Water Games

“Hey Pickles, what are you doing?”

Pickles peeked out from under his lily pad and blinked at  Quackers. “Shhh, I’m hiding.”

“Who are you hiding from?” The yellow duckling asked.

‘Meeeeeeee!”

Quackers let out a startled quack as Boppy came soaring down out of the sky.

“No, no, no, no!” Pickles tried to dive back under the lily pad, but the owl wrapped his feet around the frog and plucked him out of the water. Boppy flew Pickles to the other side of the pond and the dropped him back into the water, narrowly missing dropping him on Fin.

“Watch it,” the goldfish yelped, splashing out of the way.

“This isn’t fair,” Pickles protested, while Boppy flew off and landed on the tree at the edge of the pond.

“It was perfectly fair,” Thadius said. “You were supposed to stay hidden. That’s what you do in Hide, Seek, Swim, and Dive.”

Pickles flipped his tongue at the tadpole. “That should be a do-over. Quackers isn’t playing. If she hadn’t started talking to me, Boppy would have never found me.”   

“Yes he would have,” Fin said. “You were under the lily pad. You always hide under the lily pad.”

“Well … he wouldn’t have known which one.”

“The one with the light green tint, and a bit of yellow in it,” Thadius said. “It’s your favorite.”

“Well … Boppy doesn’t know that.”

“Everyone knows it,” Fin and Thadius said.

“That’s three to one,” Boppy hooted.

“You haven’t won yet,” Fuzzy Batrick said. “He was hanging from a branch and watching the water.

Boppy shook his head. He pointed to the side of the pond, where his three captives waited, and then to the other side, where a very wet and unhappy skunk sulked. He shook his paw in their direction. “I told you I didn’t like water!”

“Or me having to leave the water,” Fin said, “because I can’t.”

“Ditto,” said Thadius.”

“So what are we going to play?” Fuzzy Batrick asked.

“Tag,” Shelley said, sticking her head above the water.  “Same rules as the last time; no flying. Everyone stays on the ground.” She reached out and slapped Fin’s gill. “You’re it.” Shelley backed away from the water’s edge, but not fast enough. Fin flipped his tale and splashed the turtle with water.

“Now you’re it,” she laughed.