THE LILAC BUSH STOLE IT

By Hal Mansfield

This was written during an hour-long class conducted by Sam Swope at the 2006 SSA conference (Jan. 28th and 29th) in Tucson:

My friend came back over to my house with an enraged mother in tow.

"Where is the airplane you stole from son," the mother demanded.

"I didn't steal it. I lost it in the lilac bush in the back yard. I don't know where it went. It just disappeared into the bush," I protested.

"Show us what you were doing and where you lost it into the bush." With that, she grabbed me by the arm and we started toward the back yard. We went around the house to the back yard and stood in front of the large bush. The bush was nearly round. It consisted of hundreds of individual shoots. Old leaves piled up between the shoots to a depth of at least two feet.

"We was playing aerial combat. I came around the corner of the house, stumbled and fell. The airplane flipped into the bush and disappeared. It hurt something awful. I showed her my arm, even though there was no bruise or skinned place. "When I looked for the airplane, I couldn't find it."

"Just ask Jimmy," I implored. "He was chasing me when I rounded the corner."

"Tain't so," Jimmy said. "I didn't see you fall. I was still around the corner," he whined.

My ears were burning and sweat was trickling down from my armpits.

"Sounds fishy to me," Jimmy's mother said. "Show me exactly where you fell."

"Right here." I pointed to the ground next to the bush. "I fell just about here."

Jimmy's mother walked up to the bush and peered into the tangle of shoots and leaves, pulling some of the shoots back so she could look into the maze.

"Umph!" she said. "I don't see it in there. Tell you what, when your father comes home, you have him help you look in there. Some of those branches and leaves need to be cleared out. When you find it, bring it over to our house and we will forget the whole thing, though I doubt that Jimmy will be playing with you any more." With that, she grabbed Jimmy by the arm and disappeared around the house.

"Whoops," I thought. "I don't want Dad to get involved in this."

I walked over to the back porch, reached under it and pulled out the plane.

Later, but long before Dad got home, I took it back to Jimmy and his mother.