back.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she replied. “But it’s more than that, Jack. There’s a difference between walking on trails in the woods and getting into some old quarry where people are shooting.”
“That’s right, Jack,” his father continued. “We talked about the things you would do this summer if we let you and your friends set the agenda, and I don’t remember guns being on the list.”
“We weren’t shooting or anything,” countered Jack. “We just found those. We never did anything.”
“Jack,” began his mom, “you’re going to face a lot of decisions in life, and more often than not, what happens to you will be the result of those decisions.”
Jack looked down.
“If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she continued, “it doesn’t much matter if you were doing the right thing. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he answered too quickly. He knew instantly that he should have waited.
“I don’t think you do,” she reprimanded. “If you’re out walking and you see something that you know is dangerous, you turn around and come home. Then, you immediately tell me or your father.”
Jack nodded.
“Go get your friends, we want to talk to all of you,” said his mom.
Jack opened his mouth to protest and then closed it. He looked to his dad and back to his mom, they were not going to bend. He dragged himself back to the kitchen where Stephen and Ben were making breakfast.
“We started to make you eggs, but then we had to throw them away,” laughed Ben.
“Hey, come on, my parents want to talk to all of us,” said Jack.
“About what?” asked Stephen through a bite of toast.
“My mom found the shell casings, and they’re pissed,” said Jack.
“Oh shit — where were they?” hissed Ben.
“My pocket,” said Stephen. “God, what is she a psychic?”
“Just come on,” said Jack.
The three boys trudged back to the office. Jack’s mom and dad were standing together at the far end of the room. His dad waved them closer.
“Boys, listen up,” Jack’s dad began. “You’ve been pretty responsible this summer, but we’re afraid that you’re not displaying the best judgement. Most kids your age are having a very structured summer — camps, sports, volunteer work. We were skeptical that you could keep yourselves occupied all summer, but we were willing to let you try.”
Jack’s mom broke in — “We won’t — we can’t — have you wandering into trouble without even knowing it. We just heard yesterday that some older boys were shooting animals over in that quarry and today we found out that you boys were over there too. I know you weren’t a part of that, but you still could have been hurt.”
She paused to composer herself. “So, no more wandering around. You can play in our yard, and sleep in the house at night.”
Jack couldn’t contain himself anymore — “Mom, you can’t be serious. We didn’t even do anything.”
“Jack,” she said, “you’re not hearing. You don’t have to do anything wrong to be hurt. All you have to do is not do something right. I have a whole book of summer activities upstairs if you’d rather I sign you up for something.”
“No,” Jack pleaded. “But why do we have to stay in yard? Can’t we just not go to the pits anymore?”
“This is not a debate, Jack,” said his father. “Our job is to keep you safe so that one day you can make your own informed decisions. This is not yet that time.”
“Where will we even sleep — we can’t fit three in my room,” asked Jack.
“You can have the basement rec-room,” answered his mom. “Get your sleeping bags set up down there.”
The room was quiet for several moments. Jack didn’t want to look to see how Stephen and Ben were taking the news so he looked at the floor. His shoulders slumped, weighed down with the punishment.
“Okay? Go finish your breakfast,” directed his mom.
They turned and shuffled out. Back in the kitchen they cooked and ate in silence.
They laid out their gear in the basement. Trouble settled on the three boys.
Stephen tried to lighten the mood — “Hey, only nine more days for me.”
“Very funny,” replied Ben.
“Don’t blame me, they were looking for an excuse to take away our privileges,” said Stephen. “That was
“I wonder how they found out about the kids shooting those animals?” pondered Jack.
“Probably that target guy,” said Ben.
“Yeah, but he wasn’t even there when they shot the cat,” reminded Stephen.
“Maybe Smoker threatened him and then the cops staked it out,” said Ben.
They sat down and turned on the television. Outside the gray morning had turned into a drizzly afternoon.
“What if we told your dad about the dog. Maybe he would realize we were doing the right thing,” said Ben.
“That’s dumb,” said Jack. “He would just be more pissed that we were there and didn’t tell anyone. Plus, it’s my mom we have to worry about.”
“That’s true,” said Stephen. “She’s definitely calling the shots there.”
“Hey, shut up, dumb-ass,” said Jack.
“Douche-ism,” said Ben. “It’s contagious.”
“Who are you talking to?” Jack turned to Ben.
“Both of you,” replied Ben.
“What the hell?” asked Stephen. “What did I do?”
Ben raised his hands — “Who are you guys pissed at?” He turned to Jack. “Your parents? Big deal. So we find stuff to do inside for a while. They’ll calm down.”
“But there’s still tons of stuff we should do,” said Jack. “I just got my sling off.”
“And what about that red light?” asked Stephen. “We should be out there right now, finding out what was going on with that.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Besides, we didn’t
“Wait, wait,” said Ben. He lowered his voice and leaned towards Jack and Stephen. “Why don’t we just wait until night and we’ll look for the light again.”
“We’ll never find it,” said Jack.
“No way — it’s
“That’s true,” said Stephen.
“Oh, man. You guys are insane. My mom will kill us,” said Jack.
“We’ll be careful,” said Ben. “How did she catch us before? Laundry? All we have to do is check our clothes really carefully when we come in. If they’re wet from dew, we’ll just hide them until they’re dry.”
“And we’re in the basement, and they’re all the way upstairs,” continued Stephen. “We can sneak out this door and they’ll never know.”
“What if she checks on us?” asked Jack.
They were silent as they considered this possibility.
“Fort. We’ll build a pillow-fort with these two couches,” said Ben. “We take all the cushions and put them parallel, like this,” he demonstrated. “Then all we have to do is stay in one night and the second night she’ll just figure we’re in there. If she comes down tonight, we’ll all be in back and when she looks to see where we are we just make a big deal about it.”
“Yeah,” said Stephen, “you just go ‘What’s wrong? Mom? Is that you?’ and then we’ll all be up and she’ll feel bad.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, furrowing his brow. “Maybe we should just play it cool.”
“Give it a day,” said Stephen. “You’ll change your mind.”
