By the Pond
The Beginning
"Hello?" the young boy called out to the stranger throwing rocks into the green pond.
The stranger looked back at him with lively eyes and smiled. "Hello."
"What are you doing?" the boy asked, rhetorically.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
He ignored the inference concerning his intelligence, and asked, "Why are you throwing rocks?"
"Because I feel like it," she replied, flatly.
The boy scratched his head. She wasn't like other girls who would grow increasingly nervous by his presence.
The girl directed her lively eyes at the boy, and then stated, with confidence, "When I grow up, I'm going to be part of the Pharaoh's court."
The boy laughed at a picture of such an event. His mother had told him stories of girls that had risen to the Pharaoh's court and how they had become fat in the stomach. "Only loose women become part of the Pharaoh's court," he replied, clearly remembering the words between his mother and her friend.
"What's a 'loose woman?'" the younger girl asked with a frown. "It doesn't sound nice."
"It isn't." The boy grabbed a pebble and threw it across the pond. With three ripples in the water, the pebble was gone.
"Well, I don't care what a 'loose woman' is. I'm not going to be whatever that is!"
The boy looked up at the girl and shrugged. "I am truly going to part of the Pharaoh's court. I'm going to be his lead hunter, when I grow up."
The girl laughed. "I bet you couldn't even hunt a one-footed rabbit."
"If there ever was a one-footed rabbit, I WOULD be able to hunt it!" he spat.
The girl crossed her arms, and glared. "Then, I'm going to be part of the royal charioteers!"
"'You're just a girl! A girl can't ride the chariots!"
"Then, I'll become a man."
"Impossible!"
"Nothing's impossible."
"Girls are supposed to stay home and take care of the house and children."
The young girl walked up to the boy, and glared at him with intense animosity. The boy shrunk back, unaccustomed to having anyone give him such a gaze.
She only turned away from him in annoyance. The pebble in her hand was thrown into the water. The water wrapped its tentacles around the pebble, and refused to allow it free range over it's surface. She growled in frustration.
"No man will ever tell me what to do," she said to the pond.
The boy eyed the girl in wonderment. He was amazed at the amount of ambition hidden beneath her small body.
Using her small fingers to push away the strands from her face, she turned to the boy. "I AM going to ride a chariot. And, I'm going to be the best at it."
The boy, riding the wave of courage, also added his declaration to the air. "I shall be the best hunter Egypt as ever seen."
The young girl sat down in the shade of a tree and looked over at the boy. She bit her lip as she assessed him.
The boy boasted, "My father says I'm advanced for my age."
The girl shifted.
The boy swatted a persistent fly away.
"I'm going to be father's little boy," rang the voice of the young girl. Then, with head lowered, "I know he wanted a boy, but now he's got me."
Unconsciously, the boy walked closer to the girl under the shade of the tree. He sat down next to her, and they both leaned against the tree.
"Maybe, we can both be what we want," he whispered.
Once again, the girl focused on the boy next to her.
He grew nervous as her relentless gaze continued to pierce his heart.
"Maybe…" she replied, still keeping her eyes on him. There was something raw about the boy that demanded her attention.
"Of course, if you want to be a charioteer, you'll have to learn to ride a horse first."
"If YOU want to become a hunter, you'll have to know how to track a rabbit first."
The two went off on each other. Each taking turns commenting on what the other would have to accomplish before realizing their dreams.
"If you want to become a hunter, you'll have to know how to dance the Wapongo," the girl finished with a giggle.
"What's the Wapongo?" the boy questioned. His heart was racing, and he couldn't help buy smile as he laid eyes upon the younger girl.
The girl shrugged. "I don't know. But, it sure sounds funny!"
The two erupted into a fit of laughter. They were intoxicated with each other. Both children were wrapped in euphoria.
And, then, the girl's father began to call her name.
The girl sprung up, almost like she had been caught doing something wicked. "Father is calling me."
The younger girl enchanted the boy. He couldn't let her leave without the assurance of more time with her. "Next year, we meet here again. Promise?"
The girl brightened. "Promise!" she called out, nodding her head, and ran off to meet her father.
"By the pond…"