We were vandals, just as much as any other group of thirteen year olds. We just weren't very good at it.
"Let's go throw rocks through the windows of that empty place by Joey's!"
"Yeah! Or maybe pinecones."
"Pinecones?"
"Sure, pinecones!" I had to think fast. I've always been a scaredy cat, and couldn't we get -arrested- for breaking windows?I didn't want to go to jail. "That way, if we break a window, we'll have -worked- for it! Victory will be ours!"
"Uh, sure, but rocks..."
"No way, man! Rocks are for pussies. Pinecones are the tools of the future!"
Everyone looked at each other, and then me, suspiciously. Was I joking, or was I really cooler than them? Could they afford to let me, a girl, tell them what to do? There was silence, a shifting of feet, an uncomfortable hitching foreward of shoulders.
"Let's go, uh, play basketball!"
If we'd been in a cartoon, there would have been a cloud of dust and wavy lines where we had just been standing. Sure, they may have talked like they wanted to break windows, but none of us wanted to get in trouble. Trouble meant grounded, after all, and that was a fate worse than exile.
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