Death & Dying
Oh, man. Someone must have seen Indi and me doing our thing. They recognized me and reported it to the cops. This envelope is from the cops. They write letters? Wouldn't they just come and hassle me?
I keep cool, reach inside, draw out a sheet of paper. It doesn't have any official emblems. It just looks like a letter, starting with "Dear Samuel." Weird. No one writes me letters. I shoot another glance at Mom but she hasn't budged. She's just standing there looking like she's going to burst.
"Tell me about your tree," said Uncle as he planed the angles of the face. "What did you see among the branches?"
Solomon described the hummingbird nest and the antics of the baby birds. Uncle rounded the brow with the adze, chipped the hollows of the eyes, and told the hummingbird story.
"Did your tree smell nice?" asked Uncle as he used the hook knife to carve the nose. Solomon remembered the sweet spring smell of sap and the pungent, fall odor of crushed leaves.
The heavy fullback went down right on top of him. I heard this terrifying scream come out of Kurt. Kurt was not usually a screamer. I'd never heard him utter the slightest whimper of pain, ever. He was as tough as they come.
A whistle blew. The ball had missed the net. Nobody knew what I knew. I was over the rickety fence and running onto the field. The referee pulled the Fairview goon off of Kurt, but Kurt was still curled over on the grass.
Coach Kenner yelled at me to get off the field. He and Jason both came chasing after me. They thought I'd lost my mind. A kid falls down in a soccer game, big deal. But I knew better.
