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Katie put her feet down to slow the swing.
“Done already?” Rose questioned.
Katie’s only answer was to climb off the swing and skip over to Rose before throwing her arms around her and squeezing.
“Thank you so, so much, Auntie.”
“You are so, so welcome, little one. It's just as much for me as it is for you guys. Now you can come out here and tire yourselves out without running me ragged,” she teased.
Katie giggled and shrugged. “That’s fair.”
Rose kissed her head. “You two play. I’ll go check on Claire-Bear and make us some breakfast we can eat out here on the new patio furniture.”
She pointed to the concrete area against the back of the house. Katie hadn’t even noticed the new table and chairs, complete with umbrella.
“Now all we need is a toilet and we never have to go inside again!” Katie squealed. She loved being outside and she knew Rose did too.
“Okay, my little drama queen.” Rose laughed. “I’ll be back out in a little bit. Have fun and be good.”
Katie scoffed. Be good? She was outside playing in her own backyard on the coolest playset she’d ever seen. What was the worst trouble she could get into?
“Last one on the trampoline is a rotten egg!” Katie yelled toward Noah and jumped down the slide to beeline toward the enclosed trampoline. She loved when they went to the trampoline parks and she couldn’t believe they now had one of their very own. Noah was giggling like crazy as he watched her jump. She bounced as high as she could get, then put her legs out in front of her to land on her butt before popping back on to her feet.
“Well, are you coming or what?” Katie stopped and asked him.
“In a minute. I gotta go potty.”
He turned and ran into the house and Katie started jumping again. She bounced on her butt and jumped in circles and just closed her eyes and pretended like she was flying, but no matter how hard she jumped, she couldn’t get as high as she wanted to. Landing on her butt, she let herself stop bouncing and laid flat on her back, staring up at the bright blue sky. It was a truly beautiful morning and she felt amazing.
Looking around again she noticed just how close the trampoline was to the climber. She sat up and checked to see if anyone was watching before she got out of the trampoline and climbed the steps of the playground. The railing was just above the side shield of the trampoline and less than two feet away. She could easily make the leap and then she would really be able to get some height. Nibbling the side of her lip, she glanced at the back door one more time, but the coast was still clear.
She hefted herself up onto the rail, balancing precariously as she got the nerve to actually jump. It felt a lot higher than it looked and for a split second she almost chickened out. Digging deep, she fortified her nerves and leapt. Flying through the air, she couldn’t hold in the shriek of excitement as she landed in the middle of the trampoline and bounced way higher than she’d been able to on her own.
She laughed so hard she had to sit down to catch her breath, and that’s when she saw Rose standing at the open door. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was furious. Katie didn’t think her heart could pound any harder, but the anger she saw in her Auntie’s glare proved her wrong. Dead wrong.
“Get. Down. Now,” Rose hollered as she took huge strides to the entrance of the trampoline. Katie shook her head frantically and scooted to the far end.
“If I have to come in there and drag you out by your ear, you will spend the rest of this beautiful day in your bedroom sitting on a sore bottom and writing lines. I am not playing with you, little girl.”
Katie didn’t want to put Rose in a place where she had to follow through on that threat. That would be torturous for them both. She got to her hands and knees and crawled toward the entrance.
“I’m sorry, Auntie.” She gave her best puppy dog eyes as she approached.
“Sorry for what exactly?” Rose asked, her voice high-pitched and laced with sarcasm.
Katie was in so much trouble.
“Sorry for jumping off the climber?”
Rose took a step back from the entrance to the trampoline and let Katie climb out, because if she got close enough in the moment, she was going to grab her by the ear and swat her naughty little bottom all the way to the corner of her bedroom and the kids were not allowed to see that kind of interaction. Rose counted the hours until naptime in her mind. It was way too far away, but that would give her some time to get her blood pressure down and her heart out of her throat before she took her spoon to Katie’s butt for scaring the living hell out of her.
“You, little girl, have landed yourself in some hot water, you hear me?”
“But—”
“Don’t. Even.” Rose stopped her, taking a threatening step forward. “Nothing you could say right now could possibly justify what I just saw, and if your Daddy and Uncle were here right now you wouldn’t be sitting comfortably for a month of Sundays.”
Katie visibly cringed. “Are you gonna tell them?”
