The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [138]
5. Lanyards. Making lanyards (flat plastic thread box-stitched into a loop, bar, or creative shape) has been a treasured summertime activity. Lanyard strings were once extremely precious, and people who knew all the box stitch variations were popular and in high demand.
Nowadays, lanyard, or gimp, as some people call it, is more plentiful. It’s also more cheaply made, and doesn’t hold together as well when you cross it over in mysterious ways and pull it tight.
6. Cat’s Cradle. Now here’s an old-fashioned girl activity worth preserving. This two-person game of creating various figures with one string loop may actually be the oldest and most widely known game in the history of humanity.
Russians call it “the game of string,” and Chinese call it “catch cradle.” British geographer Alfred Wallace tried to teach the game to children in Borneo in the 1800s, only to have them show him new variations he had never seen. And Kenyan anthropologist Louis Leakey used it in the early 1900s to connect with African tribes.
It’s pretty much impossible to describe the intricate movements of cat’s cradle on paper without a lot of pictures. And it’s better to learn from someone in person anyway. So find a girl who knows and have her show you.
7. Ping-Pong. Forget nudging your parents for a horse; ask for a ping-pong table instead. Have a good supply of those air-filled white balls ready for when they lodge in the crevices between storage boxes that have been stacked high against the basement walls to make space for the ping-pong table. If you’re alone you can fold one of the table sides to vertical and push it against a wall to practice.
8. Harmonica. Invaluable for nights by the campfire when the embers are low, the camp songs are done, and nearly everyone has fallen asleep. Hold with your thumb and first finger. Blow breath into it, and draw it back through the holes. Experiment with sound. Flapping the other fingers up and down while you blow or draw will create a wavery vibrato.
9. Snowshoeing. The best sport for winter, because you don’t need a ski lift to get you up the hill. Just strap a pair of snowshoes on over your boots and head outdoors.
10. Temperature Conversions. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 9, divide by 5, and add 32. To convert temperatures the other way, from Fahrenheit to Celsius, subtract 32, divide by 9, and multiply by 5.
11. Bicycle Wheelies. Whether yours is a tough mountain bike or a ladylike pastel blue number with tassels out the handlebars and a basket, you’ll want to know how to pop a wheelie.
Once you’re at speed, lean forward, hands grabbing the handlebars, and then shift your body weight slightly up and backward. That should be enough to lift the front wheel off the ground, whether you’re doing show-offs on the street in front of your house, or trying to get your bike over tree stumps on a rugged trail.
12. Handball. It sounds ridiculously boring but it’s not. Find a clean wall with no windows, or another flat surface, and bounce a pink rubber ball against it, open-handed. It’s the best way possible to discover what your hands can do, and to learn about angles of reflection. Play alone or with friends, rotating in when someone misses the ball.
13. Take Things Apart. Old televisions and fax machines, a cell phone that no longer works, or a computer that’s ten years out of date and living its final years in the back shed: no discarded machine should go undismantled. Teensy-tiny drivers and hex keys can unlock the smallest screws, so grab a hammer and whatever does the trick and see what’s inside. That’s how the world’s best engineers learned what they know.
14. Time Capsules. This girlhood of yours is filled