Here begins a short few stories that I wrote when starting my website. I thought I'd keep this going while I wrote serious books on the side, but ended up finding that too much work. Anyway, enjoy and sorry if my four year old is a little too mature for his age...

Mermaid Kisses 1.1

I ran screaming from the house. “It isn't my fault… That I'm the smallest, littlest… And cutest,” I added as I landed on the last step and then jumped off.

I perked up with a smile thinking of mom. She'd pinch my cheek gently, bend down and give me a smile.

“No more hugs for the boy, if he’s to grow and be a man!”

“Don't you raise your voice to me Charles Vincent, he’s still a child.”

“Well that child better get to his chores or there will be more crying for you to coddle.”

That was yesterday. Today it was my two older brothers and sister. Mean as coons. I suppose sister had to be or Brad would chew her up as he was always threatening to do.
My feet had found the runs between the corn on their own. As a boy all the runs were my highways away from the big hands.

Mom calls me a child, well I'm not! I'm a boy, and I'm four years old. Almost a man as pop says. And men are tall like pops. I suppose I was about to shoot up like the corn has been doing. Why it was already twice my height. I really didn't know how I was supposed to grow like that. My ears seemed to do the most growing as that was the first thing pop grabbed as he hauled me around back of the shed to give me “growing up lessons.”

Mar, my sister, she’d spit while talking, says, “You must be fast to avoid the olé man.” I had to be fast to dodge her spit, but I don’t think that is what she meant. And was the olé man Roger? The kindest man in all of Kentucky. He helped Pa with the plowing. “It must be done Rightly, right?” He'd asked me that during the last plowing. I'm not sure what he meant, but he’d ruffled my hair when he asked.

“Roger’s the best,” I said coming to the split rail fence. I skinned my leg and tore my pants climbing stepping to the top of the first rail. “Ouch!” I'd banged my head on the second one. I looked around, good! Nobody to call me a baby. Still, I wasn't going to slip through after making it this far. Standing on my toes, I leaned back wrapping my arms around the second rail and pulled, grunted and at last sat straddled on top of the world. “Yeah,” and I pumped both fists into the air. “Who’s the baby now?”

I wasn't shouting. The last thing I wanted was for big-hands to find me. Though looking down, gulp, “It sure is a ways down,” I told Bill, my ‘baby’ brother. “Someday,” mom says, “I'll be showing olé Bill the ‘ways.’" I knew what she meant, but it sure was a ‘ways’ down. I'd best git to it, or I'll be contemplating the ‘ways’ the rest of my life.

I don't know how long that is, but I suppose that is as long as Brad and he’s thirteen. I think that is after nine, or ten. I counted out on my fingers to ten, but what came after that? No matter, I had to be gitten along. Mark said the best and fastest was to jump. I knew he liked to stand on the top rail and just hurl himself into the air and “duck and roll.” I wasn't about to do that, and since he wasn't here, I from my sitting position contemplated just how I was going to get down.

Jumping seemed the only way. I couldn't see how I was supposed to reach the first rail again. It was under where I was sitting and leaning forward to look down was mighty dangerous. There was nothing for it, I was going to have to jump. I closed my eyes, thought about it and opened them fast. “Whew!” I hadn't fallen, yet. “Jumping is a kind of controlled fall,” Mark had told me once. I really didn't get the difference, “Both is falling.”

Mark had looked at me cross-eyed, he did that when he was thinking. “It has to do with him getting lost in his head,” mom had told me. “Well,” he stated, his eyes un-crossing and then he smiled saying, “Because at the end of the jump you get to, duck and roll.” Then he put words to action, leaped and came up rolling. “There, it's easy baby.”

“I'm not a baby anymore! I'm four!”

Mark almost went cross-eyed but quickly said while sticking the tip of his right first finger in his ear, “Well mom still calls you that.”

“She calls Pa baby. You going to call Pa Baby?”

A look of fear crossed Mark’s face before the word, “Baby” came rolling out. Then he got the giggles and started repeating the word, “Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby.” Not directed at me but at Pa. I caught the joke and we both skipping around laughing and giggling calling Pa in our minds, and saying aloud, “Baby.”

Well, that's when big-hands found us…

And, well, I was giggling all during chores until Brad asked what the joke was. I told him stone faced, not sure how he’d react. Half certain he’d drag me off to Pa to repeat it. Funny thing is, he laughed at that. Not totally bad my brother, but I had no doubts about his big hands and had stopped giggling. Though he had kept laughing, which made me want to run a hollerin’. But he was keeping a weasel eye on me, and when he did I knew better than to skedaddle.

Then, laughing so hard, I fell. Falling forward, I pushed and came down squat on all fours, and crouched like a frog. Then I sprang up, “Frog and leap,” I said running off …

Next: Mermaid Kisses 1.2

Note: This post was resurrected from my old site. It may not be the one that showed up on the site. The date of publication here is from when it was added to this site.