Mini Golf

Copyright Julia Bydulia.

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"Your turn!"

Rich, Danielle, and I were all playing miniature golf. It was Saturday, the course was a little bit soggy and the sky still looked damp from the light rain it had let down that morning. I was wearing my hoodie as protection in case the heavens decided to drench us again. It felt heavy on my shoulders, rolled up to my elbows.

Rich was leaning on his short golf club with its pink handle, staring at me intently while both of them waited for me to take my turn. He had shaggy brown hair and a long straight nose on which he wore a new piercing each day. Now, most times seeing a guy with a nose piercing is tacky, gross, weird, or a combination of all three. But, somehow seeing it on Rich every day just works. It does that on some people. He was tall and skinny with a lot of promise to keep getting taller without gaining an ounce of weight (if I could only be so lucky) like those trees they plant at the park when they "landscape" it.

I picked up my golf club (complete with a purple handle) and walked toward my bright yellow ball, sitting about ten feet away from the hole. I always felt like a giant on mini golf courses, even as a little kid, but, especially now, standing almost six feet tall while eight and nine year olds wait their turn with their mothers and fathers at other holes.

"Are we a little old for mini golf?" I ask, lining up the club, the ball, and the hole in my sights.

Danielle shook her head and beat her club against the green (is that stuff supposed to look like grass?). "How could you say such a thing? Blasphemy!"

I laughed and hit the ball roughly in the direction of the hole, missing it by about two inches. "Damn," I muttered, trying to be quiet enough to spare the children their innocence.

Rich stood up straight and strutted toward his magenta ball with purpose. "Move over girly," he said to me, pushing me slightly out of the way. "Watch how a real man plays his mini golf." He cleared his throat and shook out his arms before planting his feet and lining up the club and the ball and the hole exactly as I had done.

"A real man, huh? Do all real men wear their sister's prom dress?" I asked, smirking and waiting for him to look up.

He didn't, though. He spoke to his gold club and the green carpet-grass-thingy under his feet when he responded. "That was one time. I was nine. And you will not--"

"Let you forget it," I finished for him as he clenched his teeth and tried to relax his golf stance.

He failed.

Danielle was sniggering to herself, leaning on her gold club as Rick had casually been doing just a minute before. She had long, chocolate brown hair that reached the middle of her back when she wore it down. Then, she was wearing it up in a sloppy ponytail to keep it from making the humidity unbearable. She was nearly as tall as Rich with mountainous breasts (compared to my anthills) and a curvy physique. She was the best dressed fat girl at our school, and she knew it as well as everyone else.

When Rich finally took a swing at his ball, it flew off the green and into the rocks and he banged his club against one of the fake rocks that was scattered through the course.

"Rich. Time to take a deep breath and take the par five that you deserve. Move along," I instructed him. Danielle marked both of our par fives on the score card, underneath her par two, and we all walked down the cheesey stone path to the last hole.

"This is the big one. Sure you to ameteurs can handle it?" Danielle set her ball down at the beginning of the course and planted her feet the same way Rich did. She was the Queen of Mini Golf. We always played the castle course at at the end, Danielle would climb on one of its walls and announce that we were all her "loyal servants." It made me laugh and it made Rich scowl. I still wasn't quite sure why he still came to our mini golf shindigs.

I scoffed at Danielle. "You are going down, Smitherson. So. Far. Down."

She just laughed and swung her club, sending the ball directly into the first hole which sent it down to the next level. We all leaned over the railing to see it emerge from the pipe on the second level of the hole.

"Hole in ONE!" Danielle screeched, already halfway through her victory dance as I set down my ball to take my turn. "What's that? Three total? OH YEAH."

I laughed and tapped my ball politely, not wanting to hurt its feelings. I landed in the hole, but, when my ball emerged on the second level, it landed right next to the last hole instead of in it. I grunted in frustration and kicked the railing as Rich set down his ball. I crossed my fingers in my pockets for him, not wanting my good luck to be stolen by Danielle's eyes. It was for Rich.

His ball landed in the first hole and all three of us leaned over the railing, eager for a hole in one. Rich's ball rolled out of the pipe below and kept on rolling. Instead of ending up in the hole, his knocked mine inside and remained in mini golf limbo, directly on the edge of the hole.

He rushed down the stairs and started throwing a fit right next to the ball, screaming at it and banging his golf club all over the place as if the ball could hear and the club could feel.

"Are we going to get thrown out again?" I asked Danielle.

She shook her head, laughing. "I doubt it, but, he should probably try to avoid bending that club."

I smiled at him and nudged Danielle. "You know, I technically only hit my ball once--"

"Shut up. It counts as two, you mini golf loo-ooser." She bumped my hip with hers and swished away down the stairs.

I stayed up top, leaning on the banister and watching the two people I loved the most: one in a way we both understood, and another in a way I was too scared to communicate. Rich made my heart race, and not just because of his short temper. Something about those bottle-green eyes--

"LILIAN GET YOUR LOSER ASS DOWN HERE. WE'RE GOING OUT FOR ICE CREAM!" Danielle screamed at me. Rich was sitting, defeated, on the ground while Danielle started cabbage patching all over the course.

I laughed and started down the stairs.