I lowered my fuzzy head to the rich green earth, and gathered in my mouth a big sweet clump of its wonderful, grassy food.
The next thing I knew, I was being kicked in the ribs by small shoes. A child’s voice was saying, “Okay, mister, nice and easy now.”
“Keep him covered. If he tries anything funny, let him have it in the foot,” another child’s voice said.
A pair of freckle-faced boys stood over me. The boys appeared to be about ten years old. They were identical in every respect. Each was armed with a venal-looking longbow strung with razor-sharp hunting ordnance.
It was the Harris twins, Matt and Larry, with their bow-and-arrow sets.
In as cautious a voice as I could summon, I spoke to them. “Easy, guys.”
The sun floated high in the sky. It must’ve been well past the time for school to begin. I was dirty and my clothes were badly grass-stained. I said to the boys, “Put down your weapons. I’m your teacher.”
“If you’re our teacher, how come you’re out here eating the grass?” asked the first boy.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were. Like an animal. We watched,” the brother said, obnoxiously.
I told them, “When you get to be my age, and you have the fear of death, you’ll understand these things. Did you remember to pack your bag lunches?”
“Our mom’s got them,” they exclaimed in unison. Motioning with their bows and arrows, they directed me to rise. “Put your hands on your head and walk toward the house,” one of them commanded.
Did they think this was a game? Once school got under way I’d teach them a thing or two about endangering innocent people’s lives.
On the other hand, you had to hand it to them — and their parents. Carl and Deborah Harris had obviously done marvelous work in training their young sons for sentry duty. These boys were alert, cautious, under control; they weren’t taking any chances. Even now, as we came around the side yard and passed through the tall hedge of blooming jasmine bordering the walkway to the front porch, they kept a safe distance behind me. One of them called ahead, “Hey, Mom.”
Deborah Harris was standing on the porch. She clutched, in her middle-aged hands, those aforementioned bag lunches. Several other mothers and their anxious, dressed-up kids gathered in klatches on the grass and at the foot of the porch steps, like people at a church function. I recognized several youngsters from Story Time at the library. There was Steven Moody, the sensitive boy, with his overprotective mom, Sheila. And there was the boy named David, holding his redheaded infant brother, Tim. The despondent-looking girl, the one who always appeared to be weeping — what was her name? Jane? — perched on the bottommost porch step. She was drawing, in the dirt, with a stick, pictures of what appeared to be fish.