Chapter 6
Brrriinng! The bell rang for recess. Everybody put their laptops away and took out balls, skipping ropes, books, and other stuff to do at recess. But Ally and I did not bring any toys outside. We had a different way of spending our recess time. Instead, we only brought Ally’s feather pen and my special notebook. Then we met Lana in her class.
My special notebook was very special to me (obviously, that’s why it’s called my special notebook). It had a lot of pages with a fainted background of a small, cute, puppy. It had a beautiful, soft, pink leather cover that had a special, matching, leather lock. But most importantly, it was our club notebook. Our club was the LAM club. L for Lana, A for Ally, and M for Monica (it’s also for “me”!). As for me, I wish another person could join since Ally and I both do not like the name of LAM. Lana, also beginning with L, made it up, and seems to be confident with it. Maybe someone with a name beginning with a P and someone with a name beginning with an E could join, since that would make AMPLE, which means, enough. I think it suits, to show that our club has enough room for everyone.
But for now, I guess we’ll just have to stick with LAM club. I didn’t write the name in my notebook because I wasn’t sure that a name like that fits in such a special notebook like mine.
The current LAM club also has a secret meeting place. It is a grassy area around the corner with the finest grass in the whole school playground. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday before school, we would come and water the grass and the few tall pine trees in the area which gives enough shade so that we can enjoy the sun but not get too sweaty. It was the perfect spot, for practically no one ever came into this spot. It was like a secret garden, because the principal has agreed to build a fence at the entrance to our secret hideout. We got to paint the fence a shiny coat of white after school one sunny day. But of course, there was also a door.
Our secret hideout was where we spread down Lana’s beach towel every available recess where we could lie down on our stomachs or our backs and relax. We would use Ally’s special green feather pen to write some notes and other stuff in my special leather notebook. Sometimes we would arrange meetings in there for after school, recess, or even on the weekends. We could come here anytime we wanted, even during summer breaks or March breaks, but best of all, winter breaks! At winter our secret hideout had the best, finest, packing snow in the neighbourhood for building snowmen, snowballs, and best of all, igloos! Last winter we spend 3 weeks building an igloo that actually worked! We were lucky that it got ice on it because it stayed frozen 2 weeks longer than the rest of the snow sculptures.
This recess, we lay down on Lana’s beach towel and talked about the up coming music competition. Ally made me write down in my notebook with her special feather pen:
Why is everyone talking about
place anyways? We have no
clue! Tell us right away, or
we will find out!
“What do you think this place looks like?” asked Lana. “Why do I even need to answer?” Ally said. “I think this place will have music everywhere!” Ally practically sang her last line. “It’d be shiny from top to bottom!” It was horrible. I knew Ally could sing way better than that! “Right. Duh, how stupid I am!” Lana gently slapped herself on the face. “Quit it!” I shouted. We laughed until our jaws almost dropped off. Then we started telling each other jokes. It was a perfect way to spend our free recess on a Tuesday. I lay on my stomach and stared at the pine tree to the right of me. It was so peaceful in our secret hideout. I knew we had been really clever!
We were getting bored. So we decided to play Topic Design. It was a game that we made up. This is how you play. You think of a topic, like a Disney character or a movie, or somebody in your class. You tell the topic to the players. Then you try to act it out. One by one the players have one guess about what you have in mind. Then, if no one gets the answer, you yell, “Topic Design!” and then you try to use your body to spell it out. For example, if what you have in mind is sunglasses, you might curve your body so it looks like “s”, and then you might lie and your belly and lift your head and your legs so it looks like “u”, and so on. Then if somebody knows what it is they yell, “Topic Design!” and they jump up and slap one hand on top of the other. Then that person will get to answer, and if they answer it correctly, they get to be the Topic Design person.
We had a lot of fun. First Ally was the Topic Design person. She said her topic was a piece of clothing or something you can wear. Then she crouched down and started fiddling around with her fingers. Then she started saying stuff like “ouch” and “oof” or “ow”. Lana guessed that she was thinking about slippers. I guessed that she was thinking about running shoes. I said that because if we wear running shoes we step into them, and that was why Ally said those “ouch” and “ow” things. Another thing was that when she was fiddling with her fingers, I guessed that she was tying up her laces. You can’t tie up slippers, you know.
I got it right! I knew exactly what to act out. “The topic is a person in our class,” I said. Then I sat down and crossed my legs. “I need to stretch,” said Lana and got up. I got up. She stretched her arms in the air. I stretched my arms in the air. Then she sat down. I sat down. Finally I stopped copying Lana. “I don’t know what you are…oh! I know! You’re nothing!” “No,” I said, giggling. I can’t believe Lana never noticed I was copying her! Then Ally guessed, “You’re Lana!” We started laughing. It was hilarious!!
