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Leaves, leave, leaves… big ones, small ones, oak, elm, birch, and my beloved maple falling…
I bike fast towards Maple Grove School. I can bike there on my own. I’m a big kid now.
Today is a big day, maybe the biggest of them all. Today, enough leaves have fallen, so it’s pile jumping day in the schoolyard.
My friends and I have been patiently watching the yellow, amber, and sienna-colored leaves fall, waiting for when the time was ripe. By the fourth grade, we are experts at knowing how many have to lay on the ground to create the perfect-sized cushy piles, whether jumped upon by graceful somersault or full-on belly flop.
Crunchy bits, twigs, and even ladybugs get stuck in our tartan jackets and dungarees and woolen hats. Adults care. The great thing about being a kid, we don’t care one leafy bit.
We eyeball the classroom clock. Morning recess — an unbearable tick-tock away.
The bell rings! Fifteen minutes of hard graft where we madly pile up the leaves under a row of giant maples, readying all for the lunch hour free-falling fun.
“Hurry! Hurry! Gather those over there! Pile them all!” We shout to one another. Our cheeks and noses a rosy red in the nippy air.
Another watched clock. This time, it’s for the full free hour at lunch. We tap pencils, shuffle feet, and barely focus on our schoolwork. There are more important things in life than memorizing times tables and crayon-coloring hibernating bears and nut-gathering squirrels.
Bell chimes. Whee! We are free!
Coats and hats fly in the cloakroom. Some of us don’t even bother to dress, dragging our cold-weather gear to the leafy piles as we run.
I run, too, my toque finally plunked on my head. I look up at the eastern sky. Clouds, low-lying, slowly swirling. It looks like what my mom calls a “snow sky.”
I shovel that chilly idea from my mind and run, run, run so fast, aiming for the biggest leaf pile of them all, as big as an adult is tall! One, two, three giant steps. A rocket high jump.
“Whee!” I cry, a toothy smile dons.
Thump! Crunch! Into Mother Nature’s crispy plates, I land.
Over and over, we laugh, we scream. Half-eaten sandwiches, quick gulps from carton milk. We run and jump and squeal all noon hour long.
The bell once again. This one not wanted. Our gleeful faces melt into frowns. Begrudgingly, we gather our coats and hats and lunch boxes and trundle in.
Fall is the best time of year for an Ontario kid… until a snow sky opens up and Mother Nature drops a different kind of fun — icy white, sparkling doily piles for our romping fun.
