3rd Grade Memories

School

“When I grow up, I’m going to write things about white vans and blobs and dumb scientists. I’ll publish my musings electronically somehow.”

“You’re weird, Carter,” said Betty Lou, so I pulled her pigtails.

The Sweater

My parents made me wear an itchy turtle neck sweater so I “wouldn’t catch a cold”.

“Sweaters don’t kill germs,” I told them.

“Go to your room,” they told me.

“Pay attention,” I said to Mossy the Hobo. “If I lose the sweater, it’s too obvious, so I’m going to give you this dollar, and tomorrow when you see me walking with my mom you run out and steal the sweater from me. Don‘t screw it up.”

The next day I’m walking with my mother, and up strolls Mossy. He grabs the sweater, and starts pulling it off me. I put up a fight, to make it look good. A guy driving by sees the commotion. He jumps out of his truck and punches Mossy square in the face. Mossy crumples, and lies twitching in a pool of his own blood until the ambulance arrives.

The sweater was ruined, its arms stretched all to hell, so it all worked it out for the best.

Halloween

After trick or treating every other house in the neighborhood my friends and I arrived at the run down cottage at the end of the block inhabited by Granny Skuld, a mean old lady who everyone said put pins in apples and poison in candy and probably was a witch.

A vote decided Tony should go up and ring the bell, but he doesn't want to. “Tony, you go up there, or we will punch your fat belly until you cry,” we said, then hid in the shrubs to watch. He walked slowly up to her door and rang the bell. The door opened. He stood there silent and shaking for some time, then stepped into the house. The door slammed shut. Terrified, we ran away.

Back safe at our homes we tranquilized our fear with all the candy we had got. Like most children we had short attention spans, and soon forgot about Tony, whom we never liked much anyway. It was a shock when, three months later, some hunters found him, wandering naked in the woods outside of town. Strangely, he was even fatter than before his disappearance. He said he couldn't remember anything, and we kept our mouths shut.