Annisette

​Annisette sat cross-legged on the grass peering through the stalks of the zinnias waving gently in the summer breeze. Her eyes were just below the level of the blossoms. She could hear the bees working busily but could not really see them until they slowly hovered from one flower to the next.
Her vision anyway was locked on her brother on the other side of the yard looking painstakingly through the rhododendron and lilacs. She could almost hear his whistling over the hum of the bees. She knew it was the theme to The Andy Griffith Show even though she never thought his whistling and the song sounded remotely similar.
She waited until he made it to the pump house and the small white building blocked him from her view. She sprang up and dashed ten feet to suddenly sit again, this time behind the bed of snapdragons, the multi-colored flowers now waving at eye level.
Jeremy emerged from the far side of the pump house and looked right at her without seeing. Her print dress blended perfectly with the flowers screening her from his view. His gaze passed to the zinnias and then even further to the sunflower bed. He started to amble in that direction.
Annisette took her chance, jumping up and racing for the giant sycamore. Jeremy shouted “Ha!” and burst into a run on an intersecting path. She started to giggle as her bare feet pounded across the soft grass. She could hear him gaining ground, his much-longer legs eating up the distance between them, but, like often, his steps seemed to slow as they all closed together – Annisette, the sycamore, and Jeremy.
She reached the tree. “Safe!” she squealed. And then he reached it, and her, and one finger tickled her ribs, expanding the giggle to peals of laughter. She collapsed to the ground out of his reach, still laughing, and a grin split his face. “You are so-o-o-o fast.”
“And tricky!” she giggled.
“And tricky” he agrees. “Next time I’m going to start looking at the zinnias!”
“OK! Count!” and she starts to run into the middle of the yard, the giggling stopping with the seriousness of the next hiding place.
Jeremy hides his face in the tree and starts counting, loudly, and peeking to see where she goes, “One! Two!...”