A Wobbly Wall and a Helping Hand

The air hummed with the busy buzz of summer as Luna and I knelt in the warm grass, surrounded by a cheerful chaos of wood planks, a hammer, and a tangle of rope. Today was the day we were going to put up the first wall of our treehouse. My dad had helped us build the sturdy platform last weekend, a magnificent wooden deck nestled securely in the crook of the old oak tree’s biggest branch. Now, it was up to us to make the walls.

“Okay, so this long one goes here,” Luna announced, pointing with a pencil at the diagram we’d drawn on a piece of cardboard. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, a stray strand of brown hair escaping her ponytail and tickling her cheek. She blew it away with a puff of air, her blue eyes sparkling with determination.

I nodded, my own short black hair falling forward as I leaned in. “And then the shorter ones go across, like this, to make the window opening.” I traced the lines with my finger, feeling the rough texture of the cardboard. The sun warmed my back through my t-shirt, and the scent of freshly cut wood mixed with the sweet perfume of my mom’s roses from the garden. It was a perfect day for building.