>The Watchers in the Woods

>I was working in the kitchen Saturday morning when I looked out the window into my backyard and saw… legs.

After catching my breath and walking quickly to the window, I was able to see what was attached to those legs: a young teenage boy, standing at the very back of my fenced-in yard.

I opened the back door. “Hello?!” I called dubiously. In the woods behind him, I could see a man and another boy through the trees. The man started yelling.

“People don’t like you to be in their yard, boy! You’d better get out of there!” The boy stared at me for a moment, then ran, jumping over our back fence into the woods. Watching the trio leave, I went back inside. I supposed they were taking a walk, although I had no idea why the kid had climbed a fence and come into our yard. And I was irritated that the man in the woods hadn’t even tried to explain or apologize. But whatever- They were gone and that was what really mattered.

Later that afternoon, I got a call from one of my neighbors.

“I just wanted to give you a heads-up on something,” she said. “There was a boy in your yard this morning. Steve saw him.”

“I know!” I said. “I saw him, too. That was so weird, wasn’t it? And like, his dad was in the woods behind him, yelling, ‘Ewww better git outter their yar-rud, baw-wee!”

To be honest, the dad didn’t have that much of a twang, but you know, not that much had happened that day. I needed to add some interest to the story.

And so I did.

“I mean, he was just screaming, ‘Git outten thar!'” I continued, bellowing into the phone as my neighbor listened. “Ah sayud Git, baw-wee! Raht nay-ow!“

“Hold on,” my neighbor said. I could hear the muffled sounds of her talking with her husband.”When did you see them?” my neighbor asked me after a moment. “Was it about 12?” .

“Yeah, it was,” I said.

“Because that’s what time Steve saw them. He yelled at them to get out of your yard, and they left quick. He didn’t hear the man say anything, though.”

I paused. I had just assumed it was the dad in the woods yelling. It hadn’t occurred to me that the yelling might have been coming from my neighbor.

“Yeah, uh… that must have been Steve I heard,” I said, thinking quickly. I tried to sound like I had a bit of an accent myself. “Goldarn, he shore scared them off!” I told my neighbor. “I loved how he um, hollered, “Be sure and get out of their yard, little boy!”

“Well, we’ll be on the lookout in case they come back,” she promised. “I just wanted to make sure you knew about it.”

I’ll tell you what I know. I have a serious, serious case of footinthemouthitis. Day-um.