The ball in the wall

This picture is from my dear friend Claire. Check out her blog HERE

So the story goes:

"Carrie! Hurry. I hear someone coming!" Joan whispered urgently.

"Oh no!" Carrie peered through the vines from her high vantage point, "It's Mary."

Joan let out an exasperated groan. 

"Joan! I'm slipping!" Carrie's foot slipped an inch down on Joan's slender shoulders.

"Do you have the ball?" Joan shrugged, causing her friend's footing to shift into a safer position.

Carrie blindly groped through the vines on the wall. "It's just above my head. I don't know if I can reach it!"

"Hurry! Mary is coming!" Joan grew tense as the tattle-tailing girl skipped nearer to them.

Joan knew she and Carrie would be in huge trouble if either of their mothers heard of them playing in the Baxter's yard without permission.

"What are you doing?" Mary Baxter sneered at Joan's terrified expression.

"Our ball just bounced away from us. We were trying to get it down." Joan stuttered. 

"Were you playing in my yard?"

Joan's grip on Carrie's ankles tightened. Carrie lost her balance and slid down the wall, madly grabbing the vines to slow her fall. Her knee scraped badly on the brick and she cried out.

Joan went at once to her friend's side, ignoring Mary's inquiry.

"Are you all right?"

"It's nothing." Carrie said, pulling her skirt over the wound. 

"Do you need a bandage?" Mary asked politely.

Joan and Carrie looked up in surprise. Were these manners coming from their snobby neighbor?

"I have some inside." Mary offered. "And if you still need help retrieving that ball, maybe it would be safer if I got some sort of stool?"

Joan was shocked and couldn't reply. Carrie remembered herself and spoke, "Yes, thank you."

Mary ran off and got what she had spoke of. A few minutes later she came back, wrapped Carrie's cut, wheeled out her bike, and she herself stood atop it to get her neighbor's ball.

She handed it to Joan.

"Thank you." Joan breathed in astonishment.

Mary gave her usual sneer, but Joan realized that it was only a smile. Mary couldn't help the sarcastic looking smile she naturally had.

Joan smiled in return.

"May I play ball with you?" Mary asked.

"Definitely."