Athena and Jenna Play Mini-Golf
I swung my club, and missed the ball completely
“Athena!”
“I’m sorry! I’m trying, okay?”
Jenna tilted her head back and groaned as I prepared to try again. Again.
“Just hit it over the drawbridge!”
I squared my shoulders and knocked my ball off the side of the castle and into the moat. Luckily, the course was pretty much deserted since it was 9pm on a Thursday. I prepared to swing again, but stopped when I saw movement out the corner of my eye.
“Jenna, what are you doing?”
“Ignore me, just do what you’re doing.” She already had a foot on a balcony and was preparing to hoist herself further up the castle wall--I winced as her heel nudged the already loose railing further out of alignment.
“Jenna--”
“I’m almost up.” She pulled herself onto the flat top of the castle and lay on her stomach grinning at me for a minute. I stared back.
“This is cool,” she said, shuffling backwards. There was a cracking noise.
“It’s fine! You can’t even tell. Actually... hey, Athena, I think there’s a lizard in there! I see a lizard! I could--”
“No. Jenna, come down!”
“Fine,” she grumbled. Her face reappeared over the edge of the castle wall. “But only if you get your ball over the drawbridge.”
I took a deep, long-suffering breath in through my nose, and tapped the ball. It rolled across the drawbridge, and, yes, clipped the edge of the archway, but it passed through the castle and to the other side.
Jenna cheered and scooted to climb down. I could see it happen almost in slow motion: she chose the wrong balcony. Her foot came down on the little wooden queen surveying her domain. Her foot slipped, whatever was holding the queen in place cracked, and then Jenna was flat on her back on the astroturf.
For a second, I couldn’t tell if she was okay, but she was laughing so hard that tears rolled down her face.
“So worth it,” she giggled.
I folded my arms, but the effort of holding in my own laugh was probably making me red in the face. I glanced at the castle. The wooden king stood alone on the balcony, now, his queen floating in the moat below.
Jenna pushed herself up on her elbows, saw the little figure, and stood up to fish her out of the water.
I snatched it away. “You’re gonna get in so much trouble for that.”
“Nahhh, not if nobody notices.” She winked, and set a pinecone in the queen’s place, then scampered over snickering to continue the game.
I did say I’d post some mini-golf, didn’t I? This is one of the scenes I worked on recently for the Peregrine (the opening chapter of which you can read here) and I thought it was fun.
