photo by Anthony Gardner

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The shadowy outline of the purple power wheels were in the right corner of the garage. As the door whined open, the Christmas gift from two years ago became illuminated by the early Flagstaff sun. The power wheels were a joint present for the sisters. After that Christmas, they had no need for bikes or scooters, trikes or wagons. They had power wheels. The four wheel drive pink dream jeep made them queens.

“I’ll clean it up later,” her older sister said. She was most likely talking to their father about some assortment of pot and pan drums, various open umbrellas, or a spice rack make-over.

While she waited for her older sister, she grabbed the front fender with both hands and turned the jeep around. She looked to her older sister, a question that didn’t need to be said aloud. With her eyes she asked if she wanted to hop in and cruise down the driveway—she shook her head no.

As the lone, almost weightless driver, she tore the power wheels down the steep driveway. The speed pulled her stomach closer to her chest. She hit the electric “gas” pedal when she hit the bank of the gutter, not even checking for cars driving through the neighborhood. She loved the feeling of power or complete lack of fear that came from ripping down the driveway into the unseen neighborhood road.

Once the feeling passed, her older sister had already walked down the driveway. She hopped into the passenger seat, unenthused. The now weighed down power wheels weren’t exciting enough for the little sister. She quietly stomped her foot over and again on the “gas” pedal trying to go faster down the street. After a few more feet, she quit her quiet stomping and settled for the sluggish yet realistic speed.

Her older sister was looking off into the distance.  The sisters had almost made it to the corner but still didn’t know where they were going.

She turned to her older sister and asked, “Wanna go play school?”

The BNSF railyard was a maze of cargo crates, old rusted tracks, and variously slopped bits and pieces of railroad ties. It was a perfect location for pretend school.

She pulled up next to a rust-yellow crate called the school bus. “Get out here, and I’ll pick you up when you get off the bus.”

“I thought we were playing school?”

“After school is better…duh”

Her older sister got out of the power wheels.

As the lone driver once again, she could feel a weight being lifted, the power coming back to her right foot. She slammed the throttle. A few rocks under the wheels might have kicked up, a burnout fit for a queen. She ripped around the yellow crate school bus.

Her older sister went through the motions. She said hello to the pretend bus driver, talked to some friends on the bus. She watched out for the wad of gum on the seat in front of her favorite. Then, she checked to see that her stop was indeed coming up. She hopped off the two-dimensional crate bus and waited for her sister in the jeep.

After kicking the pretend curb a bit, she heard someone yelling from the other side of the bus.

“Suzie!”

She walked to the other side of the crate, only to see her little sister, just shy of ankle deep in a pit of mud. The pink jeep was definitely ankle deep right next to her.

Her little sister put her hands on her head. “It’s stuck.”

With another heavy sigh, her older sister walked over carefully staying out of the mud. “How’d you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“What do I do?”

“Well…”

“Help me pull?”

She tiptoed in the deepening mud, getting closer to her little sister, she stopped herself. “No, my boots are clean. You know…Dad was saying…you…you gotta clean up your own messes sometimes.”

“Messes?”

“Yeah—messes.”

“Messes…” She looked down to her glopped feet. “But my boots aren’t even that messy.”

“No…not a mess, mess. Dad said too, that not all messes are spill messes, Suzie…”

“No, no, no. I didn’t spill anything…it’s just stuck.”

“I think…he means…means you can make a mess of things you do.”

“But…”

“Suzie, if you make a mess of a thing you do, you gotta clean it up yourself…yeah”

Her older sister helped get her out of the mud and then pulled her own boots onto to more solid ground. Both pairs of boots were muddy. The purple power wheels were still dug deep, the muddiest of all. The two sisters stood right there in the railyard. They may have not played the game they intended, but both girls were at pretend class that day. The sisters kicked their muddy boots on the thick cargo containers up near higher ground. They walked home together. No more stomping the throttle, no more weight on the power wheels, no more power wheels in fact. No more queens. They may have gone back home and gotten rope, a shovel, maybe even their dad. The mess of the power wheels stayed until the sisters decided to get their boots muddy and clean them up again.