Nikki and Deja

Nikki isn’t playing right. She’s holding her paddle wrong and she isn’t keeping her eye on the ball. Plus she’s hitting too hard and the Ping-Pong ball isn’t even bouncing on the table. Deja has to keep chasing it and she’s getting tired.  “You’re hitting the ball too hard” “Am not.” “Yeah, you are.” Deja lobs an easy one to her. Nikki completely misses it. “You have to keep your eye on the ball, Nikki.”

Nikki doesn’t say anything. She just digs around in the bushes behind her. She throws the ball hard back to Deja so she can serve again. It sails softly over the table and lands right in Deja’s hand. Nikki looks disappointed. Deja hits the next ball lightly, right at Nikki, as if she were five years old and Deja was teaching her how to play Ping-Pong by going very, very easy. Nikki watches it bounce, then doesn’t even trouble herself, it seems to Deja, to reach for it. She deliberately lets the ball bounce twice before she swings at it and misses.

Deja is exasperated. “You can’t let the ball bounce twice, Nikki. It can only bounce once. And you’re not even trying!” “Be quiet!” Nikki shouts. “You’re not the boss of me!” Deja puts her paddle down. “What’s wrong with you?” “Nothing! I’m just getting tired of you bossing me around” “I’m not even bossing you around! I’m just trying to tell you how to play.”Nikki’s face is scrunched so that her eyebrows jut up on the ends like a Halloween mask. Her mouth turns down as if she is about to cry. Then she does cry. She slams the paddle on the ground and stomps off to the porch steps.