Playground War - Part 1

It was summertime in a small southern town that not many people had ever heard of. This was back when parents were less anxious about everything and allowed their kids to go out and play on the community playground with minimal supervision. The day was sunny and jolly. Several kids were swinging, teeter-tottering, and climbing on the jungle gym. Evander, a boy with a tough-looking face, walked towards the playground. Behind him trailed several other boys. They were his followers. Evander had a way of persuading others, no matter the situation. Of course, this was way before social media sites were a thing. To have followers at this time, meant that you were particularly bossy or persuasive and people literally followed your example.

Several girls, playing hopscotch, spotted the pack of boys and rolled their eyes with annoyance that they were coming to the playground. They continued playing hopscotch, while singing nursery rhymes. Most of the girls wore dresses and had their hair in pigtails. This is back when most girls thought boys were gross, rude and uninteresting.

A handy man, named Mr. Greegs, drove by in his rusty pickup truck. His window was already down. Looking at the group of boys, he piped, "Ya'll want some leftover board scraps?"

Without hesitating, Evander answered, "Of course, we do!" He motioned for the boys to help him unload all the scraps from the back of the pickup. "Yahoo... now we can make a fort! Say... mister could we have some of your nails too?" He asked Mr. Greegs.

"Ya... sure... ya'll can take the can'a nails in the back there," he agreed kindly.

The boys thanked him and he drove off. Before long, the boys had built a fort out of the boards. One of the boys had ran home to borrow a hammer. They took turns hammering the nails into the boards. Another boy ran home and found some old white paint. The whole project was supervised by Evander and he would give directions and boss the other boys around as the fort was being built. The other boys didn't seem to dislike his commands. They were compliant and agreeable the whole time. Clearly, they were used to him being the boss. He provided a form of security to them in a strange manner. If Evander said it, then it must be right, or a good idea anyway. Nobody disagreed with him much at all.

Looking at the fort, Evander told one of the boys who was good at painting to paint - "Boys Only!" on the front of the fort. Once the fort was done, Evander motioned for all the boys on the playground to come inside the privacy of the fort for an important meeting. He then assigned several boys to go get shovels in order to dig tunnels into the ground, one leading east and the other leading west. The holes could not be seen from the outside of the fort but they led down into the ground from the inside of the fort.

Every day, they came back and added more and more to their ever-growing fortress. Another day, they skinned pine trees and made, what looked like, a prison of sorts from the pine trees and twine they'd found. The irony of it all was that they eventually didn't even play on the playground anymore. They only focused on building and perfecting their boys-only-fort. Their fort was far more fun to focus on than the playground.

The girls in the neighborhood loved the playground still though. Whenever the girls would come to the playground, they kept to themselves, ignoring the boys altogether. The girls seemed to enjoy the playground and the support that they maintained for one another.

One day, a girl named Alexandria who was the most courageous of all the group of girls witnessed something that for her attention immediately. She was swinging on the swing when it happened. Evander tripped one of the other girls. The other boys laughed and made faces at the girl who had fallen. They walked away to their fort.

Alexandria jumped off the the swing in a hurry. She raced to help up the girl still on the ground. She’d scraped her knee and had started to cry. The boys had all disappeared into their fort. Alexandria looked at the boys fort. Then, she looked back at her friend. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll get you a bandage. But you know what this means, right?”

There was no response from the other girl who was just trying to hold back her tears.

“War!” Alexandria gritted her teeth as she adjusted the bright blue bow in her hair.

~ ~ ~

Author’s Note:

Part 2 was written by the one and only Andrea Corwin! To read part two, follow the link below: