one up over there between those two,” She was pointing to a pair of skinny trees that looked as if they would buckle even with one of us on top. “A telescope would be nice, one where we could actually see the stars. And definitely a new rope. It's shedding everywhere. Or maybe a new…” The ideas were bursting out of her mouth faster than summer lightning could strike. We had talked endlessly about our treehouse renovations since the day school let out, over two and half months ago.  

I didn’t point out the tubed nests hanging up high on the walls, or the wasps that whizzed around our heads busily, as if they were annoyed with us for invading their territory when they had work to do, or the sheet of cheap plastic acting as our roof. Neither did I mention the rain-rotted ladder that shaked as you climbed it, or the warped yellow slide always greased in mud. 

But there was something else - the issue of cash. “Did you talk to your dad about the money yet?” 

“ummm well… maybe we should run another lemonade stand?” Beneath the open window I kicked the metal cup that clinked dully with the few coins we’d made. I remembered how we’d skip down the street with our glittery posters, cartwheeling for passing cars; how we’d stand around for hours in Mia’s kitchen making a powdery mess; how I’d have to keep Mia from licking the lemons. 

“Ooooh I could make wands!” Here Mia almost knocked me over in my red plastic chair, wielding a long stick she’d tugged from a nearby tree. Recently she’d been planning for her magical getaway, the night when a snowy owl would arrive at her bedroom window with the message that she’d be off to Hogwarts. Earlier she’d been practicing her spells on the lizards darting up the trees. 

Eager to change the subject, I asked, “Are you ready for school?” It was the thought always on our minds, hidden behind everything like the lasting taste of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Even in our best moments the reality of entering another four years of our lives would always squirm its way in like the beetles underneath the floorboards. Our endless summer freedom was coming to an end before we could stop it. 

“Ha! Is that a joke? Yea, no!” Mia was spurting giggles, loud guffaws that seemed to echo against the sky.

“I heard Mr. James is a total jerk. He gives out like fifty pages of reading every night, and he cusses at his students.” 

“Well, anything’s better than this year. Eighth-grade was seriously the worst. Science with Mr. Berg: shoot me. I was up every night till one at least coloring useless pictures. Doesn't he get that he teaches science, not art?” 

“OK, but you didn’t have Ms. Davis. I’d never had so many projects in my life. And she failed me on every single test just for forgetting to write my name or something dumb like that.”  

Everything was a contest - each of us floating in our own sphere of exaggeration. After I’d exhausted my pool of ideas, I leaned back against the fuzzy moss pillow of my favorite tree, the one all marked-up with stick figures and tic tac toe boards, as Mia droned on about how the high school cafeteria serves mystery meat and how the P.E. coaches are all perverts. Her ranting picked up speed, and I knew better than to interrupt her. I remembered all too well how the sugar fueled her like a firework shooting towards the sky before it crackles. I snuggled closer into the shade, counting the ants that crawled along my leg as if it were a road. 

“Geez, I’m thirsty.” Mia muttered, the sweetness of the candy having turned our mouths dry. 

The sun was now deep orange like a ripe tangerine, so low we could almost pick it up and hold it between our hands. Then, from across the thin barrier of trees separating my house from hers, a voice pierced the buzzing chirp of the cicadas. 

“Mia! Mia!” 

That was her cue. Then like my cat stretching out after its mid-afternoon nap, Mia begrudgingly climbed down the ladder.