The Sun's Nose

         Erik’s mother had only been gone for five minutes.  He was nine years old and his mother reluctantly left him home alone with his friend Carl to run to the store.  Not used to being left alone with his friend over Erik was feeling rather anxious, which is why they were hitting a golf ball with a tennis racket.  Erik was pitching the ball to Carl who was gently hitting it back to Erik but as the game went on, the hits got more enthusiastic and that’s when disaster struck.

                   The event unfolded in slow motion as Carl swung the racket and the ball went flying across the room hitting the hanging Aztec Sun the family had gotten on their trip to Mexico.  The sun, which looked like a sunflower, was about two feet in diameter and had a face on it.  The ball hit the sun right in the face and cracked the nose right off of it.

         Erik’s mind immediately ran through a list of stories to tell his mother but ultimately, he decided he would try to cover it up.  He grabbed some clay from the art supplies and tried to make a new nose.  It looked pretty good but the color was wrong and he was having a hard time getting it to adhere to the face.

         And in the midst of the attempted repair his mother came home.  Erik knew that his mother was not fond of Carl and didn’t want his friend to be in trouble so he decided to tell her that it was all his fault.          

         Erik’s penance was to paint the fence in the front yard which took him two weeks but he had protected his friend and this strengthened their relationship which would endure through the rest of their lives.


WORD COUNT: 300