“How dare they?” It was shocking that the town should unleash those horrid machines. One blue flip flop was buried in the sandy base of a Saskatoon bush, but the mate was nowhere to be found.
They had snuck in during the dark of night and scraped, scraped, scraped away the gelatinous seaweed from the beach, which was definitely an improvement. Yesterday Daddy had to pick the sisters up, one under each arm, and carry them over the limp stalks and into the water so that the uprooted plants didn’t touch their ankles. It was fun to shriek at the thought of the slime, and even better to be indulged.
But those same machines had scraped away one half of the forgotten sandals, scraped it far down the beach, maybe all the way to the pier. Perhaps the machines would take her Mickey Mouse inner tube also, if she didn’t keep it close. It was a stern lesson in keeping an eye on things.
The lake was so big. The older kids swam all the way to the bobbing raft. She watched as the water closed over their heads. Fish might brush up against their legs. She remembered the leech Daddy showed her on his leg last year.
The cousins’ cousins, brave and daring boys of ten, owned a black inner tube. A piece of metal tied on with a rope served as anchor. They had a little red flag with a white stripe, which they informed all was the international symbol of divers. The boys towed the tube way out, farther even than where the dads could still stand, and dropped anchor. They put on their snorkelling masks and disappeared into the waves. It was unimaginable that the girl could ever do the same.
In fact, one sister never did swim, preferring to sit on the beach poking seashells into slumping castles. The older would lay on her stomache in two feet of water. Palms firmly on the sandy ripples of the bottom, she would insist, “Look at me Daddy,” Kick kick, “I’m swimming.” Kick kick.
Getting out onto the rough concrete of the bathroom floor was too much trouble when you could sit and pee with warmth caressing your legs.
