Sand had never been one of his favorite things, especially when it was wiggling its way into his sneakers through the holes he could never find when he looked for them after he dumped them out. It was so gritty, and it got into everything! Whenever his mom brought him and his sister to the beach for a picnic, the sand managed to stealthily make its way onto the blanket, into his peanut butter sandwich and cuffs of his blue jeans. Even his socks, protected by the invincible-looking fortress of his tennis shoes, were vulnerable.

The beach was a place for people who didn't mind the bother of sand, the smell of wet dogs running and splashing in the salt water, the sun in your eyes or the worry of looking after your stuff so other people didn't take it. Simon wasn't one of those people. His mom and sister were all set to spend the early afternoon relaxing at the beach. Simon didn't really want to go, as usual. His big sister, Amanda, already in her one-piece bathing suit and accompanying shorts and sandals was whining that she wanted to leave, now. Simon's mom squatted down in front of him. "Come on, honey, you'll enjoy yourself. It's a great day outside," She took his hand and stood up, grabbing the peanut butter sandwich-filled picnic basket up. Simon wrinkled his nose, smelling the suntan lotion residue on his mom's hand. "Do you want to put on your sandals instead of sneakers? You'll be more comfortable?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"No, I'm fine, thank you." Simon sulked as he headed out the door to the car, dressed in a blue tee-shirt, jeans, white socks and sneakers. His mom and Amanda followed behind him, Amanda carrying the "beach bag," which had the blanket, sand-castle building materials, suntan lotion and other essential beach-stuff.

The sound of the waves was ringing in Simon's ears as he sat on the blanket with the beach bag and picnic basket watching his mom and sister walk to the water. They were tiptoeing through the sharp band of small rocks, broken shells, seaweed and the occasional dead crab that the tide washes up. He stared at them until the glare from the sun off the waves blinded him and he had to look down at the dark blue blanket. His eyes, used to the bright sunny afternoon, didn't adjust to the dark color of the blanket for a few seconds and he couldn't see anything. He blinked it away and glanced up cautiously again. The beach wasn't as busy as he had imagined it to be. There were several families scattered along the beach, and several more walking along next to the waves. Some really little kids were playing in a damp sand pit making what Simon thought were snowmen, but made of sand. And sure enough, Simon noticed a ways down the beach a big golden retriever splashing through the waves after a bright green tennis ball his master had thrown for him. Simon sniffed very hard, but he couldn't smell any wet dog smell, and that was good. The sun was hot, but there were some clouds out that kept it from being too hot. Still, Simon felt his legs getting pretty warm from the hot denim of his jeans, and his feet were feeling cramped and sweaty within the confines of is not-yet-sandy sneakers. He touched his head and felt how hot his dark brown hair was. He remembered his dad telling him about how dark cars got hotter inside than light colored ones did because dark colors kept the heat locked up inside. He wished he could have blond hair when he went to the beach so the heat didn't get locked up inside his head. Simon sat on the dark blue blanket wishing it were a white blanket and thinking about how he didn't like the beach. He sat there, with his arms resting on his drawn up knees looking around with squinty eyes at everyone having a good time at the beach. Pretty soon his mom and Amanda came back from playing in the water. "Having a good time, honey?" His mom asked pleasantly, drying off her legs with a towel. Simon wished his mom wouldn't call him 'honey' when everyone could hear. "Yeah," was all he said.

"Mom! I want to eat!" Amanda cried happily. Simon looked at his sister, salt water tangling her hair, sand sticking to her legs, a tiny cut on her left foot from stepping on a sharp piece of seashell, jumping up and down with excitement with the idea of eating a sandwich that would surely get sand in it. He felt a little jealous. "Right now? We've only been here about half an hour!" His mom told her. "I don't care!" Amanda shouted happily. "Let's eat! Let's eat, let's eat, let's eat!" "Are you hungry, Simon?" His mom asked.

"Okay," Simon replied, opening the picnic basket for them.

"Goody!" Amanda squealed. Simon tossed her a peanut butter sandwich, wonder how a eight-year old girl could act so babyish.

"Sit down and wipe as much sand off your legs as you can, Amanda," His mom instructed. She got a sandwich out for herself and handed Simon and Amanda a juice box.

Simon carefully unwrapped his sandwich, wary of the peanut-butter and jam goo that had squished out of the sides of the bread and stuck to the plastic bag. He didn't want any of that stuff on him getting him sticky. He sat and munched his sandwich while listening to the waves and watching the seagulls circle overhead. Amanda and his mom ate their lunch and laughed at the little kids playing in the sand who were trying to make a sand tower. Whenever the tower got more than two bucketful’s high, the sides started to slide away and the whole thing dissolved into a pile of wet sand. Feeling a little better after having a sandwich, Simon turned his attention to his juice box. He never drank anything until he was done eating. He also ate things in a particular order. Whenever they went to McDonald's, he always ate his fries first, then his hamburger and then drank his pop, although he usually couldn't finish the pop because it made him feel sick to drink that much sugary stuff. He peeled the little plastic straw from the side of the box and slowly pushed the pointy end into the foil circle on top. He took a small sip very carefully because he remembered the time his friend blew into the straw and then the juice came squirting up and got all over him. Simon had laughed then, but he wasn't going to get juice all over himself at the beach with all this sand around to stick to him.

As he drank, he felt and heard a rumbling noise. His mom and sister had noticed it, too. "It's a train!" Amanda said excitedly. She spun around to face the tracks that ran along the beach for as far as the eyes can see. Simon did the same, excited to see the train. Trains were cool, and counting how many cars it has would keep his mind of how warm his feet were getting.

The train was a big one. It was so loud that Amanda was covering her ears. Simon wasn't, though. He really liked the train. He stared straight ahead, counting the cars as they past directly in front of his eyes. He never looked down the tracks to count ahead. That always messed him up because he would start counting ahead and he would loose track of which ones he had counted and which ones he hadn't. He was up to forty cars and they were still coming! He was having a great time. Three minutes later, when the train's last car had past by him, Simon shouted "One hundred twenty-four cars!" He was so excited he accidentally squeezed his juice box too hard and some of the purple grape juice dribbled out of the straw and ran down his hand.

"Great, just what I needed," Simon muttered. This accident ruined Simon's good mood. He hated it when he did stupid stuff like this. Now he had sticky hands that would get full of sand. Simon really hated to be sticky.

His mom saw what had happened, and knowing how her son hated sticky hands, said "Why don't you walk down to the water and wash your hands?"

"Because I'll get sand in my shoes, and then I'll have to take them off, and I'll get sand stuck between my toes and everything will be a mess!" Simon told her. Amanda giggled and Simon threw her a mean look.

"Well, you should have worn your sandals like I said," his mom said. When she looked at how frustrated Simon was, she smiled. "It's a good thing I'm a mom, because mom's know about their sons," she said. She turned and dug around in the beach bag, removing a Simon's sandals a moment later. She handed them to him. Simon took them and looked up at his mom. He had to squint because of the sun behind her. He smiled at her. "Thanks, Mom, that was good thinking."

His mom smiled back and rustled his hair. "You're welcome. I want you to have fun out here. You're such an inside person, but you should take advantage of the nice weather and have some fun. Do you want some help with those?" She asked as Simon labored to untie his shoes with just one hand and the last two fingers of the other because he didn't want to get the laces sticky.

"No thanks, I can get it," he told her. "Thanks though." And he did manage, pulling off his socks and wiggling his toes on the blanket. He tried to avoid the sand, but at this point he knew it was hopeless. He just hoped that it wouldn't be too bad. He slipped on the sandals, disliking the feeling of the piece of plastic that fit in between his big toe and the one next to it. So he squished his toes over and made the plastic fit between the second and third toes. It was tighter, but it felt better. He stood up and brushed the sand from his bottom. He was looking towards the beach eyeing the water warily when his mom grabbed his hand.

"You better put some suntan lotion on your arms and cheeks. It's pretty bright out here," she warned.

"No, I hate suntan lotion," Simon told her. That is another reason he disliked the beach. Suntan lotion is so gooey and it smells. It makes your arms and face sticky, but also kind of greasy too. It was really annoying.

"You better put some on. I don't want you miserable tonight with a sunburn. Hold still," she told him as she squirted some into her hands. She spread it over his arms and dabbed it on his face. He squirmed and complained, but it did feel kind of good on his hot skin. Plus he knew he wouldn't get a sunburn, which was the bad thing about the beach that came later, so it wasn't so bad.

"Amanda and I are going to build a castle right here," his mom told him as he walked away, "and you can help if you want."

"Okay mom. Just a few minutes," he told her. He began making his way to the beach, head down, looking at each place he stepped. He saw lots of shells, most broken, although a couple of nice ones were still okay. The noise of the waves got louder as he approached. The sand got wetter, too. It was so wet that when he pressed his foot into it, the water seeped out and pooled up when he pulled his foot back. The suction feeling was kind of neat. He admitted to himself that he felt better with sandals on rather than shoes. The sun didn't seem as hot down by the water, either.

Simon reached the edge of the waves. He stooped and stuck his hands in and rinsed them, enjoying the cool water. It was so cool that he wanted to stick his feet in too, but he knew the sand would be annoying on his bare feet if they got wet. So he remained bent over to keep his feet dry.

After washing the sticky grape juice off his hands, he walked back a little ways and sat on a big log. There were a bunch of them grouped together. They had been there a long time and it hat people's initials carved on it. Simon wondered whether they had washed up like that or if whoever made the beach set them up like that. He guessed maybe the railroad people put them there. There was some garbage behind the log he was sitting on, and that made him mad. He didn't even like the beach that much, but he would never leave garbage on it. It was rude.

He sat on the log and looked around again. The dog that was chasing the ball in the water was running up and down the beach with his owner. They got pretty close, and even then Simon couldn't smell wet dog. That made him happy. In fact, sitting on that log, listening to the waves and watching the people and feeling the warm sun on his face and bare feet felt pretty good. He wasn't sticky, and his feet had a little sand on them but it wasn't so bad. He realized that he actually didn't mind being there. The clouds had covered up part of the sky, but it was still really bright. Simon noticed the way the sunshine was coming down through the holes in the clouds. He could actually see the rays of light shine down through the clouds to the water, where the waves made it look like a million shimmering lights were coming towards him. It was actually pretty.

Remembering his mom and sister, Simon turned around. They were having a fun time trying to build the same sand tower the little kids tried, and having about the same luck. He decided they could wait a few more minutes.

He studied the waves a bit closer, watching dozens of them. They weren't very big at all, but the tide was coming in and they were getting bigger and closer slowly. He looked further out at where they began as a just a swell of water, following them until they crashed on the sand and spilled forward. They had lots of white froth that stayed on the beach and dissolved into the sand as the water returned to the ocean. Simon tried to guess which of the waves was going to be bigger by judging the size of the swell that came before it. He could never really tell which was actually bigger, because all the little things going on with the wave were so interesting that he never saw the whole wave. His favorite part was at the exact second before the wave curled over on itself and crashed onto the beach. The water at that second was exactly straight up. It was like a perfect wall of water that comes tumbling down. He wished that he could stop time for a minutes so he could look at the waves at that second.

"Simon! Are you coming?" Simon heard his mom yelling. He turned and looked at her. "Come on," she shouted, waving her arm for him to come in.

He stood up and stretched. He realized how much time he must have spent just staring at the waves. "Okay, mom, I'm coming in a second!" He yelled back to her. He was seized by a flash of energy and he grabbed a handful of stones by his feet. He hurled them as far as he could out into the water, trying to make each one go a little further that the last. He came across a really flat rock, the kind his dad had told him was good for skipping. He watched his dad do it lots, but he wasn't that good at it. He concentrated, his tongue sneaking out at the corner of his mouth as it always did when he concentrated hard, and fit the smooth, flat stone in his hand. He took a few steps back and then rushed forward and flung the skipping stone across the water, trying to keep it flat like his dad had showed him. It flew out and bounced off the surface, landing again and sinking with a splash. Simon jumped up and shouted "All right!" He quickly turned to see if his mom had seen what he had done. She had, as had Amanda, and the two of them were clapping for him. Simon smiled happily and walked fast, almost ran, up to them.

"That was pretty impressive, Simon," his mom told him as she hugged him. "Good job."

"Yeah, that was cool, can you show me how to do it?" Amanda asked.

"Dad can teach you better than I can. He'll show you next time we come down here." Simon told her.

"Okay," she replied. "Are we going now, Mom?" She asked.

"Yes, we are. Help me pack up this stuff, okay?" She answered. "You were sitting down there for a long time, Simon," she said. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, they're fine. I was watching the waves," Simon informed her. "They are really cool."

"Good, I'm glad you enjoyed them," She answered, shaking sand off the blanket. "Everyone set?"

"Yes!" Simon and Amanda answered. As they headed back to the car, Simon ran ahead and sat on the grassy part before the bridge over the railroad tracks that lead to the cars. He pulled off his sandals and rubbed the sand off his feet in the cool grass. After getting the stubborn sand out from between his toes with his fingers, he pulled on his socks and sneakers. They felt heavier than before, but good also. They all climbed the metal steps to the bridge over the tracks. Simon looked back at the waves crashing on the sand and the sunlight shining through the clouds. "Well, did you have a good time today, Simon?" His mom asked, carrying the beach bag in one hand and Amanda's hand in the other. Amand was swinging the empty picnic basket in her free hand.