The Sandbox

The first time I saw one, I was just a little girl. Summer holiday had just started, and my hair was growing out fast. I walked around with pigtails all the time; the short chubby kind pasted to the sides of my head as little buns. They made me look like Pippi Longstocking. My mother would take several handfuls of my entangled blond hair and pull it back for braiding, only to give up after a few minutes and stuff it into two drooping half loops on either side of my head. They completely covered my ears.
      My father had constructed a sandbox in the back yard when my older brother Jack was old enough to play. That summer, Jack left it open for the taking, saying he was too old to be playing with sand. He switched to playing sports. Whenever I ran into the yard to play in the sandbox, he was playing basketball, baseball or lacrosse with his friends and my dad. They kept him busy, so I was alone in the sandbox. He would come out to steal my bucket, or to throw sand in my hair, but he always retreated before I could retaliate. He ran back to my dad and I went back to playing in the sandbox alone.
      I controlled my world in the backyard, but the sandbox was my sacred place. Sometimes I fought sand monsters there; sometimes I was at the beach. I had adventures in that sandbox, in which I was the superhero. One time when I was playing tag by myself, I tripped and fell. That day, I learned that stitches really hurt. From then on my mother kept an eye on me from the window of her office on the first floor. She would stand there, with her coffee mug in hand, peeking through the blinds. Sometimes I looked up at her, and pretended to fly up to her, the make-shift apron-cape bustling in the wind behind me. The giant cupcake on my back defended me against the sand monsters.
      Soon enough, though, I learned that that cupcake didn’t keep all the monsters away. My father had taken Jack and his friends to a waterpark. I was too young, so I couldn’t come. But I didn’t mind. Jack wasn’t going to steal my bucket, or throw sand in my hair for a day. I could ward off the sand monsters undisturbed. Well, almost. The neighbour’s cat had joined me several times and I had fashioned the fluffy black animal a cape of its own. I was the defender of my own made-up kingdom, but the monsters were very real to me. I was kicking the air and piercing it with my sword, when a high-pitched ringing noise burst my bubble. My monsters didn’t usually make that sound. Mid-step, I froze and tilted my head to hear where the sound came from. I hopped out of the sandbox and ventured towards the violator of my playtime. I held up my stick-sword defensively. It was like taking on a new adventure. In a swift motion, the neighbour’s cat, which I had dubbed Cupcake, shot underneath the fence towards the beeping sound. I wasn’t tall enough to see over it, but watching Jack play in the yard had taught me there was one spot in the fence where you could see through. I balanced on my toes, but even then I wasn’t tall enough to look through the peephole created by a missing knot in the board. I ran back to the sandbox and pulled out Jack’s old truck, so I could stand on it. It resulted in a scraped knee, and it hurt my superhero pride.
      I sat down on the truck, and rested my head in my hands. I couldn’t believe my superpowers weren’t even strong enough to enable me to look over the fence. Someone had disturbed my playtime, someone who wasn’t Jack.
      “Meow.”
The soft meowing of Cupcake distracted me from my failed mission. It made its way into the yard, crawling underneath the fence. I looked up to my mother’s windows, but didn’t see her. Feeling a bit mischievous and more curious about the beeping sound, since it was still resounding, I moved on hands and knees towards the gap, Cupcake’s gate into our yard. I started digging, with my bare hands, and ruining my mother’s daisies in the process. As the hole under the fence grew bigger, the sound grew louder. Eventually the hole was big enough to put my head into it. Finally I could see the offender, and he was staring right back at me from the other side of the fence. His stare scared me, and I pulled back, scraping my cheek on the fence. I rubbed my hand against my face to ease the pain, but it got worse. Tears were stinging in my eyes, but then I saw Cupcake’s cape, and I stood up straight. I had to honour the cupcake on my back; I was the hero, after all. But before I would do anything at all, I went to grab a bucket for a helmet and a shovel for a sword. I turned to walk over to my sandbox, but didn’t take a step. I completely forgot about the beeping sound on the other side of the fence.
Crouched next to the edge of my sandbox was a little boy, about my age. He had taken over my domain, and I hadn’t even heard him! I looked for my mother in the window, but she still wasn’t there.
      “Get out of my sandbox!” I called to him, striding confidently towards him, my cupcake-cape waving on the wind. He’d better fear my superpowers, I thought.
      “What?” he asked absentmindedly. He didn’t look up, which I found odd.
      “Get out!” I yelled, now towering over him, casting a big shadow over him because of my cape. I proudly straightened up to make it even bigger.
      He looked up at me with big, puffy eyes, red around the edges. They looked like mine when I’d been crying. That meant he had been crying, and with all my superpowers I hadn’t seen or heard him cry. I looked at him curiously. His hair was cropped and black, spiked up like Jack’s hair.
      “Have you cried?” I said quietly, stepping around him to sit next to him on the ledge of the sandbox. Something odd radiated from him, an abnormal vibe. His eyes met mine, when he replied.
      “No.”
      He said it flatly and brusque, as if I was bothering him on his territory.
      “Mommy says it’s okay to cry. She says that when you cry it’s your eyes saying something you won’t tell grown-ups. That’s what Mommy says,” I said. The boy sat next to me and leaned his chest against his legs.
      “So, what’s your name?” Sometimes being the superhero just meant that you had to keep talking.
      “I’m Maxwell,” he crackled. He picked up his glasses, and then I realised Maxwell had been on the other side of the fence when I had stuck my head in the hole.
      “You were just on the other side! You were there, how did you get here? I didn’t see you,” I said. Maxwell looked at the sand in the sandbox again, and I was ashamed. “I’m sorry, my name is Alexia.” I extended my hand, but Maxwell kept his firm at his side.
      “It’s polite to shake my hand, Maxwell. And since I’m a superhero I have to be polite to everyone,” I told him. He hesitantly lifted his hand, and it drifted right through mine when he tried to grab it.
      “YOU’RE A SUPERHERO, TOO!” I shrieked happily. I jumped up and started dancing.
      “I knew I wasn’t the only one! What can you do?” I asked eagerly. I leaned towards him, but Maxwell immediately leaned back. It was as if he was shimmering, and he had a spot on his shoulder the exact same colour as my mother’s daisies. “It doesn’t even matter, you can join our team! All I can do is kick really hard, and I am a sword expert.” I paused to take a breath, but was immediately interrupted by Maxwell.
      “I just want to play in the sandbox.”
      “Oh. So, you don’t want to be a superhero?”
      I pouted and my shoulders slummed. Maxwell didn’t want to join my superhero team.
      As if sensing my displeasure, he told me, “I’ll be here for a long time, I think. We moved there.” He pointed to the house on the other side of the fence.       “Mom and Dad are putting the boxes inside the house now.”
      “Can you stay out and play for a little while?” I asked.
      “I don’t think they mind.”
      “Shouldn’t you ask? I always have to ask.”
Maxwell shrugged and dug his hands into the sand. I stood up, and ran to the fence gate. Mother wasn’t looking anyway.
      “No!” Maxwell yelled after me, but I ignored him. I was a superhero, and superheroes are polite to everyone. I pushed open the gate next door, and saw a woman sitting on a chair next to the door. That must be his mother, I thought. I stood, waiting for her to notice me. Now that I was in their yard, I got a bit shy.
      “Hi there,” she said. Her smile was a bit like mine when I tried to be brave after getting hurt. “Can I help you?”
      “I’m Alexia, I live there,” I said, pointing to my house. I extended my hand, she shook it. I continued, rocking on my feet. “I was playing with Maxwell, and he was afraid to ask if he could stay over a little bit longer, and maybe we could play tomorrow, too?”
      Maxwell’s mother went pale, and grabbed me by the shoulder. She looked over her shoulder as a man walked out the house, looking at them curiously.
      “Who’s this, honey?”
      “I’m Alexia, sir,” I said and extended my hand again, proud of my own politeness. “I asked if it was okay if Maxwell and I played in my sandbox for a little while.”
      Then the fence gate slammed open again and my mother came running into the garden.
      She ran towards me, and the first thing she did was rubbing off the dirt on my face.
      “Alexia, what are you doing here? I am so sorry, I told her not to leave the… Are you okay?” she asked. Both of Maxwell’s parents looked at me in disbelief, pale as a sheet.
      Maxwell’s mother shifted her gaze from me to my mother. “How did you even know about our son, and how dare you play such a cruel joke on us?” she asked bitterly.
      I was surprised. What was wrong with asking if Maxwell could play with me? I looked up to my mother, who was now squishing me to her legs.
      “You probably heard the news,” she said, and turned to her husband. “I told you we should have moved further away. I’ll never be able to let him go in this city.” And then she started crying. What was going on?
      “Mommy?” I asked with a small voice.
      “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know what you mean,” she said, patting me on the shoulder at the same time.
      “Your daughter is asking if she can play with our son Maxwell,” Maxwell’s father answered. He didn’t sound friendly at all.
      “Maxwell died a month ago,” he continued. The look in his eyes now scared me. I pried myself loose from my mother’s grip and ran back to our yard. They said something that mother had said about grandmother. They said he died. But grandmother wasn’t here anymore. I peeked around the corner, to the sandbox that was all mine now. Maxwell was still there, making sand castles. He looked up smiling, as if he felt me stare, beckoning me to come play with him. He didn’t look dead to me.