Dandelion Wine

Lisa sat at the window, her drawing pad sitting on her lap, softly illuminated by the Hummel lamp her parents had brought back from Germany. She sketched a dandelion with her colored pencils, bright and yellow, while her sisters, nieces and nephews drowned her father in animated noise downstairs. Quiet as she was, she wouldn't silence them for anything, it let her know there was life in the house.

The dandelion reminded her of her best friend Scott, the day they met in the park.

Scott had always been a sensitive boy. His grandparents bought him a plastic swimming pool when he was very young, before he was made to go to school. He never used it. One day, he went out to play, after several days of mostly constant rain. The pool was filled with brownish water and soaked leaves.

Scott found a stick and poked at the vegetation floating in the pool. A drowned mouse drifted out from underneath. With great urgency, he ran inside to the kitchen, to get his mother. He pulled on her dress, crying and pointing at the pool. She ran outside with him.

He pointed at the mouse.

"Oh," She said, thinking he wanted to splash around in the water, "I don't think you should get in the pool. That mouse might have had a disease."

"Get it out!"

His mother still didn't understand, "No honey, it's dead. Stay out of the water."

"Why did it die?"

"Things die, Scott. That's what happens."

He hated that answer. She was his mother. Mothers knew everything. She should be able to give him a better answer than that.

Scott never forgot about that mouse. When he would be sitting alone in the living room, sometimes he would remember it, floating in the water, never again to do the things a mouse did. Or when he strolled the playground during recess, alone because the other kids only made fun of him, he would think of that mouse, alone in the pool, never again to have friends, or be able to go home to its mother.

It was around the fourth of July, and Scott's stepfather had bought two bags of M-80s. Not doing a very good job of hiding them from a young boy, he stuffed them inside the coffee table. Scott found them easily, but didn't bother with them at first, preferring to help his mother in the kitchen.

One morning, watching cartoons, he noticed a popping sound outside. He peeked out the window, careful to not be seen, and watched Kevin lighting firecrackers. Kevin was one of the boys from school who would have nothing to do with him on the playground. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, piling plastic green soldiers on top of a firecracker and then watching as they were blown apart.

Kevin grabbed one of the bags of M-80s and a punk, lighting it on the gas stove. Outside, he threw out an M-80 and covered his ears until it exploded, echoing throughout the neighborhood. Kevin saw him standing there with the bag, "Are those yours?!"

"Yeah, want some?"

That was one of the greatest days of Scott's life, the first any of the other boys had accepted him. By the time the afternoon had rolled around, several neighborhood boys had collected around him, some even from the high school--the ones who always rode in the back of the bus. They set off M-80s throughout the neighborhood, in drainage pipes, in bottles, under the water. Each explosion was more impressive than the last. Scott was down to ten M-80s and everyone agreed the park would be the best place to detonate them.

At the last M-80, Kevin had an idea, "Let's get a turtle!"

Scott remained quiet. He didn't want to say anything to ruin his acceptance. Silently, he hoped they wouldn't find a turtle. But they did.

Scott became more desperate as they hauled the turtle to a tree.

"Come on, leave it alone!"

"Shut up! It'll be cool!"

One of the high schoolers found a rock and took out his pocket knife.

"No!" Scott screamed, then started to cry.

The other boys laughed at him, called him a sissy as they hammered the turtle to the tree. There, it writhed for a few minutes as the older boys shoved the last M-80 into its mouth.

Scott ran, leaving the laughter behind, unable to get away from the thought that the turtle would never again be able to do the things a turtle did.

After running until his breath was gone, he stopped near a girl, small and pale, picking dandelions. She looked up at him with large, green and unjudging eyes, "Hi."

A boom echoed somewhere in the distance.

"Those are pretty," Scott said, choking back tears, not wanting to reveal his weakness to the girl.

"They're for my aunt and uncle. To make wine. You can help if you want."

Scott sat down in the patch of yellow and picked dandelions. He pulled up an old white one.

Lisa smiled, "Those are pretty, too. But I don't think they can make wine with them. What kind of flower is that?"

"It's a dandelion, silly. They get old and die. That's what happens."

Lisa was saddened by this revelation. But Scott blew on the dandelion, sending tufts of white fuzz floating away on the wind, and Lisa smiled, realizing that was what dandelions did.