A Start

A Start

“What are you doing here?”

“Why do you think it’s any of your business?”

“I live here.”

“Here. In a plot of grass, with a flagpole in it, in the middle of the street? Where do you sleep?”

“I live over there.”

“So, this place is kinda just as much MY place as yours… the streets belong to everybody.”

“What are you doing? I wanted to make sure you aren’t stealing something.”

“I was chasing a butterfly.”

“Huh?”

“A butterfly. I thought I saw a Monarch fly over here.”

“Yeah, we have butterflies around. You weren’t trying to catch it were you?”

“No, I just wanted to see it. Take a picture maybe.”

“We don’t catch butterflies around here.”

“You seem to have a lot of ‘we-s’ in your life…”

“I mean our neighborhood people.”

“Well, do you know Alex Beasley?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. Well, I only met him once…”

“That’s not much of a friend...”

“And yet I feel like I know so much about him since he moved to Florida, and I’m renting the apartment he used to live in…”

“Oh. So, you’re the new stranger.”

“Stranger?”

“We were told there would be a stranger moving in soon.”

“I guess that’s me. Who are you?”

“David.

“Nice to meet you David. I’m Ted. I live in Alex’s old apartment now. We’re neighbors. Do you happen to be going into the second grade?”

“Yes… how did you know?”

“You look the right size, do you go to Kendelton?”

“Yes…”

“Well, I am a teacher, and I will be teaching second grade at Kendelton this year…”

“Oops…”

“And I think that might be your mother over there starting to yell at you…”

“Double oops! Bye!”

It was a very good year for Ted at Kendelton, and for David too.