Finding Purple (fiction)

“This apple is red. And juicy and sweet,” my friend Sara said.
“My banana is yellow, and mushy, and peels,” I answered.
“Keep going,” said my mom.
We were in the back seat of the car riding back from the beach.
Mom gave us the snacks because we were tired of the long drive.
“Keep going where?” I asked.
“Sara said three things about her apple, and she started with a color, then you did the same thing. Keep going! See how many things and colors you can say”
I looked out the window.
“The grass is green. And it’s growing and tickly,” I said. “Your turn, Sara!”
“The sky is blue and high, and empty,” she said.
Then I did brown for the telephone poles and she did yellow for the sun.
I did black for the road and she did white for a house.
Pretty soon we had named every color we could find except purple. It was my turn.
Sara asked my mom, “Are we almost home yet?”
I kept looking for purple.
Sara asked my mom if we there yet again.
Mom said, “Let’s all look for purple together. Are any of the beach toys purple?”
“No,” I said.
“How about the towels?”
“No,” Sara and I both said together, “Jinx!” we laughed.
We looked at signs, other cars and trucks, and even gardens. No purple.
We were so busy looking for purple that we didn’t even notice we were on my street.
When we pulled into the driveway, my mom said, “After you help unpack the car you can go look for purple in the house.” Sara and I groaned.
We all climbed out of the car and Mom started laughing.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“Look,” she said, pointing to her purple flip-flops. “Purple helped us get home!”
“What do you mean?” Sara asked.
“Well,” explained Mom, “I told you to keep going. Your color game helped us handle the long drive, and my purple flip flops were on the gas pedal.”
She went into the house, laughing at her own joke.
“I don’t get it,” said Sara.
“It is funny that we looked so long for purple and it was right there the whole time,” I said, “But not ‘ha-ha’ funny.”
“Yeah, grown-ups,” Sara said rolling her eyes.
We brought the stuff in the house and Sara asked my mom, “Is it dinner yet?”