Kites - Wordspill

[Spill - scrub, aka edit, is below]

Kate stood on her back porch, leaning on the wooden railing, and watched her five year old neighbor dig in the garden for worms.  The golden orange hue of sunset washed over the grass, the striped porch furniture, and Kate's arms.  She sighed and trailed down the porch steps, heading towards the fields behind her house.

The grass brushed against her bare feet, and she closed her eyes and tilted her head back for the wind to sweep across her body.  Things had been so much simpler when she'd been a child.  Now she had a whole summer ahead of her, and for what?  High school was over.  For good.  She could at least celebrate that.  But what was beyond?

She hadn't gone very far into the fields-only halfway to an old tree spared by the farmers-when she found a kite, marooned in the grass.  Spiderman stretched across the flimsy plastic surface, and there was a small tear in one corner.  Kate picked it up and sorted out the strings.  Then she got it airborne.  

To watch it was to forget.  The sun smoldered on the horizon and the kite soared.  She happened to look down, and that was when she noticed a group of boys crossing the field a good hundred feet from her.  The kite veered off and careened into the tree.

Blushing madly, though it was masked by the grapefruit tone of the light, she rushed towards the tree to pull it down.  She fought with the strings, aware of the boys on the edge of her vision.  Growing frustrated, she gave the kite a good yank, and it came tumbling down with twigs and leaves, a large gash now stretched across the middle.  

Holding the limp toy in her hands, she glanced up.  The boys were already disappearing into the glare of sunset.  Looking down at the kite again, she laid it gently in the grass.

Then she turned, and headed back home.

[Scrub - completely different viewpoint, I needed something more... focused.]

Thumbs hooked through his backpack straps, James got off the bus and stopped on the sidewalk, squinting up at the empty blue sky as the bus heaved off behind him.  Tossing his head to clear brown hair from his eyes, he looked down the street at Kate's house, waiting for the bus to stop there.  He always waited for her.

The bus groaned to a halt down the street and the doors swung open, the whooshing sound as familiar to James as the place where his thumb slipped around the nylon strap.  Kate appeared, climbing out of the bus and heading towards her house without stopping.  James followed her with his eyes, missing nothing; the way her hair lifted in places from the wind, the way she walked, her steps purposeful but small-ladylike, he thought-and, of course, her face, lost in some thought or other.  When she touched the door knob, James felt bare all over.

She didn't know he existed.

Well, technically she did.  But every time he tried to talk to her, the group of girls she always hung out with swarmed up around her and cut him off.  He was pretty sure she hadn't ever really looked at his face.  It was true she'd just moved here, but they'd been in school together for a whole two weeks.  She should've noticed him by now.  He was in true love, after all.

- - -

That evening after homework, he pulled on his sneakers and opened the back door, calling out to his mom that he was going for a walk.  This he did often, ending up at the park, where he could sit on a park bench and mourn Kate's lack of favor.  He was walking over to his favorite spot under a tree when he spotted her, struggling with a kite.

At first he couldn't believe his eyes.  What was she doing?  Where was her entourage?  But when the reality of Kate, alone in the park, reached him, the paralysis quickly came.  He couldn't go speak to her now!  What if she rejected him?  Then he couldn't make any excuses about the group of girls.  It would be just the two of them.  Besides, had he even combed his hair before coming out here?  Of course not!  He hadn't anticipated needing to make a great impression.

She was struggling with the kite, though.  In the end, that was the deciding factor.

"Hey… need any help?" he asked, looking up at her from under his bangs.

"Yeah, that would be awesome."  She was fighting with the tail, which was all knotted up.  "We haven't touched it for years, it's been in the basement."

"What made you get it out?" he asked, glancing up at her as he worked the knot alongside her.

"Well, my father always used to fly it, but… after he passed away, nobody touched it.  Today I decided that was wrong, that it should be in the air."

James nodded, the knot worked out, and lifted the kite, backing away from her to create tension on the line, then tossed it into the air.  It soared upwards, translucent in the sun, blazing through the green material.

Together they watched it in silence, until the wind fell and the kite came back towards the earth.