Perspective

3 » Third Time

Mommy said I could play with Khin until it was time for dinner, and then I would have to eat all of my peas.

I saw him walking on the sidewalk and ran to catch up. "Hey, Khin!" I said.

He turned to me and smiled. "Hi!"

"You wanna go to the river and play?" I asked. "Mommy said that I could play until dinner, but then I have to eat my peas."

He scrunched up his nose. "Gross!"

I nodded. "I know. But you wanna go play?"

He smiled again. "Yeah! I'll race you!" he yelled and started running.

"That's not fair!" I ran, too.

When we got to the river, there was a weird girl sitting on the grass. She was throwing rocks into the river and staring at the sun. Mommy told me never to do that because it would hurt my eyes.

"Hey, that's cool!" Khin yelled, and he ran to her. "What are you doing?"

She looked at him, smiling. There was something weird about her smile, but then she smiled at me when I got closer. "I'm skipping rocks. Wanna join me?"

"Uh-huh," I said and nodded. "How do you do that?"

She laughed a little and patted the grass next to her. "Come and sit."

Khin sat on her left, and I sat on her right. I picked up a rock and threw it into the water. "Like that?" I asked.

She laughed again. "No, it needs to bounce off the water. More like this." She tossed a rock, and it bounced three times.

"Cool!" Khin yelled, and he picked up a rock and threw it, too. It didn't bounce.

"Here, I'll teach you." She tried to teach us, but it was too hard.

Khin crossed his arms and pouted. "I don't like skipping rocks!"

She laughed. Maybe she was always laughing. Mommy said that a person who laughed a lot was pretty, and I should say so.

"You're pretty."

She turned to me quickly and laughed again. "Thank you. What are your names?"

"I'm Khin!"

"I'm Semyon."

She nodded. "Nice to meet you, Khin, Semyon. I think you two should probably go home now because it's getting dark."

I looked at the almost-gone sun. "Mommy said that I could play with Khin before dinner, but then I have to eat all the peas." I stuck my tongue out because peas made me want to throw up.

She laughed. "Then you'd better get home soon."

Khin got up. "Will you be here tomorrow? I wanna play some more!"

She only smiled this time, and there was still something weird about her smile. Something sad. "Who knows? Now go home before you get in trouble!"

We said goodbye and raced all the way home. Mommy told me to hurry and wash my hands because it was time to eat dinner. I wanted to tell Mommy about the weird girl at the river with the sad smile. But first, I needed to eat my peas.