“Nobody on this whole planet can beat me at shadow tag.”
I jabbed my chin toward my feet, standing in the middle of the evening field. I’ve got two shadows — everybody does, here, since our planet has two suns. The rule of the game is simple: you lose when both of your shadows get stepped on. It’s harder that way, which makes winning mean something.
“But you’ve got two, big brother. Can you really protect them both?”
My little sister Miki said this sitting cross-legged in the grass, calm in a way that seemed unfair for a first-grader.
“Two, three, doesn’t matter. Come on. Try and step on one.”
I took off running. Jump right, and my right shadow bolts right. Jump left, same thing on the left. Miki got up unhurried and went for one of them anyway. But I was way faster. I spun around, both shadows spinning with me, and slipped clean past the toe of her shoe.
“See? You’ll never catch it. Not in a million years.”
Miki let out a sigh and plopped back down in the grass.
“Giving up already? Guess that makes me the win—”
“Not yet.”
She pulled her knees up and stared off toward the hills in the west. I followed her gaze without really meaning to.
One of the suns was sinking slowly behind the hill. The glare faded, the sky went orange, and my right shadow thinned out — and then it was gone.
What was left was a single shadow, cast by the one remaining sun. Evening light stretches shadows long, and this one now reached clean across the field.
By the time I thought uh-oh, it was already too late.
Miki stood up and, with the sole of her shoe, tapped the very tip of that long, stretched-out shadow.
“Stepped on it.”
“No fair! That doesn’t count! You just sat there the whole time waiting!”
I was still yelling when Miki brushed the grass off her hands and said, cool as anything:
“You never said I couldn’t wait.”