Army Pirates

She was in charge. She was always in charge. Kayla Clarke never settled for anything less. She turned to her friend Andy and told him, very simply, that she was to go first and he was to follow exactly what she did, because that was how the game was played. And if he couldn’t do everything that she could, then she won.

Kayla always won.

And this time was no exception as her strong, tiny hands clutched ruthlessly at the vibrant red bars as she swung with ease across the bubbling lava pit below. The dream was so real, she could smell the bursting smoke bubbles. Hand over hand, she moved expertly across, like a dancer who never missed a step, until finally she reached the safety of the stone tower and turned around to check on her friend.

His flushed freckled face looked swollen from that distance and he struggled to keep up with her pace. But his hands were moister than hers and he began to slip. His eyes widened as he realized the gravity of the situation, and Kayla’s heart lurched in sympathy for the poor boy, but only for a moment. Soon enough, a triumphant smile claimed her pale features.

She flipped back her dark hair arrogantly as she looked down at her fallen comrade, burning in the lava pit, covered in woodchips. He was glaring back up at her with a curious pout as he wiped the dirt off his cheek. He told her that it wasn’t fair, that she had been going too fast. But Kayla slowed down for no one.

Still, the benevolent queen of the playground descended into the lava pit and held out her hand to help her faithful follower to his feet.

She was small for her eight years, and almost frail-looking to those who didn’t see the fire in her eyes. Centuries ago, or at least so long ago that she barely remembered, she had exploded into this brand new world too early, fighting and screaming until she had clawed her way out toward the light. As a result, she had suffered several difficulties surviving in this brighter, sharper, colder world and had remained in a glass prison filled with oxygen for several days. Sometimes she used to bang her fists against the transparent substance, wondering when she would be able to get out and explore the universe. But eventually, she had been liberated and moved to a cozy new home with two interesting people who cradled and fed her, and whom she felt an inexplicable fondness for.

It was because of these two people and their nurturing that she was able to stand in that playground with her friend as he scowled at her.

“Let’s play Soldier!” he demanded. “I’m tired of this game.”

“Let’s play Army,” she returned. “I’m the Captain!”

“There ain’t no Captain in Army!” Andy complained. “That’s Pirates!”

“Well then let’s play Army Pirates,” Kayla amended. “I’m still Captain. You can be the First Mate.”

“How do you play Army Pirates?” Andy inquired reluctantly, letting his curiosity get the better of him.

Kayla smirked. “Army Pirates capture on other pirate armies,” she explained, then pointed to a group of children making a fort out of flannel picnic blankets by the bushes. “That’s the other pirate base,” she told her crew of one. “We gotta go capture it.”

Her First Mate’s face contorted into an expression of confusion. “What does capcher mean?”

Kayla rolled her eyes, feigning frustration. “Capture means to put in jail,” she explained. “Like how the policemen captured that scary man last week.”

“You mean like to orrest?”

She shrugged. “Sorta kinda like orrest, more like handcuff.”

“Police handcuff bad people they are orresting!” Andy whined.

“Quit your crying and go and capture that base over there,” Kayla ordered.

Andy looked over his shoulder apprehensively, then turned to his Captain. “I don’t wanna, I don’t think those kids like us so much.”

“Of course they don’t like us, they’re our anemones!” Kayla exclaimed, exasperatedly. “Now go and report back to me about their talking and their doing!”

Andy puckered his lips and then begrudgingly turned towards the bushes and headed over.

Kayla climbed up the stone tower, which had suddenly morphed into the mast of a very intimidating pirate ship and reclined in her new throne. She watched as Andy snuck into the bushes beneath the blanket.

After a few minutes, she saw the bushes shake, and the blanket was thrown off to reveal Andy in the middle of a tiny clearing, surrounded by four other kids. Kayla knew it was her duty as Captain to go in and rescue her crew. So she confidently leapt down from the crow’s nest and swam through the surrounding ocean until she reached their island base. She cut through the underbrush and plowed down the bushes until she was in the middle. She stood proudly with her hands on her hips as the other children shied away from her and Andy tried to grab something out of the hands of one particularly insufferable bulky boy.

“Emony Army, you are now my captured peoples. I want you to let my First Mate go!”

“First Mate?” the obnoxious chubby child chuckled. His name was Rhett, and he was older than Kayla and Andy both by a whole year. “Only Mate is watchya mean!”

“C’mon, you gotta play!” Kayla told them. “You ain’t doing it right! Watchya got ahind your back?”

“They ain’t got nothin’, Kayla!” Andy said firmly. His face was red and he was glowering at the others. “They’re just a bunch a poo-heads! Let’s go!” He marched over to Kayla and tried to grab her arm, but she wriggled out of his grip and walked up to Rhett, who was snickering with a girl with black curly hair.

“What you got?” Kayla demanded clearly, staring him right in the eye.

The older boy sneered wickedly. “You wanna see what we got, little girl?” he said. “Eat it!” He threw a crumpled up piece of paper at that hit her square between the eyes.

Her face scrunched up into a furious pout, she unwrinkled the paper to see her second grade school photo with green crayon scribbled on her face. She was sporting red horns and had red spots over her cheeks. Green stink lines rose off of her shoulders and purple, nasty words that she didn’t know the meanings of were scrawled all around her.

For the first time among her peers, Army Pirate Captain Kayla Clarke faltered. Her lower lip trembled and stuck out to hold back the scream she wanted to release. She looked up at Rhett and wanted the yell at him, to call him names, to make him feel exactly as she did in that moment. But instead, she thought she might just fall onto the ground and bawl instead.

And then, miraculously, her loyal First Mate saved the day.

“You ain’t nothin’ but a nasty bully, Rhett Ashley Donohue! You got a girl’s name, I know ‘cause my Mamma gets her hair all prettied by your Mamma and she said so!” The tiny redheaded boy walked right up to the bulky bully and pushed him away from his Captain. He turned to Kayla and took her by the arm. “C’mon, Captain, we have funner things to do than stay here!”

Her eyes magnified behind unshed tears and her mouth partially open, Kayla shook her head and pursed her lips, determined. She nodded at Andy, then stuck her tongue out at Rhett, whose face was flushing as the other three children kept calling him “Ashley” and laughing. Andy squeezed her hand and pushed the bushes aside, leading her out of the clearing and back towards their ship.

Andy looked at her with wide, curious blue eyes. “So what do you want to do now, Captain Kayla?”

She opened her mouth, but had no words, wracking her brain for a game. She was absolutely sure that when she was old enough, she would travel the world and conquer it. She would see things that the other children only pretended to see, and show the Rhett Ashley Donohues of the world how much brighter she was than they were and how much more adventurous. She would actually cross the lava pits at the center of the earth. She would chart the jungles of Africa and discover pink polka-dot elephants there, like the one that slept under her bed. She would find the island where the dinosaurs still lived and tame them to be her pets. She would ride a pterodactyl to the moon and be back in time for dinner. These were the things Kayla was planning to do as soon as she was old enough. She couldn’t care less about Rhett and his silly girl name, or what he thought about her! She didn’t care that the only kid on the playground who would play with her was a scrawny redheaded boy with funny freckles. None of that mattered one bit to her. All that mattered was exploring, and she would spend her whole life making sure that she saw it all.

But today was today, and tomorrow would have to wait. Andy was waiting for her next royal order. What game would they play next? Because today, Kayla’s life was just a series of games, and she hopped from one to the other until the sun began to go down and her mother said it was time to go home. Army Pirates was over, and already forgotten. Tomorrow she would conquer the world. Today, she would deign to play with the only person who let her pretend that she’d already conquered it.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and beamed at her friend. “Let’s play African Jungle and look for lions and tigers and bears!” she suggested excitedly, the trauma of the last five minutes far away from them now that they were under the bright blue sky by the monkey bars.

He grinned and nodded fervently before running off and calling to her over his shoulder. “You won’t catch me, Kayla, I’m a cheeter!”

And just like that, they were lost in another game.