BOO WHO?

There’s a devil who lives near my house. O.K., I know he isn’t the REAL devil. Ill call him Imp and he is out to torture me. Yes, he bothers other kids, but I am his favorite target. Joey is a great hider, if I say so myself. He can scrunch his body into the smallest, crookedest places. Some I know and avoid them, but he keeps finding me. Today I had bought myself a treat, a double decker ice cream cone, vanilla on the bottom, chocolate with jimmies on top. With only two blocks to go before I reached home safely and all of the vanilla still left in the cone, I walked faster, looking behind, in front of, to the side of me and from behind the turning red and white striped barber’s pole, out jumped Joey. ‘BOO. I gotcha!’ I was so startled I dropped my ice cream. Joey picked it up and ate it, germs, dirt and all. I could do nothing except holler at him, tell him I was going to see his mother. ‘Go ahead, Namby Pamby. You’ll have to stand in line. My mother doesn’t give a good god damn what I do.’

He is right. Instead I am brave, don’‘t let him see me cry and go home to tell my mother to see his mother. She shrugs and replies, Why waste my time?’

Joey plays tricks. Some kids think he is funny. Some know he is bad. We all know something is brewing for Saturday, no school day. If you think he is going to do it to me, I agree.

Mother invited my friend, Marsha to have lunch with us Sat. We ate out in the sun parlor that hardly ever sees the sun. Mom used her best dishes to please me, made a sweet and sour brisket that she sliced extra thin and put on fresh rye bread. She served a big bowl of thin pasta in a bought sauce that she ‘doctored, apple sauce and home made lemon chiffon pie. After we played Monopoly for a while, Marsha and I walked towards the Liberty to see a Star Wars movie. Joey spotted us. He had a live snake twisted around his arm and he headed straight for me. I jumped back, scared out of my wits. Mr. ‘Imp’ laughed hysterically. ‘ Dummy, Dummy. It’ s not real but it’s a good fake, isn’t it?’Merlin waved his arm and Joey disappeared. To calm myself I had to sit down on the first marble steps I came to. Marsha and I were no longer in the mood for a movie. Instead we came back to my house, played War, talked and talked, mostly on how to stop Joey from being such a son of a gun.

Came Monday I got him. Walking home from school with Marsha, wecame to where we had to split up. She went right. I went left. Joey paid no attention to Marsha. Instead, he ran at me. All I saw was that Joey was carrying a bucket with something inside that was on fire. He easily caught me and yelled loud and clear, ‘I’m going to give you a fire haircut, burn off your pretty blond curls .’ He grabbed my arm and told me to stand still or my face may burn too. At that very second, Officer O’Malley saw the fire, saw Joey threatening me. He ran like Seabiscuit, got Joey by his ears, making Joey drop the bucket. O’Malley stomped out the flames. ‘Gotcha’, Kid, at last. You endangered this little girl’s life. You could have killed her. Come with me. You are going to jail. That is where Joey went for a two year stay in the NJ Reform School.

His mother was surely glad he was gone and no neighbors would bother her again and I was glad he wouldn’t bother me either.

But I’m still not sure.