Friendship
One of the two swings at the park is broken, so Shawn and Cory take turns giving each other pushes on the swing that still works.
"Higher!" Cory giggles, but Shawn plants his little fists, still somewhat sticky from the licorice that Cory had split with him, on his skinny hips.
"You're too heavy for me to push. Eric said that if you swing your legs you'll go higher all by yourself. And he's in the second grade," Shawn concludes as though this makes Eric an expert on everything.
Cory tries it and it works, but it's no fun to swing alone so he sets his feet down hard in the sand and comes to a stop. He grabs Shawn's arm and they run off toward the trees.
"Cory! Stay where I can see you!" His mother calls from where she's sitting on the park bench with one of the other neighborhood moms.
Cory and Shawn start collecting fallen leaves with their little hands, and building a pile just big enough for it to be fun to throw the leaves at each other.
"We need more leaves," Cory sighs.
"My dad says the best leaves are in Vernament," Shawn tells Cory sagely, "There's so many offem you can make big big piles and jump inem an they're real pretty."
"This one's pretty," Cory holds up a red and yellow leaf.
"The ones in Vernament are even prettier," Shawn asserts.
"Oh," Cory says looking at his leaf, "When we're real big, I'm going to take you to Vernament, and we're gonna make big huge leaf piles. So big that we can hide inem."
Shawn laughs, "But Vernament is real farway."
"That's okay," Cory says, "I'll share my snack with you on the way."
Next installment: Fear