The Eyes of A Child

Word Count:  742



The Eyes of A Child



         “MOM!”  Jeremy screamed, as he shot through the screen door.  He was covered in gravel and dirt and blood, and seemed determined to not cry. 

         “What on earth are you yelling…” His mom came from the laundry room, folding a bath towel.  But when she saw him, she rushed over, unconsciously wiping at the grim with the towel.  “Jeremy, what happened? 

         And with that, he lost all pretenses of bravery and burst into loud sobs. 

         “Jeremy, please.  At least stop squirming and let me look at you.”  She gave out a sigh of relief, because most of the blood seemed to have come from his nose.  His elbows and knees were pretty badly scraped up.  But the only real cut she could find was a long, jagged tear along the side of his right hand, and that didn’t look very deep.  In fact, seemed to have already stopped bleeding.

         “Shush…” She cooed.  “You’re fine.  Let’s go upstairs and get you clean and bandaged up.”

         “No.  We need to go get my bike.”  Jeremy said.  And he tugged at his mom’s arm.

         “It’s fine where it is.  You are my first priority.”  She took his hand and began leading him through the house.

         But Jeremy had other ideas.  “No!  We need to go.  It will get hit by a car or something.”

He broke away from his mother and ran out, the screen door slamming in his wake.

         She let out a heavy sigh, and followed, trying to reason with him as they went.  “Jeremy,

please, wait for me.  Where did you leave your bicycle?” 

         Jeremy, still moving fairly fast for one so banged up, merely called back to her over his shoulder.  “It’s at the park.  Well, by the park.  I was riding over to Tom’s house.”  He suddenly became very animated.  “He’s got lots of trees behind his house.  And his brother got a teepee for his birthday.  A real teepee, Mom.”

         She caught up with him and gingerly reached out for a scraped forearm.  “But that doesn’t explain why the bike is in the road.  Or, why we couldn’t take care of you first.”

         “Because we gotta get my bike.  Jeez, Mom.  Come on.”  He broke into a again.

         “Jeremy…?”  His mom asked, as if seeing him for the first time, “are you wearing the boots I just bought for your sister?  The very expensive, leather designer boots that I paid way too much money for?”

         Without looking back, he answered, with an innocent air, “I don’t know.”

         “They are!  And you, young man, know it.  Stop!  You just stop right now and take off those boots.”

         With a mixture of frustration and disgust he dropped to curb and peeled off the supple calves’ leather boots along with his socks.  Then leaving them were they fell, returned to his journey. 

         His mom bent down and retrieved them, along with the boots, which were badly scuffed in several places.  Then she followed him towards the street near the park. 

Jeremy was struggling with his bike.  He was trying to lift it up so he could roll it out from the street.  But it was too heavy and decidedly off-balance.  And when he moved to see if he could get a better grip from the other side, his mom saw a huge coil of garden hose, looped over the handlebar.

Even when he managed to get the bicycle off the ground, it refused to roll—due to the length of brightly colored silk scarf caught hopelessly in the chain and wheel.  He didn’t look at his mom.  He was afraid to.  If she was upset about Kathy’s boots, she was going to really mad about his kerchief.  He knew better than to go into her room—never mind her bureau. 

Something poked him in the gut when he dropped back down on the curb, to wait for the explosion.  He pulled the hose nozzle from his pants.  It had made the perfect gun.  He tried to ignore the icy fingers creeping up his back—exactly where he knew his mother was staring at him.  Instead he frowned at the tangled mess of hose, scarf and bike. He was in big trouble and he knew it.

But even as he waited for his mom to go ballistic, he sighed, only seeing his lasso, his horse and his neckerchief, and thought of what might have been.