He found her in the garden, sitting on the swing set. The toes of her trainers scuffed the dry dirt beneath the seat as she slowly twisted back and forth.
She looked bored. Really bored.
Which, for her, was a fairly dangerous condition. Who knew what could happen? Though he'd enough past experience to be know it wasn't likely to be good.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she echoed, looking up as he approached.
He nodded toward the house's front door. "She inside?"
"Yup."
"In trouble again?"
Mels rolled her yes. "Yes. She didn't straighten her room. Again. And her Mum says she can't come out until she does."
Rory sighed and sat down on the swing next to Mels. "Why does she always do this? Doesn't she know we're on a schedule?"
His friend shrugged. "Cause she's Amy?"
He smiled. "Yeah." Then, as Mels started to swing, pumping strongly, an all-too familiar gleam in her eyes, he asked, "Hey... What are you doing?"
She looked down at him over her shoulder as she flew past. "Swinging, stupid. Waiting is boring."
"Uhm... But aren't you going a bit too high?"
"Yup. That's the point."
"Mels..." he warned, his bad feeling blossoming into a certainty. "You're not gonna jump, are you?"
"Of course not."
"Don't. You'll break something."
"Maybe."
"Mels," he warned again. "Seriously. Stop it. You'll kill yourself."
"So?" She called back to him from the top of her swing. "Who cares? You're not my-" She never finished the sentence, though. Instead, her leg dropped down on her next pass, trainers dragging in the dirt. Slowing and then stopping her.
As she came to rest next to him again, he asked, "Not your what?"
She smiled at him. That strange enigmatic smile which always seemed to make her seem years older than she really was. "Never mind. Race you?" she asked, her smile shifting to something closer to that of a normal eleven year-old.
His only answer was to kick off from the ground himself.
When Amy finally came out of the house a few minutes later, they were both swinging far too high for the old set, which squeaked and whined dangerously beneath them, and she had to call them both down. "Seriously. You two," she scolded, hands firmly on her hips as they brought their swings to rest in front of her. "Sometimes, you can be such children."