“Howard!” Paula screamed out the window. The living room looked like a bomb had exploded and feathers from destroyed pillows were still dancing in the air. “Howard Dwaine Dorough!” she screamed again, “You have until the count of three, or so help me God-“
“What?” a timid voice asked behind her.
Paula turned around, her hands in the air, “What? WHAT?” Look around you, Howard!”
He looked around, his lower lip quivering, “It was an assident!” He said as tears started to fall.
“Don’t try that with me, young man! An accident is a hole in a pillow. Intent is all of my mother’s pillows ripped to shreds! What were you even doing? I was in the kitchen for no more than ten minutes!” she asked, looking around again.
Howie could do nothing more than shrug his shoulders and wipe away his tears on the sleeve of his shirt.
“Room! Now!” she said, pointing up the staircase.
Howie sniffled as he shuffled past his mother, going up to his room. He flopped down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his feet tapping against the wall.
“Howard!” Paula screamed again, causing him to no longer play with the wall.
Howie huffed and reached for the crystal hanging next to his bed and threw it up into the air before catching it again. He did this repeatedly until he heard his mom coming upstairs and dropped it before scrambling into a sitting position.
Paula walked into the room, having calmed down over the last several minutes. “Do you have anything to say to me?”
“I’m sorry mama,” he said sullenly.
Paula nodded and moved to sit with him on his bed, pulling him into her lap. “Those pillows are important to mama. Luckily, I can fix them, but be gentle with things Nana gave us, okay?” she asked softly.
Howie simply nodded, curling closer to her and reached a hand up to twirl a lock of her hair around his finger. She kissed the top of his head and the sat in the sweet embrace until she finally pulled away. “Come on, someone needs to help me clean up the mess unless he wants to be grounded.
“I’ll help!” he said, jumping out of her lap and quickly running downstairs to try and save himself from being grounded.
********
“Didja get into lots of trouble?” Kristie asked the next day.
Howie shook his head no as he started to play wall ball with his friend.
“Didja tell on me?” the girl asked softly.
“Course not, I’m not a snitch!” he said, scowling at her.
“What did you tell her?” Kristie asked.
“That it was an accident, which it was… I just left you out of it,” the young boy said with a shrug. “Besides, you ran away really fast. I never knew girls could run that fast!”
Kristie chuckled, “I’ll race ya any day!” she hit the ball and stepped back so they could continue playing. “Thanks for not telling your mom about out pillow fight…” she said before running for the ball again.
“It’s ok, my mom just made me clean it all up, and she’s remaking the pillows… Next time, we can’t play with the nice pillows, or better yet, we will just play at your house,” he suggested, letting Kristie win.
“Deal!” she said and spit in her hand before shaking his, sealing the deal, before leaning over and kissing his cheek quickly.
“Ew!” Howie said, wiping her cooties off on his shirt. “Whadja do that for?”
“Cuz you didn’t tattle!” she sang before skipping away.
Howie smiled and watched as his friend moved on to another game with someone else.
“Howie and Kristie sitting in a tree! K-I-S-“ Josh began singing at Howie.
“Shut up!” Howie said before turning to find who was singing and shoved the boy hard enough that he fell down.
Kids laughed at the scene, but luckily it didn’t last long because the bell rang a few minutes later.
