an unpleasant surprise

an unpleasant surprise

fiction
edward w pritchard

I was in charge and I sent Paulie home to find my Dad. The Johnson twins objected and moaned around but I stared them down and they knew I was right. Whatever they thought about Paulie's skills at baseball or fighting he was the only one of us who could run the four and a half miles home without stopping. Besides I didn't tell the Johnson's or Burt but Paulie's Mother was the only one who wouldn't butt in and ruin the rest of our adventure. Myself included, when our Mother's heard we were going to dig out the skeleton of a bear out of the dried up creek bed they would have about 200 objections at least, one of which was us catching the black plague from the old skeleton.

I knew my Dad would get here in a hurry. He took his bosses Mr. Tucker's jeep and came cross the Kepler farm to right where the river swerved before it went into the State park. We are on private land however; I already had asked permission to dig of Mr. Kepler who was a client of my Mom's. Her a real estate broker and him the owner of a large piece of land, where we found the bear skeleton sticking out of the water because of the drought around here.

Mr. Tucker came down after my Dad arrived and brought a bunch of camping equipment so we are spending the night. Tomorrow we are going to excavate the skeleton. My Dad who is a hunter confirmed Paulie's original diagnosis that it was a bear, and a big one. Bears have been gone from here for over a hundred years so it's a mystery where it came from. Mr Tucker called the Park service and they thanked us but a bear skeleton, not on Park land anyway, is not newsworthy and they said for us just to dig it out ourselves, as a learning experience for us boys they said.

Supper was nice out under the stars. Mr. Kepler brought food his wife had made and she is real old but a super cook. Our Dad's had beer and we were allowed to stay up as late as we wanted. The adults were like kids themselves I guess, excited for tomorrow to dig up the bear and not supervising us, treating us like equals; it was nice to be with my Dad like that.

I feel kind of sick for the last day or two and it is not because we start back to school next Tuesday; seventh grade for me. The bear skeleton was interesting and most of the parts were there in the dried up river bank. Some men from the FBI over in Akron came over after we dug it up. There was also a skeleton of a boy about my age near the bear. My Dad said matter of factly he thought the bear was dragging the body of the boy he had killed and got caught in quicksand. The bear must have sunk and died in the quicksand and the boy must have been already dead. No one is sure how old the skeletons are so the FBI and sheriff here in town are going to investigate.

I feel kind of queasy thinking that me or one of my friends could die like that.
end