Thunder pearls erupted madly, the lightning tore the sky over Block crisscross and hither-thither. The gazebo bounced from the deafening rumbling, and the wind-driven sheets of water lashed the inside circle of the cemented floor reaching far over its center. I placed the book on the bench running along the lee side props but some crazy drops got even there. It was so scary and wet, and cold, and never-ending.
When, nonetheless, the storm let up, the clouds of darkness broke asunder revealing the blue of the sky as well as the fact that the day was far from being over yet, and that my sister Natasha was running from our staircase-entrance with the already needless umbrella because Mom sent her to call me home.
“We knew that you were here”, she said panting, “You could be seen at first…”
~ ~ ~
(…it’s not that I have any special knack for nosing out conspiracies, yet the unyielding confluence of chance circumstances would mulishly bring me smack-bang to the scene of some secret scheme a-brewing…)
When in kindergarten three boys of the senior group began to exchange clandestine hints, something like:
“So it's today, eh?”
“We’ll definitely go, yes?”
“After kindergarten’s over, right?”
I felt unbearable bitterness that some adventure was obviously underway while I stayed with the usual same plain everyday. That's why I approached the leader in the gang of 3 and asked him directly, “Where are you going to?”
“To steal tomatoes in the Where-Where Mountains.”
“May I go with you?”
“Okay.”
I had already a vague idea that stealing was bad but in my whole life I hadn’t seen yet any mountains, only the low hillock of the overgrown with Fir-trees Bugorok-Knoll whose sandy drop-off side was facing the grassy level grounds by the garbage bins enclosure for our Block. However, first of anything else, I desired the wonderful tomatoes from the Where-Where Mountains. In my mind’s eye, I already could see their round ripe sides gleaming with solid red.
So it was a whole day of waiting for the hour when adults start to come after their children, when I promptly declined going home with someone else’s mother, “No, thank you, I go with the boys to reach Block sooner.”
The 4 of us went out of the gate but we didn’t take the short trail thru the forest. Instead, we turned left to follow the wide dirt road on which there never appeared any vehicle. The road went uphill and then dived with a tilt, and I kept looking out around and asking the same question about when the Where-Where Mountains would stand out. However, as the answers were getting more and more curt and reluctant, I kept down the eager question not to put at risk my taking part in the tomato adventure.