While visiting his local swimming pool one afternoon after school Daniel noticed one of his friends, Ian, sitting on the edge of the pool looking worried and out of breath. It was not unusual for Daniel to meet his fellow classmates at the pool after school as most of their working parents found the 20c entry fee a lot cheeper than a babysitter. It seemed that when you were seven and your parents worked in this town, the world was your oyster. That is, that part of the wold you woulc either ride your bike to, or walk to and back again in time for dinner.
Daniel wandered over and sat down along side Ian, splashing him as he did.
"get off" remarked Ian.
Daniel, rather miffed that splashing his friend had not brought about a larger reaction decided to find out what was going on.
"Whats going on?" he asked.
"Well, I and trying to get something to work, but its not." Replied Ian, who seemed to still be deep in thought about something.
This reply did not really help relieve Daniel's curiosity, so he needed to find out just what his friend meant.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, you know Marine boy? Right? He can breathe under water by chewing OxyGum."
Daniel, being rather wize for his seven years, knew straight away where this was going.
"Aw Ian you dope. You were not trying to breath in the pool while chewing gum where you?"
"I thought it was at least worth a try" Ian replied rather ashamed. "But the shop did not have OxyGum, only Arrowmint."
"What? so you tried using Arrowmint instead of OxyGum?" asked Daniel, knowing the answer already was going to be yes.
"Well, yes" said Ian "Its just he said that the OxyGum will not be in until next week, and I wanted to try it now.. ya know.."
"Yeah" Daniel said understanding. The oxygum always seemed to be comming in next week no matter when you asked. "but still, you should not have tried it with Arrowmint. Thats just silly. I mean, its Arrowmind mate. Thats like, you know, not Oxygum." he finished rather lamely.
"Aw like you never wondered!" retorted Ian now awash rather hard with embarrassment "I mean the gum sticks look the same don't they? its like just the wrapper thats different."
"How would you know? the store never seems to HAVE OxyGum! So how do you know what it looks like!?" Daniel argued, knowing full well his friend could have no real response.
"aw Come on Dan! Its in the show! You see him eating it at least once an episode! I know what OxyGum looks like!"
Daniel, now feeling quite silly for not having thought of that himself, was determined to not look like the fool in this little arguement. HE was not the one using Arrowmint as OxyGum, Ian was.
"Aw man, thats just TV." he tried "maybe the real oxyGum doesnot look anything like Oxygum. We can not know for sure after all."
"I guess you are right" replied Ian, to a rather suprized Daniel who had thought that point he made was rather weak. "but its like long and flat, and so is Arrowmint. I thouhgt it was at LEAST worth trying."
There was a bit of a pause as both boys seem to be considering the whole conversation to this point.
"I did not really think it would work, anyway" Said Ian as a last grasp of dignity.
"And this is a pool, too.. not the ocean" Daniel added for support. They both knew that Marine boy swam out in the ocean, not their local public pool. They both got a little depressed over the fact that teh nearest beach was not reachable on pishbike before dinner. The had always wented to see if they could find a mermaid to talk to.
"Mermaids are cool." said ian. Somehow knowing Daniel was thinking the same thing.
Daniel nodded in agreement.
Both boys sat in silence making circles in the water with their feet for a while, contemplating important things and trying to come up with something to do.
After a few minutes Ian quickly jumped up and headed off in the direction of the store.
"hey! whats going on!? WHere ya going? What ya doing?" Asked Daniel, determined not to be left out of any fun or adventure.
"I just thought of something! yelled back Ian. "We know that Arrowmint looks like Oxygum, right, but doesnt work like it. At least, not here at the pool."
"yeah, so?" Said Daniel, not really knowing where this conversation was going.
"Well, I am going to the shop to get some Big Rad instead."
"Aw man" yelled Daniel out of dissappointment that Ian had not come up with something more interesting to do. "You are an idiot Ian. Big Red would definately not work!" He knew this, as he had tried it last week. "OxyGum isnt even RED anyway." he added, just for extra proof.
Ian stopped in his tracks. Realising the truth in that statement he seemed to shrink about two inches and looked totally dejected. He started walking back to where his fiend was sitting.
"so, what do yu want to do, then?" Asked Ian.
"Well, we could go back to my place and play some Atari." Suggested Daniel. "I broke my high score on Berzerk yesterday."
"you never did!" said Ian, who was really quite bad at berzerk, but was a champion at asteroids and loved to rub it in. "that score was way high!"
"did so too!" snapped Daniel who was rather affronted that someone as bad at teh game as Ian was questionin is greatness. "Lets go. I can show you my score sheet even."
All seven year old boys kepts their high scores written on a score card. It was proof beyond proof of their scores for comparison. Somehow it never occurred to them just streach the truth and write down a score they didnt get.
"Right then." said Ian, knowing that if the score was written down then it must be true. "I wanna see that score sheet. Lets go." and he added quickly "and I will play you in Asteroids when we get there."
"aw no fair!" said Daniel who knew Ian was unbeatable as asteroids, no matter how hard he tried.
"I called Asteroids! So thats what we are playing!" said Ian triumphantly.
"Yeah yeah ok" Said Dan, who knew it was simply not done to go acainst a call.
They walked out thru the turnstyle of the pool and started the short walk back to Daniel's house, thinking of the comfort of his Star Wars printed Bean bags in front of his big 48cm TV.
After a few steps Daniel looked around to make sure no one accept Ian was looking then took a deep breath. He blew out a rather quiet whistle and after a second or two frantically waved two fingers in front of his mouth and then flicked them up towards the sky.
The two boys stared up for a few seconds as they walked hoping beyond hope.
"I can never get the cloud to come and get me either." replied Ian.
I felt like walking anyway." replied Daniel, trying to mask his dissappointment.
"race you back to the hosue!" cried Ian and took off at a run..
"ah! you didnt count one two three go!" yelled Daniel as he took off after him, determined to beat Ian back even withought a fair start.
And just in case.. just in case.. he started humming the six million dollar man theme in his head as he ran. Just in case..
