FanStory.com - Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 9by Jim Wile

Chapter 9

I made my way back to where I had left my sheep early this morning and made sure nothing out of the ordinary had happened in my absence, then went in search of Lard and Rube.

I found them knocking walnut balls back and forth to each other, but they were not very far apart and could only hit the balls softly now to prevent them from flying apart when struck. It was getting harder and harder to find green ones as the days went on. Rube still managed to explode at least half of the ones he hit.

“Hey, fellas, look what Arie made,” I said, holding up the wooden ball. They both came over to see what it was. I handed it to Lard first, and he turned it over and over in his hands. “I think this might work,” he said to me. “It’s very round and hard.”

“Lemme hold it,” said Rube, and Lard handed it to him. He marveled at the hardness of it. “Mebbe this one won’t break like them others. Can I try it out?”

“That’s why I brought it to you. Go ahead and smash it as hard as you can, big fella.”

“Oh, boy!” he said with a huge grin on his face. He placed it on a tuft of grass, stepped to the side, and whaled away at it. With a loud CRACK! it sailed off, arcing through the sky almost out of view and landing perhaps 200 paces down the field. Rube gaped at it in amazement. “Look what I done. Look what I done, guys!”

“You sure did, Rube!” I said. “And it looks like it stayed in one piece. Arie’s making another one for herself, and maybe we can begin making them too now that we know it works. I think she used ash for it, but beech would probably work too. You just cut a cylinder off a branch as wide across as the length of your first finger and whittle it down ‘til it’s as wide as the length of your pinky finger. She said she used a rasp too. Does anyone have one of those?”

“My pa has a few,” said Lard. “A saw too. I’ll bring ‘em tomorrow, and we can make some ourselves. You going to help us, Rube?” but Rube had vanished. We saw his fleeting figure running down the field, apparently in search of the ball he had just struck. We saw him find it, take a stance, and knock it back to us. It was another beautiful, high shot that landed ten paces beyond us. We heard a whoop! and saw him leap into the air, then come running back toward us.

“Look at that big oaf. He’ll be babbling on about this the rest of the day,” said Lard, who went and picked the ball up, deciding it was his turn to give it a try.

Rube came running up. “Did’ja see it, fellers? I smashed it, I did!” He could hardly contain himself and sprang off the ground like a frog after a fly.

We arranged ourselves in a huge triangle then and batted the new ball around and around to each other for over an hour. Still, the ball held up with no sign of cracking or chipping. It was going to do the job for us.

When we finally tired of this, we joined up again and talked some more about our plans to make these marvelous balls for ourselves. I also told them about the new part of the game Arie had devised, including the target being a hole you knock the ball into. I told them I would make a different kolf for this and that we could try it out tomorrow.

“How about another reading lesson now, Lard?”

Rube wandered off when he heard this, and Lard and I walked over to the tree where he had set down the slate that I had lent him yesterday. Then we began today’s lesson.

After the evening meal tonight, I put a piece of flint into my pocket, grabbed my kolfs and the wooden ball, and set out to meet Arie. I had spent a few hours this afternoon fashioning a new, upright, shorter kolf like the one she had made. She was already at the cave, practicing knocking a ball into the hole we had dug this morning. She had been busy, too, making a new ball this afternoon.

“Kilian, do you know of any areas in the meadow where the grass is extra-short, where perhaps the sheep grazed it very close? If you do, I think we should try digging a hole there. That way, we won’t have to hit the ball quite so firmly when we get near the hole, and it will help the ball roll more smoothly to the hole. It will take away some of the chance that it will be knocked crooked by a large tuft of grass in the way.”

“That’s a good thought. I think I know just such a place.”

She had brought a small trowel with her for digging holes, and I led her to a place that had been recently grazed by my sheep—just yesterday, in fact. They had grazed it rather short because I had been away so long kolven with Arie and having a meal at her house, and I hadn’t moved them to a new area in some time. We dug a new hole in the middle of it and practiced knocking balls into it from all sides.

Arie appeared to be much more accurate than me in this part of the game. It would usually take her two strokes—sometimes even one—to put a ball in the hole from more than, say, 10 paces, whereas it would often take me three and only sometimes two strokes. We held a competition, and she beat me handily at this short game.

Truthfully, I was very happy for her for discovering an aspect of the game at which she could excel because she would never be able to hit the ball as far as I could, and this would help equalize us to an extent. Plus, I just loved seeing how happy it made her to have mastered this skill, which she had invented, so readily.

“Arie, I know of a different area with shorter grass where we could make another hole. Then we could play back and forth between them.”

“Good idea. Don’t make it too far away, though, or you’ll always win because you can hit the ball so much farther than me.”

“It doesn’t have to be a competition between us. We can just play our own way.”

“No, it’s more fun if we compete—as long as I have a chance to win.”

“Alright then. You see that cluster of rowan trees over there? I think there’s some short grass in front of those. Why don’t we aim for them, and we can dig another hole when we get there?”

“Okay. Can I go first?”

“How come you always want to go first?”

“Because I like to.”

That seemed like a good enough reason. “Have at it, then.”

She picked up her long kolf, took her stance, and whacked a fair one toward the rowans. I knocked a pretty fair one myself, and we were off. When we got to the rowan trees, sure enough, the grass was shorter in front, so we dug another hole. While Arie was trimming it nice and round with the trowel, I looked for a branch with leaves on the end that we could use for a flag stick. I found one and sharpened the point with my knife, then jammed it down into the hole we had dug. After that, we both stroked our balls into this hole, with her taking one less short stroke to accomplish the feat than me.

“Six for me,” I said. “How many for you?”

“Eight. See? It was too far. I hit as many good shots as you did and even took one less short shot, but you just hit your ball so much farther than me because you are bigger and stronger. I’ll never be able to win!” she groused.

“I’ll tell you what. How about if you play it from a shorter distance? Suppose I hit from here back to the first hole we made, and you can start from that alder tree over there on the right?” I said, pointing about 100 paces away. “That ought to even things up.”

She thought about it for a moment. She seemed to be debating with herself, but in the end, she said, “Okay. Boys are naturally bigger than girls, so I guess that’s only fair.”

I walked a little way from the current hole and set my ball down. Then I smashed a long one that landed well past the alder tree on the right that Arie would be hitting from. When we got to the alder tree, she likewise smashed a good one that ended up more than 60 paces beyond my ball. It took me two more shots to pull even with her ball after the same number of shots. We both laid three with just a half shot until we reached the short grass. By the time we were in the hole, we had each taken six strokes.

“Now I’ve got a fighting chance to beat you,” she said.

“Yes, it’s much fairer now,” I agreed. “Want to play them again?”

“Yes!”

After first making another flag stick for this hole, we ended up playing to these holes three more times each.

“You know, we ought to give names for these areas that we play,” I suggested.

“You mean like Pieter or Astrid?”

“No, silly. I mean something general like ‘We played eight… somethings tonight.”

“I know. I was kidding around. How about if we just call them 'holes' since they all end with a hole as the target. So, if you say, ‘We played eight holes tonight,’ that means we played eight different times from a starting point to a target hole.”

“That makes sense. I like it. Maybe we should also name the short grass area where the actual hole with the flag stick is located too.”

She thought about this again. “How about a ‘green.’”

“But the entire field is green.”

“Exactly. So, it wouldn’t make sense to call it a ‘blue’ or a ‘red,’ would it?”

“Um… no, I guess not.”

“So, let’s just call it a ‘green’ then.”

There was no arguing with that logic, so a “green” it became.

By this time, it was beginning to get too dark to play anymore. “This was so much fun, Kilian. I can’t wait to play again tomorrow. Maybe we can make some different holes too. And maybe we can invite Ruben and Lars to join us?”

“I’m sure they’d love that, especially Rube. He seems very fond of you.”

“And I’m fond of him too. He’s like a big, gentle bear.”

“I think a bear might be a little smarter.”

“Don’t be mean… though I think you might be right,” she added with a chuckle.

“Why don’t we relax for a while before heading home,” I suggested. “We could sit down over by the cave entrance, and I could make a fire.”

“I’d like that.”

Together, we gathered some firewood and kindling and made a pile. Then I found a rock against which I struck the flint I had brought from home, and in no time, we had a roaring blaze going. Except for the bright fire, it was quite dark out now. We sat next to each other, close together, and I took her hand. She looked up at me then, and we just stared into each other’s eyes. My pulse quickened, and before I knew it, I removed my hand from hers, placed both of my hands on the sides of her face as I leaned toward her, and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. She closed her eyes as I did so.

“I really like you, Arie. I can’t stop thinking about you,” I said, almost breathlessly. The feelings stirring inside were so strange and exciting to me—like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

“Shhh,” she said as she leaned her face up, and we kissed again—much longer this time. Our arms found their way around each other in a tight embrace.

I don’t know how long this lasted, but I was in ecstasy, and my heart was beating furiously now. After a while, we broke apart, both of us seeming to pant a little.

“I really like you too, Kilian, but I think we should say goodnight now,” she said softly.

“Let me walk you home at least.”

“Alright, but then it’s goodnight.”

I went into the trees and found a long stick to stir the fire with and separate the flaming branches so that it would burn itself out quickly. We decided to leave our kolfs and balls and the trowel behind a tree and agreed to meet here again at 10 o’clock after we had both done our early morning chores.

As we walked along to her farm, very close together, I put my hand around her thin waist, and she grasped mine as well. A halfmoon had arisen, which gave us some light to navigate by, and soon we were at her farm. At the door to her house, she turned to me, stood on her toes, and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Goodnight now, Kilian. I’ll see you tomorrow,” and before I knew it, she was inside, and I was left standing there at the closed door.