Summertime Strawberries

1

I padded along in the cold, silently following a small group of children while whistling a cheery tune, one of the children turning to look back at me frequently with a skeptical glare clear in his eyes. I just snickered and ignored him. I slowly fell behind the group, causing the glaring boy to look at me less, as I preferred anyway. I knew that I looked strange, but then again, everybody looked strange, it was Halloween. I was dressed in a bunch of different things just thrown together, but I guess my plan of looking menacing worked out because of the mask that I had worked weeks on. It was made of metal welded together to cover the bottom half of my face and I guess it went well with the arm I had built with it. Michael didn't like the fact that I had built a knife into the palm of the hand, but I didn't understand why he was upset, it was fake anyways, it's not like I could actually KILL someone with it. I lightly giggled to myself behind the mask and continued following the group of kids all swallowed up in their coats from house to house until they stopped at a corner. My eyes narrowed as I saw why they stopped, someone had stepped out in front of them. I sped up a bit, my silence broken by the slapping of my feet on the concrete as the person started to pull at the arms of two children and I began running full speed. I pressed a button on my metal arm, releasing the fake knife into my hand to hold properly. I got to the group and barged through, grabbing the person by the shoulders and trapping their arms at their sides, placing the knife at their throat. Everyone froze. I growled, "Let go." and the man quickly released the two kids he had in his grasp. Then I noticed who it was and quickly let go of the man, turning him around to face me. His face was pale and his eyes were filled with tears. "I'm so sorry Mr. Collins. I didn't realize that it was you. I thought you were some stranger." The two kids that the man had been grabbing were his twin sons that I was being paid to babysit while the group of kids were gathering candy. I was being paid by three different families to take their children Trick-or-Treating and I might have just cost myself one of them. "Mr. Collins?"

The man cleared his throat and shakily smiled. "No problem Jax. No problem at all." He swallowed and caught his breath, the color coming back into his cheeks. "I should have alerted you that I was picking up my children halfway. I apologize, I didn't know that you took the safety of our children so seriously." He gestured at the knife in my hand and slowly rubbed his throat, staring at it. "It's not real, is it?" I shook my head and he let out a deep breath that he had been holding. "Here's the money." He gave me sixty dollars and I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. "No. It's a bonus for protecting all of these children so well. Thank you."

"I can't take this. Thank you very much sir, but really, I can't." I tried to give him the extra twenty back, but he refused.

Mr. Collins then leaned in and whispered in my ear, "It's also a bribe to keep this all quiet from my wife, I nearly wet my pants." I chuckled politely and pocketed the three bills as he left with his sons.

"Hey Jax." I turned around and bent down to get on face level with the boy that had called me. My head quickly turned as the kid punched me in the face and I just smiled as he grabbed his hand in sharply inhaled, doubling over in pain.

"Mask, Michael. It's metal, remember?" The thirteen year old boy just glared at me and I sighed and straightened up, mildly annoyed. "Why did you punch me? I am your older brother and the only one really taking care of you."

"You could have hurt Mr. Collins!" He glared down at the ground and I sighed again.

"Come on guys. Let's hit a couple more houses, it's almost time to start heading back." The remaining kids shuffled along in an awkward silence until they got to the next houses and cheered up again. Everyone except for Michael.