On the Way Home From School

I hated Cesar!

"Why won't he trade cards with me? He can keep his beat-up 'ole card. Who cares!"

I cared. School had let out. As I crossed Broadway absentmindedly, I plotted how I was going to get that 1983 Topps Jim Rice baseball card. Rice was the only man I would ultimately ever steal for, and Cesar was the only other kid in the 4^th grade who collected cards. Getting Rice out of Cesar's aluminum Hulk lunchbox, undetected, would not be easy.

"Maybe he won't notice," I lied to myself.

The crossing guard chuckled at my mumbling as I passed her in the crosswalk. I stepped up onto the curb in front of the Broadway Bike School. On that day I was too preoccupied to look at the rusty one-speed with the vintage mustache handlebars that the store owners had mounted over the entry way. I liked that bike, but not as much as the 1983 Topps Jim Rice card.

It was the last one I needed to complete the Red Sox set!

A few steps after the shop I took a left into the alleyway between the school and my building. It was my path to and from school every day. I often played there with friends. Although distracted, I instinctively picked some burs from the burdock weeds growing out of the cracks at the pavement edges.

I almost made it to the end of the alley.

The thing had a long snout and tail. Plump, like an oversized rat. In my panic I could have sworn the thing had said, "We've been expecting you." I threw the burs in my hand, making the thing jump into the air. I screamed, turned, and ran all the way back to school.

City kids should really be told about possums.