Cam's Castle

Cam was just waking up from a cat nap when he heard his mom cry out “Cam, Hoot is here! And he has… something.” Cam bounded out of his room, excited to see what it was.

Between Hoot’s wings was a large box for the Squishville Mall Playset.

“Hey, great box!” Cam commented.

Cam’s mom frowned “You mean it’s just a box?” She peeked inside and confirmed the box was empty. She groaned “Not another one.” Hoot, who tended to be quiet, said nothing.

“Come on, let’s use it to build something new!” Cam said and led the way to the basement where he had a large collection of boxes of various sizes and conditions. Cam’s most prized position was the box their refrigerator had come in. “How about we make… a castle?”

“Sure!” Hoot agreed. The two of them set about arranging the boxes into walls, using the smaller boxes to make merlons.

After a while Cam noticed Hoot was arranging some books in one corner of the castle. “What’s that for?”

“It’s the castle library.” Hoot answered.

“Ah, where the wizard keeps his books.”

“Or if the knights want a book.”

Cam squinted “Knights don’t read books. They just go out and fight dragons and stuff like that.”

“The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” explained Hoot while he continued to arrange the books.

Cam thought on this for a moment before replying “Well, I suppose we can’t have that.” Cam then noticed a wide grin forming on Hoot’s face. “Wha…”

Before Cam could finish that word a third voice cried out “Hug attack!” Suddenly he had a frog shaped lump on his back. Mom must have let Wendy in the house.

“Wendy!” Cam laughed-cried as he shook her off his back.

“What are you guys building?” Wendy asked.

“A castle!” Cam answered “Here is a tower, this is the drawbridge.” There wasn’t actually a moat for the drawbridge to go over, but oh well. “Hoot is putting together a library, and this is the courtyard…”

“I can make a hoop for it!” Wendy exclaimed. Cam and Hoot both blinked at Wendy, not understanding. “A basketball hoop.” Wendy clarified, though her tone indicated that no clarification ought to be needed.

“It’s not a basketball court, it’s a castle courtyard.” Cam explained.

“What’s the difference?”

“A castle courtyard is just a large open space in the middle of the castle.”

Wendy shrugged, “That sounds like a good place to play basketball.”

“Castles don’t have basketball courts!” Cam snapped back, a bit louder than he intended.

“You never like my ideas!” Wendy cried out. She then stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Cam gritted his teeth. “Hoot, I’ll be right back.” Hoot went on adjusting the castle, unbothered. Cam went and found his mom. “Mom, will you tell Wendy that castles don’t have basketball courts?”

Mom stopped folding laundry, she looked a bit annoyed. “No, I'm not going to do that.”

“She’s going to ruin our castle!”

Mom took a deep breath. “Will there be a wizard in this castle?” She asked.

“Oh, yes.” Cam responded

“Will there be knights that go and fight dragons and trolls and whatnot?”

“Oh most definitely.”

“So you can believe in wizards, dragons and trolls, but not basketball?”

Cam stomped his feet. “But it’s supposed to be a medieval castle! A basketball court is too modern.”

Cam’s mom thought for a moment. “Did they have wheels in medieval times?”

Cam thought of the kind of wheels that would be on a horse-drawn wagon. “I suppose so.”

“Wheels like on my car?”

“No, not like that!”

“So medieval wheels looked different from modern wheels.” Mom reasoned, “I wonder what medieval basketball looked like?”

“I… don’t know.” Cam admitted.

Mom smiled. “Go play.” She shooed Cam out of the room and resumed folding laundry.

Cam went and looked at his cardboard castle. Then he went and knocked on the bathroom door. “Wendy? We can have a basketball court as long as it’s medieval basketball.”

A moment later Wendy opened the door. “What would that look like?”

“Let’s go figure it out!”

The two of them went back to the castle. “Maybe they would have a hoop made of stone sticking right out of the wall?” Cam suggested.

“I think that would be hard to make and even harder to replace if someone did a slam dunk and broke it.” Wendy offered. “I think it should be made of wood.”

“Uh guys?” Hoot spoke up. “I think the hoop should be made out of a basket. You know… because it’s basketball.” Cam and Wendy looked at Hoot and then each other. Next they started laughing. It was so obvious that they felt silly for not having thought of it.

Through his laughter Cam managed to ask “Hoot, in medieval times did they have… hug attacks?!?!” And with that the three friends started play wrestling.

Some of the castle got knocked over, but that’ll happen occasionally, due to dragon attacks. It would give them a chance to rebuild, with a basketball court. Plus medieval versions of a gymnastics studio, snow cone maker and chemistry lab.