Seventh Grade Rain

Before we had lost anything. Before we had anything to lose. That’s when we played in the rain. That’s when the rain started coming down hard one day at Blue Mountain, and I wanted to write and one girl wanted to draw and all the rest of them went out in droves. That was the year we all had beaver sticks; smooth staves with the bark all chipped off. A little sixth grader with short skirts and shirts that reveal too much of nothing stood on the dam with hers in hand, the water splashing off her bare skin. You can see the rain moving over the lake like a wave. They revel in it because they can. Cao’s shirt says, “Flavour of the Month”, and is soaked through beneath her exuberant face. Christy screams at me how her shorts are sopping and her shirt is nearly dry. The rain ends as quickly as it began, and those who don’t already have enough wet wallow shamelessly in the puddles and the fat drip-drops coming off the roof. I allow a small smile, and that takes over. Then a part of me remembers, or else a part of me forgets.