Like so many other children their age, the Kanker sisters loved the summertime. The freedom from school, the sunlight that lasted well into the evening, going for a swim in the local water hole. But the thing they loved the most had to be that moment when they would enthusiastically return home from school for the final time that year to find their mom, Debbie, locking up their trailer home and packing the car that had once belonged to the youngest sister May's father, whose visits were becoming more and more sporadic.

Every summer, without fault, the family of four would climb into that beaten up Dodge with the Kanker matriarch behind the wheel and putter off, out of the trailer park and home. Halfway across the country they would drive, all three sisters bickering in the back seat while their mom would occasionally shout over her shoulder that she would turn the vehicle around at the next exit if they didn't stop. That would keep them calm until the exit had come and gone.

Whoever sat in the middle would always crowd at one of the window with another sister when they finally drove off the right exit. Houses that lined the streets, entrances to cul-de-sacs they knew nothing about, stores along the main street where one could get seemingly everything. They viewed this place as something closer to Heaven than anything else they had ever seen.

When, at last, the Dodge made a right turn into its destination, a cul-de-sac like any other, there were six hands manically fumbling at the door handles. By the mail box of a house that would one day be called abandoned, haunted even, stood a silver haired old man. The lines on his face, had they possessed the ability to speak our language, could tell the most wondrous stories of war and love but when he saw the doors of the car fly open before it had even parked by the curb, the lines spoke only of love.

Their grandfather, Ace, would open up his massive home for both daughter and granddaughters all summer. He never paid it any mind; always insisting that the house had become too big and empty for him since his wife had passed. Nothing pleased him more than seeing his daughter's offspring run rampantly around the place, a breath of life that seemed to freshen the very air he breathed. Many stories could be written by this man; what he had seen on the beaches of Normandy, the smell of Korean mud or the sound that follows an American bombshell hitting Vietnamese soil. What love felt like. What loss felt like. Unbelievable happiness and heartbreaking farewells. But this story is not about Ace. It concerns one of the sisters and I am afraid that we have to make haste before we lose her; it seems she has already set out on her quest.

The oldest of the sisters, Lee, and the youngest, May, had not yet developed the characteristic interests they would later possess, primarily in their teenage years, but the middle sister had. The one named Marie. She liked cars.

Or, rather, it had started out as a fascination with cars, especially the ones that didn't work quite right, and had since developed into a general interest of all things mechanical. This is the reason we are now following her rushing down the street from her grandfather's house, she's making her way to a very special place that she has been waiting to visit for the better part of a year. The local junkyard with its spiraling towers of all things discarded.

Her mind had been made up from the moment they left the trailer park behind them; something would be built this summer. She knew it. Sure, helping out and learning from her neighbor Mr. Fitzgerald about cars had really been exhilarating but a feeling had begun to run through her that she needed to build something with her own two hands. A creative itch that could easily be cured with a trip to the junkyard.

Mountains of garbage greeted her when she stepped onto the grounds. A foul smell also greeted her but didn't exactly turn out to be bothersome; her school's locker rooms were not particularly sanitary to begin with, no less when a whole class of hyperactive, sweaty students had marched through it. Scanning the heaps for potential hidden treasures, her mouth stretched into a wide grin when her eyes landed upon an old car which had definitely seen better days.

The wheels were gone, as well as the majority of the interior, but those things didn't interest her. Using the head of a shovel, she dug her way into the pile of trash until she could easily pry the hood of the car open with it. Most of the engine seemed to still be intact, albeit a bit rusty, and the parts that weren't directly connected to the engine block, she eagerly pulled out and placed in her pockets until they were full. She made a mental note to return with her grandfather's tool box and a wagon to harvest some of the more vital parts as the small mechanics that filled her pockets and a loose carburetor were the only things she could salvage in this very moment. Happy with what she had collected, she closed the hood of the car, picked up the device and froze. A few feet from the boot of the car stood a boy.

Said boy stared at her just as Marie stared back. Looking down at the haul in her hands and her clothes, she could understand his surprised gaze. Filth and grime covered her white T-shirt, her cheeks were smudged with decade old motor oil, not to mention that her blue hair held up in a pony tail, sans the bangs that covered her right eye, usually granted her many compliments of being rather unique. These comments would be lost in the sea of time as she grew older and her self-image began to sink but in the life of her seven year old self, she considered it a source of pride.

Meanwhile, his clothes were absolutely spotless. Orange shirt, purple shorts, black beanie; all without a single stain. Did he not play? Did he not scuffle around with his friends, as all the other boys did in her school? Then she noticed the gap in his upper front row of teeth and remarked to herself that he must have been one of the most ferocious ones to fight. To get a tooth knocked out, even if just a baby tooth...

She realized that they had been staring at each other for quite some time without saying a single word. Maybe he had become just as surprised as her and had begun to wonder the identity of this girl in front of him. Mechanics couldn't exactly be considered a 'girly' thing, she had been told that many a times over the years. Maybe if she explained herself, it would ease his mind.

"I'm not stealing. This is just trash. People don't want it but I do. I'm building a robot." He suddenly looked mortified, as if he hadn't been expecting her to be able to talk, and took an insecure step backwards. Deciding that she didn't want to startle the boy, she continued to speak as she slowly made her way over the roof of the car, carburetor in a tight grip. "I like cars. It's like a puzzle; every detail needs to fit together for it to work. I help my neighbor sometimes. That's why I wanna build a robot. I wanna be able to do something alone. My mom says that doesn't make me weird, just special. It doesn't matter if I'm a girl, I can do what I want. I might name the robot Beanie, like your hat." She jumped off the boot and landed on the ground, her tattered shoes stirring up some sand. The boy did nothing for a moment, seemingly mulling over the stream of words that had made their way out of her mouth. A thought crossed her mind that maybe he suffered from bad hearing, like Mrs. Foreman on the other side of the trailer park back home, before his eyes calmed the slightest. Looking around, as if he had decided to share his greatest secret with her, he looked down at the ground almost dejectedly before mumbling rather nervously.

"I collect spores." She stared at him, stunned at his revelation, and smiled cheerfully; not being alone in having unorthodox hobbies comforted her. He returned her smile, though as nervously as his mumbling had been, and there they stood, simply smiling at each other. She thought the whole situation rather pleasant just as she thought the boy rather pleasant, maybe they could become summertime friends. This suggestion, along with a presentation of herself, never left her lips however as a third voice cut through the rather pleasant silence.

"HEY, SOCKHEAD!" The boy quickly whipped around, looking around for the owner of the voice. Within the confines of a second, Marie made up her mind and ran. She didn't know why she ran, she didn't know why she hadn't simply told the boy that he could find her at her grandfather's house; she just bolted out of the pleasantness with the carburetor held close to her chest. Perhaps the thought of him having other friends while she had none seemed unfair. Maybe she had just gotten nervous. It didn't seem important at that time.

The robot never worked but she pretended it did. She called it Beanie, introduced herself to it and they had imaginative adventures in her grandfather's garage. Once the summer had passed, they waved goodbye to Ace and his house for the last time as this would become the year he fell down the cellar stairs which in turn led to him getting a much smaller apartment in the city. Their summertime vacations to the community halted, the house gathered up dust as it never seemed to be sold and the next time any of them would see the street again would be five years later when Mrs. Kanker decided that she wanted to live closer to her father. Only when the three, by then devious, sisters infiltrated their old vacation home to play a prank on their love interest did something remind Marie of this meeting between two children. An old pile of mechanical components resting in a corner of the garage, cobwebs gathering up around the gears that would represent its vital organs, still waiting for a little blue haired mechanic to fix him up once summer rolled around again.

I'm not a big fan of author's notes, I feel it disrupts a story; especially if it's been a rather emotional piece and, upon reaching the end, find a frazzled writer apologizing profoundly for the lack of updates. If this is more like your cup of tea, consider this your lucky day!

This story... I don't even know- Let me start at the beginning. This story birthed forth from a single line:

"I collect spores"

From there, I decided that it would be nice for me to have a sort of 'longer drabbles' framework; a place where I can come and just write. Doesn't even need to be good, just a dumping ground for relieving writer's block. Then I figured that it'd be rather cool if you, my trusty reader, had a line not entirely unlike the one above which you would like to see me possibly write a shorter story around. (shorter still as this got really out of hand, I aimed for maybe 800 words here...)

So, if you like, drop a review with a line and, also just if you would like to, a character or two and I might get around to writing something around it when I feel the need to write without having to strain myself with my current writing responsibilities. I'm well aware of the stories I'm currently neglecting and I apologize profoundly for continuously spouting new stories instead of working on the ones I've already begun. Hopefully, this concept could remedy that.

Either way, hope you enjoyed this story!

By the by, also challenged myself to write something without using the word 'was'. 'Twas quite trying at times.