...Tweenaged girls playing.
BOY do they know how to traumatize the person who has only minutes left before they begin teaching and are going to be by default the one to clean everything up. (It's part of what I just do as an assistant instructor; I clean the room up and tidy things so that our class doesn't have distractions.)
...To their credit. They did start cleanup once they realized that, yes, there was a class coming in ten minutes. But dang girls, do they know how to make a mess. I'm oh so glad they also know how to clean one up, but I sure had no way of knowing they would in advance so I was sitting there worried that their big huge mess was about to become my big huge mess. And it was a relief it was (mostly) not.
That does give me ideas for why so many magical girls tend to be that age though. One of the main factors about magical girls--nigh universal--is how they tend to upset the status quo. They disrupt the natural balance of things. They interfere with plans in motion. They change the course of reality. They are agents of chaos in a sense, because an incredibly common trait they possess is a strong belief in the freedom of choice and whatnot.
And it's at that age where you get that trait at its strongest. That's also the magical time where there's the highest balance of the imagination and idealism of childhood and yet the maturity, responsibility, and wisdom of adulthood. They have a fair idea of what's right and what's wrong, they have at least a reasonable ability to know how to prevent from being led astray, and yet they still inspire in others an innate sense of goodness and innocence because they genuinely believe in a better world.
So that thought was a nice one. It's something I'm a little sad I largely missed out on. Unless, of course. You count me as I currently am as being in that state. Because, after all...I've only known I was a girl for three and a half years. I've had somewhat-stunted growth, and I'm still growing as a person on every level. I personally think I'm probably a little too far past that point, sadly, (I've got too much cynicism within me, too much bitterness within me, and too much perversion/darkness/sadness within me--it'd probably be more accurate to say I'm emotionally a teenager than a tweenager or a child in spite of me being 23) but you could make the argument all the same.
Butyeah. While I'm sad I mostly missed out on it, I was still happy to see them do their thing. Able of making a mess, yet equally able to clean it up. Childish, playful, full of life and energy, yet having the responsibility and respect to know about the weight of their actions and what to do about them. That's something we should always strive for.