Splat! A giant handful of seeds splatteredagainst my homemade barricade. My supplies were getting low, and my pumpkin wasten feet away. Melissa, who was in the corner between the house and the sidewalk,was still firing hard. I looked around and noticed the sky was darkening. Justwhen I was about to call it even, Melissa pitched a hunk and hit me right in theforehead.

"Ha! I got ya!" she screamed, laughing. I had to getrevenge. Cautiously, I leaned over the bale of hay in front of me and threw mylast glob of pumpkin guts. I heard it nail her. Now was my chance to get moreammunition. I grabbed my spoon, somersaulted along the row of apple trees, pickedup my pumpkin and fired a massive spoonful into Melissa's hair.

An hourlater we were sent to the showers. Mom was pretty upset about having to scrubencrusted pumpkin out of our clothes. She wouldn't have been so angry if wehadn't done the same thing the year before. My best friend Melissa comes overevery Halloween to carve jack-o-lanterns. In fact, she comes quite often to spendthe night. Out in the country, miles from town, we have to invent our own games.Since cornfields surround our house as far as the eye can see, we have to bepretty creative. Somehow, we always manage to get into some sort of mess ortrouble. One time, my mom gave us the simple job of picking up apples. It waslate summer, so many were scattered across the yard. Well, about 15 minutes intothis, Melissa and I were bored. As everyone knows, boredom leads to mischief. Itbegan with one rotten apple, and ended in all-out war. Instantly, it seemed thesmashed fruit was everywhere. The grass was wet with apples under my bare feet.This, of course, made things even more fun.

"Look, I'm skating!"I shouted as I slid down the ditch. We were laughing and falling all over. Thisseemed like the funniest thing in the world, until we spotted the broomstickleaning against the old shed. I don't know if Melissa and I think alike, or if itwas just obvious. Either way, Melissa grabbed that broomstick and we began a gameof baseball. I pitched rotten apples while Melissa swung the imitation LouisvilleSlugger. We got quite a kick out of the shower of applesauce that resulted fromevery hit. We had to stop the game when Melissa fell and suffered what could havebeen a minor concussion. Mom didn't think this was quite as hilarious as we did,though.

That night we planned to play our new game again, but it wastoo dark. We couldn't see the pitches, so we were forced to resort to chuckingthe apples at passing cars. I never realized how many purposes apples had untilthat day.

Some people claim city life is superior to country lifebecause it is so exciting. Be that as it may, I believe I will always prefer thecountry when I look at our initials that Melissa and I carved in a tree, or thinkabout our days running from farmers while raiding gardens. The country haswide-open spaces, blue skies, and, most important, it makes a person realize whotheir true friends are. If you can have fun in the country, you can have funanywhere.