-Breanna.R age 16, junior in ohio-

After the third day of subjection to ultraviolet radiation, I was waiting red crust on my shoulders to crack; like when a spoon hits a crème brulee.  The tautness of skin was constantly battling with my inner commentary telling me that sunscreen was for wimps (and those intelligent enough to remember it). Irish heritage, low melanin, and lack of shade are not a good combination. The sun reflected up from prairie grass, ensuring that I baked evenly from all directions. I could stare into the sun without looking up as it reflected off the back of my hammer head. My old basketball shirt stuck to my back, and I dried my hand to ensure my grip while I pounded the poles in to the cracked earth. The usual temperature that laughter gives to the breath of my brother could not be distinguished from the moving air around me, but I knew it was there as the wind wrapped the old floral bed sheet around me and he smiled. He saved me from my suffocating entrapment.

 It was one of those moments that I thought perhaps if I was alone I would have died; those kind of random deaths that we avoid today because we are cell phone calls away from help, ambulance rides away from hospitals. Was it possible in another time my death would have been the senseless act of summer weather and a bed sheet? Most likely not, but it was a thought; and I could not help but grin at the thought as I rolled out of my mummification of sweat and weird 90’s fabric.

We fastened the makeshift tent material to the ground, making slits for doorways. We climbed inside our hut, its shallow height and sloping sides did not inconvenience us too much, and we poured overly-sunned water down our throats. We let the doors flap on each side of our tent untethered to keep the tent from becoming a stagnate steamer. I used the last of my water to soften my leathered shoulders, knowing my sister would arrive in a few minutes with a quantity of lemonade that would have sustained armies in nice weather; I would probably fight my brother for the last drop considering the gods had blessed this day with mercury movements in the thermometer not seen in the last five years summers …