If You Was Me

Yesterday, when the recess teacher took us out to play and we screamed up a game of kickball and burned through a round of freeze tag, and then the teacher blew her silver whistle - (Must have! But I didn't hear. I had wandered off near the very edge of the field where the grass turns reedy and brown and, over a small leaning fence, a little finger of a stream goes laughing into the deep trees running north all the way to Saskatchewan) - anyway, when I looked around, the teacher and the kids had gone in without me. The field was empty and the afternoon was holding its breath. I could have done anything then - could have jumped the fence, into the woods, a wolf-boy, never heard from again. Could have chased myself crazy over the grass, screeching like a banshee, reaching around and freeze-tagging the wind. I could have sat still on the lawn like some plump rhododendron and not moved a leaf till three p.m.

But then I looked at the school. I saw heads at the desks. I heard teachers turning ``to page 64 in History, please!'' I'll bet the principal was behind one of those windows just waiting to see what I'd do. What would you have done if you was me? Well, I did what I wanted to - but don't ask what. I'll never tell.