Spinning

Last night I read a story that was just brilliantly written. It made me ache to write, which is always bittersweet after reading someone awesome, because I inevitably feel inadequate. So I pushed the feeling down and went to bed. I lay there and remembered the most interesting moment of my day, and unbidden, dialogue and phrases started popping into my brain. I couldn't hold it in any longer, so I got out of bed and wrote this!



“We’ve got food, drink, money. What else can we throw?” Bruce asked. He and Troy and I were brainstorming for a TeamKids game about giving our worries to God.

“Ooo! Family. Or friends!” I said.

“Yeah, but how can we throw friends across the gym floor?” Bruce asked. He was being far too pragmatic.

“We should play Throw Tricia,” Troy suggested with a grin.

“Yeah, okay. Dur.” I was a little disturbed by the gleam in Troy’s eyes.

“Cups for drink, spoons for food...” Bruce recited. He stared into the distance before snapping his attention back to us. I figured he had come up with something brilliant. “Okay, but if we threw her, what’s your strategy?”

This was alarming—Bruce joining Troy’s mad idea. I tried to veer the conversation back to the half-planned game we were supposed to play in fifteen minutes.

Troy ignored my feeble words. “I’d grab her arms and swing her around.”

Bruce considered. “That’s almost like my plan. But I think maybe yours is better. Unless you swung her by her feet?”

I held up my hands, surrendering to the subject change but not to the idea of being bodily tossed ten feet onto the gruffly carpeted gym floor. “Heh heh. Not going to happen, guys!”

Troy ignored me again and answered Bruce. “No way! If you grab her feet, her face will drag on the ground. At least if you’ve got her arms her face won’t tear off.”

“Better grip on her feet, though,” Bruce said.

I steeled myself. I had played with boys before. Acting like a wimp would not help me. The only way to get what you wanted with boys was to play along. “But if you have my hands, I can run a bit to get a better takeoff.”

Troy and Bruce looked at me with smiles on their devious faces.

“Then you pretty much choose who you want to win. C’mere.” Bruce grabbed at my hands. A noise that sounded pathetically like “ack!” came out of my throat. I batted his hands away.

“Trust me!” he said.

Sure. The last time a guy said that while holding my hand, I ended up slamming into a wall knees first after scream-flying down a roller skating rink.

I stopped playing along. Obviously that had not had the desired effect. “Seriously. The game?” Bruce and Troy wilted a little and relented. We figured out the rest, and I quickly moved to talk to nearby sane females.

Only a minute had passed when Bruce appeared in front of me. He held out his hands, and I took them. I guess I’m either stupidly trusting, or my short term memory is shot at age twenty-two.

“I promise not to throw you,” was the last thing I heard before he bent down, grabbed me at the knees, and swung me over his shoulder. I had only a moment to realize I was upside-down before he started spinning. I tried not to scream, so I latched my arms around his waist and buried my face in his back. I garbled a prayer mixed with intense supplications for Bruce to stop, but the words got lost in the fabric under my face.

He slowed and then stopped. As he tipped me back onto my feet, a whoof, or maybe a snort, escaped me. I hoped it had been while my face was still buried. I doubted it.

Bruce grinned at me while I picked up the hair that was falling across my face and placed it back where it belonged.

“...That was unexpected,” I finally said.

“See, I think I could throw you further that way,” he said as if the discussion had never ended.

“Or I would fall on my head!” I said.

“Yeah, you’d have to be at an angle. But you’re up higher, so I think you’d really fly.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to hide my smile. Life is so much more interesting when boys are around.