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A SPOOKY SUMMER TALE IN THREE PARTS

PART ONE:

It was hot on the day that the Bakey Brothers disappeared. The air was hot. The water was hot. The ice was barely cold enough to tone down the heat. Nobody could work, so the grownups were underfoot all day, assigning stupid chores and snapping like turtles at the slightest indiscretions or annoyances.

We found out a lot about our parents that day and during the days that followed. First, we learned that they had never been the perfect beings that they wanted us to know. Second, we learned that they could be bigger heroes, even when ineffective, than we ever comprehended. Bigger than Superman and Batman. Bigger than Mighty Mouse, if you were a little kid. I was a little kid, six years old, and still a half kid/half baby mix.

We were doing what passed for "settled down", playing war soldiers. I got the nurses since I was a girl, and had to mend the wounded. Fine with me. Blowing up things was stupid. Plus, I could never make good blowing up sounds. So, I cured just about every one of those comic book bargain soldiers and repaired three vehicles with my magic fairy wand before all hell broke loose.

Tomas decided to use a nuclear weapon and forget about treaties. Everything and everyone got killed, including my exempt and excellent nurses, fairies, and magic rocks. The "battlefield" was a mess of mud, partially buried soldiers, lincoln logs (the headquarters), and bits of fabric (the flags of about fourteen imaginary Commie countries).

Tomas had buried a hose in the middle of the proceedings, turning on the water to create a "nuclear mushroom cloud", then sending over "B-52's" to drop water balloon representations of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy", the hydrogen bombs that took out Nagasaki, and Hiroshima.

I looked at the carnage done to my precious nurses and let out a wail that could have served as a civil defense alarm. Grownups came running, kids came running. The older kids screeched to a halt, gaped, then howled in laughter at the spectacular destruction. They immediately started asking how such a brilliant mess could have been made by little first, second, and third grade kids!

The grownups had already been a dark gathering of emotional storm clouds, so they rousted all of us. I had the hiccups that come when a bad situation causes the diaphragm to go into spasms, and spent the next two hours napping as soon as the hiccups went away.

Tomas was banished for

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