Adventure in the Playground

It was exciting when our Primary School announced they would be building an adventure playground especially for those in the last two years. I was one of the many who just fitted into this category. with just two years to go until High school, this addition to the playground was exciting.

Finally, construction was complete, and just about every tried it out… for the first few months. Then gradually, kids became bored with it. The track started to grow over in places, and me and my friends found a great spot half way around the track to build a secret hide out. It offered a perfect, discreet view of the uneven bars. My mates and I used to hide out there and watch the girls swing upside down. Unless we made a sound, teachers and students didn’t even know we were there.

The entrance, and the hideout looked like a enormous bush from the outside – we kept adding layers of leaves to it and digging the hideout deeper. After a while, we added in shelves and places to store stuff. We also added in some plastic chairs, a table for cards or chess and a periscope made up of tins and mirrors. It was a great huge hideout when we had finished.

After a few more months, the playground was virtually ours – with the exception of the gang of girls who always came to swing on the uneven bars. We conducted dares and games through the overgrown playground. Teachers stopped patrolling there after a while. As the year went on, we became more daring, and we started running around parts of the playground naked. No one ever seemed to notice. It was a great year of fun and adventure.

The following year, my last at that school, my friends gradually lost interest in the playground, but we continued to meet for a while in the hideout. and watch the girls dangle on the uneven bars. Even then, my friends slowly lost interest.

Then one day, it started. It was after a week of just me being in the hideout on my own did I notice a change in the behaviour of the girls. As I looked out at them swinging upside down, that one of them had let her shirt fall down revealing her flat chest. I took no notice at the time, thinking I was just seeing things. As i watched, one by one the girls deliberately pulled their shirts down, then let them slip off onto the ground.