On a hot summer day in mid-July, where the sun scorched your skin to red, blistering parchment, two youthful ladies were lounging in the shade beneath the overhanging branches of a weeping willow.

Cadence snapped her head up from her sketchbook. "Will you cut it out, please?!" she glared at her kid sister through narrowed eyes.

Hadlee lay slumped in a hammock, oscillating from side to side. The ropes squeaked every time she swung to the other side. A hand emerged from the hammock cocoon containing a young girl and descended towards the ground. Its fingers picked up a pebble and clenched it into a fist. The hand clipped its thumb beneath the pebble and flicked it.

Thud!

Hadlee brought forth a frustrated groan when her umpteenth attempt to hit an emptied bottle of beer standing on a wooden fence. The pebble hit a wooden beam instead.

"You're never gonna hit that thing. Might as well call it quits." Cadence shook her head and lowered her eyes as she made another attempt to finish her drawing.

Thud!

Cadence leaped up in her chair, staring daggers at her guilt-ridden sister. The latter turned over in the hammock and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. Loosening her jerked-up shoulders, Cadence made a final attempt to continue her drawing. The 14-year-old ginger was a true artist, a prodigy, and a promising drawer who was highly regarded by all the creative teachers at her school. Even though Cadence was a marvel at creating living and breathing landscapes with her pencil only, she mostly drew mythical creatures like mermaids, elves and fairies, and such. Her preferred choice was the unicorn, ideally one with a purple coat, a golden horn, and big, round eyes that shone like a full moon in a cloudless night sky.

Cadence was drawing one right now. She was nearly finished. Just a little sketch here and a finishing touch there and–

CLANG!

Cadence's pencil scratched a straight, fat line through her magnificent drawing.

"Bullseye!" Hadlee jumped up from her hammock. The 12-year-old runt shot both arms in the air in a victorious pose and flashed her teeth in a big grin.

"Hey!" Hadlee whined when a wad of paper landed against her face. "What was that for?"

"That's for ruining my drawing! Now I have to start all over again!" Cadence sighed as she grabbed another piece of white, clean paper from her bag.

"No! Please! No more drawing, sis. We're on vacation now. Come on! let's do something like, I don't know, really awesome!"

"Something… really awesome?" Cadence gave her a wary look.

"Yeah!" Hadlee looked about frantically, flapping her pitch-dark, shoulder-length curls into a jaunty dance. "Like, uhm… climbing that tree there, for example."

"And that's really awesome because?"

"Or… play on the swings!"

"Ugh," Cadence said. "I get airsick on those things."

"How about the trampolines?"

"Uh, nope."

"Take a dip in the creek, catching crawfishes?"

"That's boring,"

"You're boring!" Hadlee flashed her finger.

"Oh, wait! How about we take a hike to that secret place we found near the waterfalls!" Cadence beamed, shouting a suggestion of her own.

Hadlee intended to reject her sister's idea as payback for dismissing her own ideas. But revisiting their secret place indeed sounded awesome! Cadence recognized the excitement in Hadlee's eyes.

"Is that a yes?"

Hadlee crossed her arms, looking surly back at her sister before answering with a radiant smile she could not suppress.

"Let's go right away!" Hadlee charged ahead to grab her bag. Her foot swiped a rock, and she almost fell face-first into an anthill as her elbows skidded across the ground, leaving behind a light scrape wound.

Cadence chuckled. "We have to ask Mom first, silly,"

"What do you girls have to ask me first?"

Both Cadence and Hadlee looked up at the sudden voice of their mother – Hadlee from her awkward position on her stomach as (unknowingly to her) a sea of ants teemed about beneath her countenance. She shrieked and quickly leaped up when hot needles were injected into the skin of her left forearm when some of them started biting her. Inspecting it, Hadlee looked wide-eyed when some ants were crawling over her arm.

"Nasty things! Naaa! styyy! thiiiiings!" Hadlee frantically flapped her arm with her hand as she tried to get rid of them.

Hadlee's mother looked concerned and Cadence was chortling as they watched Hadlee dancing around.

"Everything alright, dear?" Hadlee's mother asked.

"Wow, sis! That was definitely a TDA-worthy performance you pulled off there!" Cadence said.

"Shut up! I've got all of these itchy lumps now." Hadlee whined while scratching the red dots that were visible on her arm.

"They will go away eventually, sweety," Hadlee's mother reassured.

"Hey, mom!" Cadence stepped forward, cutting to the chase. "Is it okay if Hadlee and I go play near the waterfall?"

"Uhm, yeah, of course, I don't see a problem in that."

Both girls cheered.

"After you've washed the dishes and cleaned up your tent," their mother added.

Both girls lamented.

"Can we do it after, mom? Pleeeease!" Cadence pleaded.

"Yeah! We promise we will make those plates and cups shine like a dog's cock in de moonlight!" Hadlee curried favor in her own idiosyncratic manner, which granted her baffled glances from both her mother and sister.

But their mother was unmoving in her decision. She simply shook her head. "Sorry ladies, first cleaning than playing."

"We never get to decide our own things around here!" Hadlee screeched while kicking a chair, creating a loud noise as it tumbled over against the wooden fence.

"Hey! Do that again, and I'll halve your tablet time for the rest of the vacation, young lady!" Their mother took an authoritative pose by placing her hands on her hips and scowling at her curly daughter.

Hadlee snorted. She turned her back towards her mother, crossing her arms, sulking like a kindergarten sprout. "Choke on your tablet." She mumbled, barely audible.

"What did you say?" their mother's furrowed brows deepened further.

Cadence stepped between Hadlee and their mother. "She said that she'll be happy to oblige your wishes, mom," she beamed her sweetest grin at her mother in an attempt to mend what her sister was busy messing up.

Their mother gave one final disapproving glance at Hadlee before walking off, leaving the girls to themselves.

Cadence sighed and walked up towards Hadlee. "Idiot! You nearly ruined it for us with your blazing conduct!"

Cadence flinched when Hadlee stormed past her, barely bulldozing her over.

"Hey! What's the matter with you?!" Cadence fumed.

"This is what's the matter with me." Hadlee clenched her fists as she towered above the anthill. Hundreds of ants hustled about at her sandals, zealously performing their function. They were entirely oblivious to the danger looming above them.

"There!" Hadlee started mashing as many ants as possible with her sandals. It felt good to her. Her chuckles intensified as many ants perished beneath the might of her sandal. Then some ants managed to climb on her sole and started biting her toes.

Hadlee shrieked, infuriated, and rubbed them off with her hand. She looked about and a sardonic smile crept upon her mischievous face when she localized her sister's spray of deodorant in the latter's bag. Before Cadence could react, Hadlee dashed forward, grabbed the deodorant and pulled a lighter out of her back pocket.

"Where did you get that zippo from?" Cadence watched, surprised.

"I borrowed it from dad." Hadlee crouched down in front of the ant hill, savoring the pleasure of it.

"Does he knows you borrowed it?"

FFFGGRRUUUUUUMMMMM

A beam of fire shot towards the unsuspecting ants, charring many of them to lifeless humps of black, tilted carcasses. They all scurried off every which way in an attempt to escape the wrath of the teen Goddess looming above them in her sandals, shorts and sleeveless sportswear. Hadlee's laughter heightened to maniacal volumes when more and more ants perished as their natural habitat was turned into a hellish inferno.

"You're pretty psycho, you know that, right?" Cadence came ambling up to Hadlee.

"No! It's you who is docile." Hadlee stood up, piercing a finger in Cadence's face.

"What do you mean?" Cadence looked puzzled.

"What do I mean, you ask?" Hadlee rolled her eyes. "This is what I mean, sister! Being here. Forced to comply with the demands of mom. Serving her at her every beck and call. I'm sick of it!"

Cadence scoffed. "You speak like mom's a slave-driver or something. It's nothing less than reasonable of her to expect us to do our share of the chores needed to make things running around here."

"Well, if you believe that, you're even a bigger fool than I thought."

"For christ's sakes, Hadlee! What is it you want?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Hadlee spread her arms wide, all theatrically. "To be in charge for a change. To make others do the things I want, instead of the other way around."

"Then become Queen. You'll have a house full of servants to order around then."

Hadlee scoffed. "You know darn well that that's never going to happen."

"Well, neither is you becoming in charge of anything. Not in the near future, that is at least."