Previously: Lizzy and her friends were sitting and standing around on her front porch. Timmy said something to cause Lizzy to push him off the railing. Next she knew, she was being chased around by Timmy’s cousin, Teddy. He had a B-B gun.   

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“I thought if I ran onto the cross street I could reach the school grounds faster than my gun-wielding assailant.  That way I would have more room to zigzag.”

As I came around the corner of the dirt road, Teddy met me. Very aware his gun was still stuffed full, with B-B’s was enough of a catalyst for me to get those powerful yet tired legs pumping even harder and faster climbing the hill to the school building.

It seems this episode of the hunter and the hunted went on until Teddy’s long, fully-packed, barreled gun was emptied of ammunition. I got hit so many times that day, it far exceeded the sum total of times he’d ever hit both Timmy and me from across the brook near the pink rocks.

After giving Teddy a good chase around the building, we had raced from under the eighth grade classroom, to the fourth, ending up beneath the seventh grade. 

 The extra challenge for Teddy was the slanted angle of land running around the giant pine tree. He couldn’t accurately shoot and keep his balance at the same time. 

I was sure he must have been almost out of B-B’s, and headed back down the hill toward home. We were both slowing and beginning to laugh together. He couldn’t stop to steady his aim anymore. He was laughing so hard. 

After that strenuous adrenaline rush for both, play proceeded peacefully as usual.  There never seemed to be any grudges held among any of them. 

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Kickball

When the weather was good and enough neighbor kids could be rounded up to play kickball, everyone gathered in the lot directly across from my house.  

Any fizzling enthusiasm was reignited when someone kicked a foul ball toward the brook.  Everyone ran to save the ball before it went down over the bank into the rushing stream.  

If we failed in this attempt, we had one more chance.  Running along the steep embankment, we raced each other and the stream to outpace that ball before it went through the culvert under the bridge. 

Sometimes we get there even a little ahead of the ball, having to shoot some rocks at it, hoping to dislodge it from some fallen branches, jamming it up.  It was always touch and go.  

If the timing wasn’t just right, the ball would slip away from our hands and out of reach forever. This was always such a serious moment, as our local store was not stocked with kickballs.  

No one ever intended to kick the ball into the brook. They all knew it might mean the end of the game for the day or the week or for the rest of that month.

We asked the store owner to buy some kickballs to sell. We’d be his biggest customer. He said, "You should have your mother get a bunch of them the next time she goes to the city.”      

I always liked to think somewhere, down that long brook, there were some other kids who got to play with our former kickball.  

When we were wading around the sewer pipe from Timmy’s, he spotted a colorful orb bobbing toward us. Nike popped it out from the water before it was stolen from us, over the little falls and an impossible chase would challenge us.  We were so excited, we couldn’t wait for the next game to be able to use our new gift from the brook.

Sometimes when we were having fun playing kickball, too often, a disruption would spark in the nearby field. We would have to stop the game to rescue our friend, who was being bullied and beaten by some other boys in the neighborhood.  

He was limited in school and didn’t play kickball that much with us. He was also bullied by his older brothers, but my friends and I couldn’t do anything about that. Those brothers were a lot older and bigger.  

When my gang and I saw our friend being pounded on, we dropped everything. Our punches must have been convincing enough. The bullies left everyone alone, swaggering away, yelling threats of future retaliation.

When they got more sophisticated and older, we played softball in what was a wide-open lot, perfect for home run hits.  One day they saw a house being flat-beddeded down our street, right beside the lot.

We once again stopped all play, concerned with where that house would end up on our street. Our eyes followed it until it stopped. We were horrified.

Someone had foolishly, without consulting us, planned to move that house from another part of town and plunk it right of center, in our home run zone. 

We weren’t going to stop hitting home runs. If the new neighbors didn’t join us in the game, there was going to be a big problem. We were sure there would be broken windows.  

Having my own interest in mind, I yelled no chippsies before anyone had a chance to yell chippsies.  Whoever hit the home run into the window of the intruding house would have to pay for it all by themselves. I didn’t want to have to pay for anyone else’s broken window. 

I must have forgotten I hit a home run almost every time I was at bat. On the school grounds at recess, when I wasn’t spending precious time sparring with my seventh grade instigator, I was hitting home runs. Because of my ADD, I got distracted and so excited,  I was apt to trip on my way to first base.

I knew if I were guaranteed to make it to first base, I had to hit a home run. Any other player would have made it all around the bases and touched home plate.  I may not have touched all of the bases on my hit, but I usually enjoyed sending other base holders home. 

This time was no different. With that strange house looming in our outfield, the ball was pitched, I swung, and smash went the window.  Everyone mockingly chanted no chippsies and ran to their respective houses.