“Dad, we’re taking Criquito outside, OK?” Evan told me, zipping past the office door. I turned and saw him cupping his hands together like a clam, arms extended.
Graham was right behind him, skipping as usual. “We caught a cricket,” he said. “We’re taking him outside.”
He skipped a few more steps toward the door and out of my range of vision. “We named him Criquito,” he added and followed his brother out the door.
“Put on some shoes,” I hollered, “And don’t leave the yard.”
“We have shoes,” Evan yelled back with six-year-old superciliousness. In his mind, I heard him silently punctuate his contempt with “Duh.”
I turned my attention to the computer screen, Ctrl-clicking spam, and readying my pinky for the Delete key. It was 9:00 am on Sunday, a heavy-spam day, and I considered that I might need a new filter.
Jenn had gone to the office for some quiet writing time, and I was not yet dressed. I sat at the computer in my boxers, picking junk from the corners of my eyes, and gulping my first cup of coffee as fast as I could, the latest Ray La Montagne jangling in the background.
The dog howled at the screen door, deep and hollow the way a beagle howls when she sees something far across the street that she can reach only with her voice.
I listened for little-boy voices, chittering twin speak, real words that you could understand if you listened carefully, but a code intended only for their tiny, two-man cabal nonetheless.
“Woof. Howl, hoooowl,” the dog barked again as if the something she’d been watching had just slipped from her view.
I made my way to the door and looked in the direction of her howl. No boys.
“Evan. Graham,” I yelled. It was the same yell my father used for “time for dinner.” Nothing.
The dog howled. “Damn it,” I thought, “Didn’t I say not to leave the yard?”
I went to the side door. They sometimes play in the driveway, and lost in their own world, don’t hear me at the front door. “Evan! Graham!” Still no boys.
I tried the backyard, though I knew it was a long shot. Maybe they were up in their hideout. “Boys. Graham. Evan. Guys!” No luck.
I went back to the front and hollered once more. A woman in running tights jogged up the street, averting her gaze when she noticed my noticing her noticing my boxers, yellow with green palm trees.
I went upstairs to put on some sweats and a pair of garden clogs. Then, I made my way outside and around the corner in the direction of the dog’s bark.
I found them at our neighbors’, Mary and Jamie’s, front door.
“We found him in our basement,” I heard Evan say with the same pride as if he’d discovered a new species in the rainforest. Then, he held his cupped hands up for Mary’s examination. Behind the screen door, I could see her shadow pull back.
“Guys!” I shook my head. “What are you doing?” I asked and noted the model on which Evan must have perfected his patronizing tone of voice. “I’m sorry, Mary,” I explained, “I had no idea. Guys, get over here now.”
They bounced over to me, and Mary asked with a still slightly gravelly morning voice, “You didn’t know they were over here?”
“Hardly,” I apologized, “I’m really sorry.”
I rested my hand on Graham’s head. “I told you guys you weren’t to leave the yard,” I said. “I need to be able to trust you, or you can’t play outside by yourselves,” I reminded them. “And you can’t ring people’s doors at 9:00 on Sunday morning. You probably woke Mary up…”
I was preparing to deliver an impromptu Sunday morning homily on trust, obedience, responsibility, thoughfulness toward our neighbors, and several other virtues that I thought I might be able to cram in, but something caught my eye.
“Look,” I shouted, giggling not unlike a six-year-old boy I’m sure, “a box turtle.”
“Where,” Evan asked.
“I see him,” squealed Graham as he made a grab for it.
“Wait,” I told them, “Don’t scare him into the road. He probably washed up with the flood yesterday.”
I picked the turtle up gently and moved it to a safer place in our yard where the boys could watch it crawl across the grass and pull its head into its shell.
Graham named it Spotty, and we talked about the differences between tortoises and turtles, amphibians and reptiles. We noted its scaly yellow skin, its red eyes, and its pointy tail. Later we put it in a basket and released it at Big Rock park near the creek, just down the road from our house.
I forgot about responsibility and obedience and went with “nature is cool” even though that’s what got us in trouble in the first place.