Evergreen Fun

A truly impressive pile of pinecones crowns the hill. A smaller pile adorns the base of a tree on the field below. Pinecones in all shapes and sizes litter the ground between. It's raining lightly and the wind is picking up, whipping my hair into one big tangle.

Abigail and John have formed a team on the hill while Peter and I secure ourselves behind a sturdy tree or two with a ditch between. The lines are drawn. The boys edge towards each other while Abigail and I trade insults.

"Why don't you come after us?" I taunt.

"Why don't you come after us?" she returns.

"Discretion is the better part of valor."

"You're too scared to come after us."

"Is that a dare?"

"Yes."

I laugh uproariously. "I am too wise and mature to take every dare I hear. You lose."

"Like I said, you're scared."

"And you," I grin broadly, "are a chicken. First class."

"This is really boring. Why am I even bothering to watch such cowardice? Think I'll go to sleep."

I yawn likewise. "Cautious defence before rash offence."

"Age before beauty." She simpered.

This was too much. I precipitately stormed the hill.

"Back, knave!"

Despite the undeniably illustrious example of my anscestors at Bunker Hill, I retreated a few moments later.

But I was not only alive, but free and relatively unharmed. Ready to fight another day. Or within the the next five minutes, as the case turned out to be. I won the next round by forgetting the pinecones altogether and taking Abigail prisoner by force.

Hey, I may have one foot in the grave, but I have figured out that there's more than one way to skin a cat.