Wait, you mean to say that you don’t have much bonus energy after addressing your basic tasks for the day? You don’t come home after school and jump on the trampoline?  Well, my just-turned-twelve niece has barrels of potential productivity 24/7, and I’ve learned these strategies from watching her. On the off-chance you’ll need this, here are twelve things you can do with that explosive extra fuel that you might be grappling with someday:

1. Spend hours making intricate Lego designs. Request a mind-numbing-looking kit for your birthday where you can build a majestic eagle in an afternoon. Then put a chunk of your birthday money toward a set where you can build a fox, dismantle it, and make another animal. This will all be exciting for you and something you look forward to resuming after school. And when that’s all done, make up something from your little bricks–a wolf, perhaps.
2. Have adventures in the canyon with your friends. And then draw a map of the canyon to show your aunt when she comes to visit around your tenth birthday. Don’t forget the fort this spring. You erect one of those by carefully choosing a neighbor’s tree overlooking the canyon. Next, create a framework surrounding part of the trunk using lots of sticks you and your buddies find in the vicinity. The resulting apartment will be just big enough for two smallish people to huddle inside. Or maybe one and a half people. Third, go ask the neighbor for permission to build your fort there. Finally, gather up pine needles and other organic debris and arrange it over the framework. It holds up so well, you can even create a window over the door that gives the illusion of a tiny loft space.
3. Roast in front of the fireplace. You heard that right. When there’s a fireplace log crackling with a comforting flame, lie curled on the hearth. Announce that you will first cook on this side, then the other side. And when you’re done with the process, you tell your aunt, you’ll end up “a nice medium rare.”
4. Celebrate your birthday gifts. No, I mean like really celebrate. Jump up and down making a joyful noise, if you have to.  And if a grandma surprises you with a hundred bucks, make sure the whole neighborhood is informed that you are now “RICH–RICH–RICH!!” Include that “HA, HA, HA!” just to add a fun miserly vibe to your jubilance. Then order Legos online.
5. Provide a Motivational Blast as requested. When your work-from-home aunt isn’t getting anything done and asks to be ordered to buckle down, you can do the following for free, and it has proven effective at times: tell her “GET TO WOORRK!” at a volume that could fell a brick wall. Even if that’s not quite the intensity your aunt wanted or expected, she’ll cringe and meekly start pecking at her keyboard. Meanwhile, you’ll say, “That felt so good. I’ve always wanted to yell at an adult.”
6. Get in a fight at the little free library. When you and your younger buddy approach the small cupboard of books across the street from a canyon exit, immediately start bickering as your aunt waits near the canyon. The child, having picked up a thriller novel, has to be told, “NO, that is not a kids’ book!” repeatedly in tones that carry over the neighborhood, impressing a passing jogger enough to smile at your aunt. The child continues to insist upon his selection, though, making observers wonder whether he presses his point on purpose.
7. Create dramatic scenes with your realistic plastic figurines. I mean, how else are you supposed to play with these items that keep showing up on your Amazon wish list? After an evening by the fireplace, your aunt might come upon a startling tableau. On one end of the hearth, wolves encircle a recumbent horse. Oh, dear! What happened to the poor thing? Worse, the wolves appear to be in various poses suggesting that our equine friend is providing dinner for them. One of the animals has his head turned to scan behind him in lifelike lupine-ish vigilance. But what’s this?  A few feet away, a man approaches on horseback with his faithful dog trotting beside him. Will the rescuers arrive on time to save the surrounded victim?
8. Show your hand occasionally. If Dad gives you permission to do something, say, “I asked you on purpose, because I knew Mom would say no.”  Follow me for more ways to make things interesting at home. For a whole collection of ways, actually.
9. Crank out paintings and drawings of your favorite subjects. Amongst your other crafts, paint and draw regularly so that you can start producing frequent pictures of wolves who seem to have expressions on their faces, a page sprinkled with dogs sniffing the ground and engaging in other doggy interests, and the start of a graphic novel with wolves in dialogue. You can even make paintings you can give away as gifts. For example, if you’re stumped for a gift to take to a friend’s duck-themed party, just paint a duck in any spare forty-five minutes. First, sketch the duckling out with a pencil on your canvas, referencing a picture your mom finds online. Then just start painting. Your friend will love the result.
10. Send your mom long, indignant texts that sound hilarious when read by AI. If you have a watch your parents want you to use exclusively for texting them in times of need, use it to express your irritation with your buddies. Your aunt will laugh as the auto text reader in your mom’s car says brightly, ” . . . And they are going to that place in the canyon that I’m not allowed to go . . . And they are such big jerks.”  “Reply?”
11. Help adults gain better insight into neighborhood dynamics. Your aunt might not quite understand about the local bully, leading her to respond to your aspersions with a comment like, “Well, maybe deep inside, he really wants a friend.”  She might grasp the state of things better if you say, “No, he’s just a jerk. This is not like the movies, where the villain has a sad backstory, but he’s actually really nice. It’s not like that. This guy is just a jerk.”
12. Help the dog hone his wits. If a prolonged period of skittering sounds followed by the patter of feverish Frenchie claws across the wood floor starts to pull your aunt out of her task at the computer (especially if the pattern is punctuated by low-pitched giggles from you), demonstrate to her what you’re doing. Show how you’re taking one nugget of dog food at a time and hurling it across the dining room so that the little dog scrambles for each piece. Your aunt may initially show some interest in the stunt, but soon ask you to stop. Not even she can take that for very long. But no worries! There’s always another project that will burn off calories, if you look. Meanwhile, it’s a good time to go read a book of your favorite comic strip.

Coming later: Photographic evidence of the benefits of being a live wire.