Believe me, I can identify an explosion when I hear one. And this one was no product of my imagination.

I looked down and…well, what did we have here?

My two brothers, Robert of the long dark blonde hair and green eyes, and Greeny of the brown hair and blue-green eyes were playing with fireworks, firecrackers, and who knows what other types of stuff they had.

"Hey!" I yelled down to them.

They didn't hear me, because they fired another one. But it wasn't a firework. I don't know what they're called but it's one of those that light up, go up into the air, and come back down, then explode.

Well, too bad for me, my balcony suddenly became a target practice for explosives. One of them broke my windows. "Hey! What are you two doing?!"

I could hear Robert say, "Uh-oh." He looked up at me and smiled. "Oh. Hi, Spiny. What's new?"

"Don't tell me what's new! What do you think you're doing?"

"Um…" he looked down then at Greeny. "I think we're playing with fireworks and other stuff like it."

"Stop doing that! It's too close to the Palace! You could hurt somebody!" My last sentence was drowned out by another whistle, hiss, and boom. All right, that did it. I went back in, ran down the stairs, and went out the front door. The two of them were still there.

I crossed my arms and glared at them. "Now, I don't care who started it. And I don't care if one of you convinced the other to do it. What I do care about, is that you fired one after I told you not, too."

"Um…um…um…" was all Robert could say. He obviously wasn't making a good defense for himself.

"All righty then! You'll both have to be punished. You're going to work out of your allowances to pay the broken windows, and the decorations you destroyed up in my balcony."

"What do you mean work?" said Robert.

"I mean work. And you'll have to do it between the two of you. You can do it. It's summer now. You can mow lawns, walk dogs, sell lemonade…"

"Spiny, no!"

"I'm sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. You do something, you learn. You break it, you pay it. You'd best get inside and cleaned up and go find yourselves a job."

"But, Spiny!"

"Or else I'll…!"

"We're going! We're going!" said Greeny. They both ran inside as if fire had started to rain from heaven.

Hey, you have to be hard in order to make others learn. It's a hard world out there, and if you don't know how to handle things for yourself or toughen it up, then you're in big trouble.

Anyways, I walked over to where Lilia was. She was still on her hammock. She'd fallen asleep and the book lay open on her chest. She'd been reading Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She and I would get together to watch one or two episodes together.

Then we'd discuss it, do research on it, since it's all based on true stories that really did happen.

And then we would compare our results and talk about it. It wasn't really for school. It's more like a personal project between the two of us. That last time, we'd watched the episode where Albert comes out for the first time. Lilia claims that the actor that portrays him reminds her of Greeny. Except that he's got brown hair and blue-green eyes.

Anyways, I walked up to Lilia. She looked so beautiful and innocent. I nudged her gently. She moaned and opened her eyes, looking at me.

She smiled at me warmly. "Hey, you."

"Hey yourself."

She sat up straight and I sat next to her. "What you doing?"

"Oh, just relaxing a while. I was reading and feel asleep."

"You slept through all the noise?"

"What noise?"

"Robert and Greeny were playing with fireworks in our front yard."

She looked across the street to the Palace. "Is that what the noise was?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, I thought that was you and Larry having another argument."

"Ha! If Larry and I had been fighting each other with explosives, he would've made me go up into a thousand pieces."

"Yeah, you're right."

I put my arm around her. "So, what you got planned for the summer?"

She shrugged and put her head on my shoulder. "I don't know. We'll see what comes up. And you?"

"Don't know. There's a lot of places the family wants to see. London, Paris, Scotland, Rome, Venice, Florence, New York, Miami Beach, the Everglades, Hollywood, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, Ohio, Albuquerque, etc., etc."

She laughed. "Quite an agenda, right?"

"I don't there's even an agenda. I don't know where to start. But, I have a feeling that this summer will stay in our memories for the rest of our lives. I don't know why, but I just have a feeling that this summer is particularly special." And I would be right, as you'll find out in later stories. But it won't all be rose-colored. There's going to be plenty of sad and tragic parts.

Anyways, I said to her, "You plan to travel anywhere?"

"Not particularly. I guess all those places you mentioned are all appealing to me. But I'd also like to visit Switzerland, Finland, or even the South Pole."

That surprised me. I hadn't heard her mention that ever before. "The South Pole?!"

She giggled. "Yeah, what's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Other than the freezing subzero temperatures, howling winds, treacherous seas, dangerous crevasses, blinding blizzards, snow-blindness, hallucinations, and wildlife. Other than, what could possibly be wrong?"

She smiled teasingly. "Spiny Kyverná, I do believe you are being sarcastic with me?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Do you believe, do you think, or are you sure?"

"How about the fourth answer: all of the above?"

"You should've picked C."

"Oh? And is there any punishment for choosing wrong?"

I smiled at her. "You bet there is!"

I started tickling her. "No, Spiny! Stop that! Stop! I'm ticklish!" We both fell to the ground and started rolling around in the grass. And would you believe that she started tickling me, too? I mean that girl was a lot stronger than I imagined. She pinned me about three times!

Finally, we both ran out of breath and sat up under the shade of the trees in her front yard. "Well…" I was still out of breath. "Know I now…why no one bothers you…you have…no sense…of humanity…when it comes…to tickling!"

She tried to laugh, but couldn't for obvious reasons. You need oxygen to laugh. "You…take…that…back."

"I won't. Unless you can pay the penalty."

"Oh, yeah?" she smirked. "And just how can I do that?"

I scooched closer to her and leaned my face to hers. I pressed my lips to hers, and she put her hands around my neck.

She pulled away and she let me stare into her deep brown eyes. I could see my reflection in them. "You have nice eyes," I whispered to her.

"Yours are stunning and captivating," she said.

It would've been a perfect moment. It was. The fresh morning air. The spring breeze running through our hair. Our faces only inches apart. Sitting on the grass of her front yard. My hand on hers. Birds singing, flowers dancing on the fields, and butterflies flying.

It was heaven.

And it would've been perfect except that, uh…