"Taylor?" Ashley asked, picking at the grass.
"What Ash?"
"You know we're considered to be in junior high now?"
"Yeah. So?" he asked, too preoccupied with his schoolwork to realy pay attention to what Ashley was telling him. They're families were spending a day at the lake, and unfortunately Taylor had some work that he hadn't finished from the week before.
"Doesn't seem we should be that old," Ashley said.
"Oh, but we are," Taylor told her, pushing a strand of loose blond hair behind his ears.
Silence filled the air. Ashley looked at Taylor's profile. Same old Taylor. His whole face was screwed up in frustration. He annoyedly pushed a piece of blond hair back behind his ear. He'd been experimenting with long hair of late. Ashley didn't like it all that much, but he did. Sometimes she just didn't get him...
"You think we will still be friends when we grow up?" Ashley asked. Taylor looked up, this question of insecurity startling him out of his trance.
"Of course Ashley. Why do you ask?" he asked, frowning with confusion.
"Oh I don't know. I was just wondering... Wouldn't it be weird if we became friends with Jenni when we grew up?" Ashley asked, looking thoughtfully at the tree branches that spread out above them.
"Very weird," Taylor commented.
"I think about it, and you are the only friend I really have and you're a boy."
"What? Are you putting down my gender or something?" Taylor asked, returning to his homework, only now a little less whole-heartedly.
"No, not at all. But it is a proven fact that females are smarter than males," Ashley said, waiting for Taylor's reaction.
"Oh it is?" he asked, getting to his feet.
Taylor attempted to throw Ashley in the lake. Too bad for him, she pushed him in first.
"See, you are too predictable. I knew what you were going to do," Ashley said from the water's edge as Taylor sat in the murky shallow water sputtering.
"Well the least you could do is help me out," he said.
"Don't think so, taylor Hanson. I'm not that stupid," she said, stepping back and folding her arms over her chest. She smiled smugly.
Taylor climbed out of the pond, and walked over to Ashley, dripping wet.
"Ok I admit it females are smarter than males," Taylor said. "Truce?"
He offered his hand for a hand shake. When Ashley took it he pulled her into a hug. Getting her wet too.
"Not!" Taylor shouted, pulling away and making a run for it.
"UUUUGGGGHH!!! Taylor I am going to kill you!!" Ashley shrieked running after him.
"Gotta catch me first," he laughed.
His shoes were heavy with water, and she DID catch up to him before he made it to the cabin. She hence proceded in tickling him until he begged from clemency. She then forced him to pinky-swear that women were smarter than men, in general. Two seconds later, he shook out his long soaked hair, getting her even wetter. The fight, again, was on...
"Took a big step for womens lib, huh?" Martha asked.
"I was an outspoken girl, wasn't I?" Ashley said, proudly.
"And you still are..."
