Jacks Tournament and the High Dive

“I got it!”, Mary shouted as she jumped to her feet, running into the house and into the bedroom she and her sister Jenny shared. Jenny was lying on the bed, head nestled in her pillow.

“You got what?”

“An idea for a tournament we can have with all the girls in the neighborhood. We can maybe see if Mr. Green at the Quick Check can donate a prize for the winner. This should be fun. You can tell Alvena, Cynthia, Joveeda and…”

“Hold up, girl. You haven’t even told me what kind of tournament you are talking about. More information please.” Jenny flipped her body over, tucking the pillow behind her head.

“Oh, my bad. I forgot to say. Jacks! A Jacks tournament!” Mary pulled a handful of steel jacks with multi-colored knobby ends out of one pocket and a soft red ball a little smaller than a golf ball out of the other pocket. She had on a yellow and white stripped halter top and a pair of dingy khaki shorts with white side laced sandals on. It was the third day since school had let out for summer break and Mary was itching for something fun and constructive to do.

Pacing the floor, throwing the ball in the air and catching it, she thought, about how much fun the tournament would be, how many girls would possible participate, and how this could be the start of an annual event. Mary pulled out a piece of tablet paper from her backpack and began scribbling tournament ideas.

Usually Mary and her sister Jennifer’s summer routine would be spent at summer camp. “Too bad we’re not going to Camp Kachina this year” Jenny sighed.

“Yeah, I wish we hadn’t turned in our registration late. I’m gonna miss all my friends from last year.” Mary plopped down on the floor bulldozing the jacks with the red ball. “I’ll miss the hay rides, roasting hotdogs and smores by the campfire, singing fun sing-a-longs, horseback riding, and sleeping out in the woods with those big ole mosquitoes. I heard one year this girl saw a red fox and a bear cub.”

“They don’t have bears in the woods in Texas, girl. Somebody lied to you. If that were true, that would have been cool to see, but I don’t believe it.”

“Foxes and bears have rabies.”

“Stop it.”

“OK. I’m just playing. All I know is we need to have this tournament so we’ll have something to do and I’ll have something to talk about when school starts back. So, Jenny, are you gonna help me organize it or what?”

Jenny lay on the bed looking over her volleyball practice and game schedule for the Fall. “I’m in middle school now, girl. I don’t mess around with kiddy games like ‘Jacks’ anymore. I’m sure you can find some of your buddies in the neighborhood to help you. I don’t think my friends would be interested either.”

“No I want you to help me! Please Jenny, please!”

“No.”
Jenny always had a way of getting Mary to do many things she wasn’t willing to do herself or had never experienced herself. Mary was her guinea pig. After the girls learned how to swim, they’d go swimming by themselves without their Mom or Dad. One day, they went to Lion’s Park. Lion’s Park had a one hundred foot Super Slide, Putt-putt golf, Go-karts, and bumper boats. But what the girls enjoyed most was the Olympic sized pool with a forty foot high dive. Jenny had never taken a dive off the “big dive”, as they called it, but told Mary to jump off it two summers ago.

“Jump.”

“No, I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared. It’s just like jumping in from the side, cept’ it’s only a little higher off the ground.”

“Higher! That diving board is touching the sun and the clouds. No!” Mary’s teeth were chattering and she was shivering from water and wind kissing against her wet bathing suit.

“Girl, don’t be scared, you can do it.”

“Have you ever done it before?” Mary asked while peering to the top of the towering steel monument with the gray trampoline board sticking out its tongue to her from below. Her eyes were watering from the sting of the chlorine as well as the sun and fear that was slowly creeping in her mind.

“Yeah, girl. I’ve jumped in many times before.” Jen lied.

Now Mary was trapped. She knew if her big sister had already Jen dove in, she had to, too. The walk to the ladder that led to the top of the diving board felt like a journey up a mountain to an anticipated death. Mary drug her feet and kept looking back at her sister with every step. Finally to the top, she was ready to make her plunge. "I'm not gonna be scared," she told herself.

With eyes closed, Mary took a deep breath and jumped into the deep dark blue watery grave, death knocking at her door in her mind more than in her body. Initially her body felt like a feather floating in the air when she jumped off the flexible board, but then upon the decent she immediately turned to a human torpedo. Eyes and mouth wide open, arms and legs flailing, she plummeted. The weight of her body yanked her to the bottom of the pool. She opened her eyes only to see a dark abyss with only her and the lonely water below. She began kicking her legs and swinging her arms like an octopus to free herself from the liquid casket. Gasping for breath as her face touched air again, she wiggled like a fish to the side of the pool. Jenny held her hand out to help her baby sister up the ladder and on to dry concrete land again.

“Whoa! That was fun!”

“Was you scared?”

“Yeah, but since I’m still alive, I think I want to do it again. But this time Jenny, you go first.”



"So, will you help me with the Jacks tournament or what?"

"Nope."

And so Jen was able to talk her sister into doing things she didn’t want to do, but this time when the shoe was on the other foot for Mary, she had no luck. Jenny wouldn’t budge. Hurt and embarrassed, she scooped up the jacks and ball and slid them back into the pockets of her shorts and slowly walked out the bedroom door dragging her bottom lip under her sandals along the hardwood floors.

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