WOODEN STEPS IN THE SCHOOLYARD

by BILL ECTRIC



In my dream, I stuck my hand down between the decayed wooden steps. I feel a couple of nail points sticking through the wood. When I pull my hand out, it has red stains on it, but it’s not blood. Ink, maybe?

Under the steps are cobwebs and musty darkness. Why would there be ink?

These are the steps in back of the old elementary school that lead to the playground. My second grade teacher was old when I was in her class. She can’t possibly still be alive.

“That’s where we put children when they misbehave,” she told me, indicating the dark space under the old steps.

I remember now. In the hoopla of all us kids running down the steps at recess, someone jostled me and I dropped my yo-yo. It fell down through the wooden steps into the dark basement area where the lawn equipment was stored.

I reached in, stretching as hard as I could, but my hand couldn’t reach the yo-yo. Then I felt something strange. Someone was writing on my hand with a ball point pen. I didn’t pull my hand away. Intrigued, I let the writing continue. It felt kind of good.

When the writing stopped, I pulled out my hand and looked at it.

Someone had scrawled, “A, B, C CAT” and they had drawn a little stick house, just a square with an upside down V for a roof.

I stood amazed, looking at the red ink writing on my hand.

The teacher said, “What are you doing?”

I showed her my hand. She marched me into the school to a sink and scrubbed the ink off roughly with that granulated soup they used to have. It left my hand raw.

“Don’t write on your hand again,” the teacher said.

“I didn’t,” I tried to explain. “Somebody under the steps ...”

“NO,” she said sternly. “No one is under the steps. You did it yourself, and you won’t get your yo-yo back if you keep telling that lie.”

I got my yo-yo back just before Christmas vacation.

Now sometimes I have these dreams where I stick my hand under the steps and it comes out with red stains.




BOTTLED MESSAGE No. 17
"Wooden Steps in the Schoolyard" by Bill Ectric (also collected in the book SPACE SAVERS). Launched: 06.03.07 by Mystery Island. © Copyright 2007 Mystery Island Publications. Story remains the property of Bill Ectric. All rights reserved.

NOTE:
SPACE SAVERS, a short story collection by Bill Ectric (which includes Bradley Mason Hamlin's MONKEY ON A STICK as a bonus) is available at amazon.com and other super-groovy retailers.


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