"Bernice! Flapjacks are ready."
"Yay!" Bernice bounded out of bed in her spotted jammies, the smell of cinnamon and maple syrup greeting her nostrils as she bounced down the stairs towards the kitchen.
It was a Saturday and the Dunn house usually had a big breakfast on the weekends. Her mother, a plump stout woman, had a plate of flapjacks each for Bernice and her brother, Marcus.
"Where's dad?" Bernice asked as she sat down.
"Power line dropped over in Northwoods Park, dad got called in," her mother said. Bernice's dad worked for the town's utilities.
"Aww," Bernice said, shaking her bag of mixed cereals. One of Bernice's favorite brand of cereals was released only in the fall, and she would convince her parents to buy all the flavors so the spooky berry, chocolate, and cinnamon shapes could be mixed together.
Her mom smiled as she poured milk in Bernice's bowl. "But he did manage to round up the leaves in the backyard before he had to go."
"Awesome!" Bernice said before she dug into breakfast, eating all the more eagerly with the promise of freshly raked piles of leaves for her. The Dunn's doted on their kids in various ways and one of Bernice's favorite fall activities was jumping into the mounds of leaves. They even left the trampoline up until it got too frosty.
"I'm going to jump in the biggess' mound o' leaves," Marcus said with his mouth full. He was over three years younger than Bernice.
"Nu-uh!" Bernice challenged. "I call dibs on the biggest leaf pile!"
"AFTER breakfast," their mom chided, "and not in your sleeping clothes. You'll need to get changed before you go outside. Now eat up, I can tell someone is excited."
As if Bernice needed any excuse to eat faster. Their backyard was shadowed by some gigantic maple and elm trees, so plenty of the colored leaves filled the yard every autumn. Most of their neighbors hated dealing with the leaves but the Dunns loved it. Her father often left the leaves around to be piled up for a few days so the kids to could play before he hauled off the leaves to compost.
Bernice ate all her pancakes, cereal, eggs and bacon and skipped begging her mother for pop-tarts as she rushed back upstairs to get dressed, her brother rushing after her.
"Me first!" Bernice called out before entering her room to get dressed. She quickly dressed in some thick tights, long shirt and zippered pullover as she oogled the big piles of leaves in the backyard. Adjusting the last of her clothes as she hopped out of her room, Bernice made a beeline to the backyard.
There were three big piles almost four feet high, perfect for jumping and romping in. Bernice huffed from her quickened paced as she climbed up the trampoline to line up her jump. She bounced once, twice...
"YAHOOOO!" she shrieked, belly-flopping into the leaves with a satisfying, well-padded crunch. "This is awesome!" she cheered, trying to swim through the leaves.
"Wait for me!" Marcus, coming up late, launched himself from the trampoline, with Bernice ducking out of the way just in time.
"Hey! Watch where you're landing!" Bernice flung some leaves his direction.
The spat grew into a full-blown leaf war, Bernice and Marcus giggling as they thrust leaves at each other. The mound was destroyed in minutes. Winded, both siblings fell back onto the smaller pile in a fit of hysterics.
"Fall days are the best!" Bernice said, and with Halloween coming up it could only get better. Besides a morning of leaf jumping, Bernice had big plans for the day.
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