“Not to brag,” I tell him, “but I am a master at sandcastles.”
Posey hops to his feet. “Tell me your secrets of the sand!” he cries.
I move back a little from the water.
“First you have to find the right spot to build your castle,” I explain. “It can’t be too close to the water or the tide will wash it away.”
“You also need water to make your castle,” I continue. “So I always dig a hole down to the water, like this.”
I take my shovel and begin to dig a hole. Posey watches closely. I scoop and scoop the sand. The deeper I dig, the wetter the sand gets. Soon I hit water.
Posey peeks into the hole. “Wow! Now what?”
“Now we need an umbrella,” I say. I pull out my umbrella and twist it into the ground.
“Umbrella?” Posey asks. “Are you expecting rain?”
I laugh. “No, silly! This is a sun umbrella. It makes it shady so we won’t get too hot while we’re making our castles.”
Posey gives me two purple thumbs-up.
“The first thing you make is the castle’s moat,” I tell him, digging a big circle in the sand. “Then you build your castle on the area inside the moat.”
I reach into my water well and pull out fistfuls of wet sand and fill my bucket. I mix in some dry sand so it’s not too soupy. Then I pack the sand firmly and turn over my bucket.
“Ta-da!” I cry. “One castle tower.”
Posey frowns at my tower. “How are you going to build a whole giant castle with one bucket of sand at a time? It’ll take forever. And how will it fit in your tiny circle?”
“Wait,” I say to Posey. “We are not building a life-size castle, silly. Sandcastles are miniature castles.”
Posey taps the side of his head with his finger. “Ooooh, now I get it!”
Then we both get to work. I make two more towers, an archway, and some drippy spires. Then I fill my moat with water and decorate my castle with seashells. That’s when I notice Posey’s castle.
Oh. My. Gosh. His sandcastle is huge. It has watchtowers, arches, balconies, a working drawbridge, and actual windows. It even has a very tiny, but very real, king and queen! And a knight blowing a trumpet!