Today , The Mother and Father have been married for 24 years. Not that they do anything about it, for they have been together much longer, but back in the deep, dark mists of time, that was considered living in sin, a state to be hidden from his two younger brothers.

Which we did indeed hide.

And then they all went on and did the same thing.

Living in sin.

Life right now is me writing things and then in the wee, wee hours of the next morning, making them private.

You know, I am not fond of musicals at all. As an aside, there are very, very few westerns that I can stomach either, High Noon perhaps being the only one that I don´t have to mull and ponder over.

But back to musicals.

Right now, I do believe that I am viewing some skewed and updated version of West Side Story.

Not that I have ever seen the film.

Just a very, very strong feeling that I am having right now.

I am watching some sort of courting ritual which involves leather jackets …ok, trimmed with fake fur and very tres chic…. a bunch of homerta and some music in the background.

I think. At least, I know that there is a girl, there is a boy and that there is a point of honor..of sorts.

In the end, I do believe that I might be a wee tad too old for another interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.

I suppose that Willem never realized that- within his world- that on that afternoon when he met The Boy with his dog, he most likely should have simply left The Boy`s teeth on the bike path, not have set that fire cracker off within inches of a dog on digitalis.

These pre-teens and teen agers can accept teeth on a bike path. So far, none of them can accept what Willem did to Buddy.

I tell The Girl to do nothing, you know, about the calls. But she and her friends can not forget what Willem did to Buddy.

I do believe that I must fumble through my various and sundry books about how to be a parent to find some way to crawl through this one.

During the past rainy, cold summer, moss took over our yard. When The Father picked us up from shopping in the Big City this morning, we needed to stop at a DIY store, for those queer little light bulbs on The Boy´s lamp, they were all dead, casting his room into darkness.

Thinking that they might also have something called moss killer, I ambled through the store and did indeed find such a product. Which I purchased.

After diner this evening, I went out to sprinkle it upon my shabby, threadbare lawn. As I sprinkled, I began- once more – to mull over things. I suppose that deep down in my heart, I do believe that all things have a reason, a logic behind it.

Why, I wondered, was Willem – the cool, class thug from The Boy´s old school- calling him . Why, so out of the blue, would he be bothering with the outcast of last years class .

Boy, I asked, where does Martijn live, Martijn being one of the two children from his old school who are now in his new school.

Oh, he replied, in W. en A.

Oh, I said.

I went back to sprinkling my lawn, recalling the time that I called the police about Willem and what he did to Buddy, that Willem lives in W. en A. as well.

And that The Girl told me that I should have made very sure that NO ONE from The Boy´s old school was in his new one.

As The Girl and I wait for the bus, I mull over the odd phone calls that The Boy received yesterday. Girl, I said, someone else was behind those calls. In fact, I think it was Willem.

But the bus came and The Girl and I headed off into The Big City, to buy The Boy a jacket. I was going to go alone, but she asked if she could come as well and I said sure, fine. The Boy couldn´t come, as he had a football game this morning.

Having The Girl help me to pick out the clothes for the others works out very well, for my first name is actually Drab. Both The Boy and The Baby have loved the clothing that she has chosen for them.

Black leather jackets are all of the rage for young men these days and I could see that The Boy- with his total admiration of The King and his fondness for Jimmy Dean – would love one of those babies, a jacket that a rebel without a cause would wear. The Girl agreed and picked out the latest style at a cool little store. It actually looked like a male version of a sweet little jacket that she conned her mother into buying for her.

The Boy loved it. He even slouched, which seems the appropriate thing to do in jacket such as this.

And then- a few hours later- the phone rang. For The Boy.

It was Willem.

That same thug who once threw a firecracker at Buddy- you know, our dog who gulps enough digitalis each day to keep five men alive. And pissed old mild mannered mommy off so much by doing so, that mild mannered mommy actually called the police.

When The Girl came home from horse number two, I mentioned the new calls to her. We put the phone- which The Boy had taken off of the hook- back in place.

And wonder if wee Willem knows what he has stepped into.

The phone rings this evening. It is Ricardo, calling for The Boy.

I remember Ricardo well, for The Boy never gave his home number to anyone at his old school. And then, one day, Ricardo was on the phone, asking for The Boy.

As The Boy has a very common last name, it was very obvious that Ricardo had called every *Common Last Name* in the phone book, trying to find The Boy.

Ricardo was a scout, sent out for what ever reasons, last spring.

And then he called again tonight.

The first call was a hang up.

The second call, I called The Boy down.

The Boy picked up the phone and then hung up. He would not tell me why.

I went up to The Girl, she is so stinkin’ savvy. Girl, I said, Ricardo is calling The Boy. She knows who Ricardo is. I ask, where does Ricardo go to school ? I fill her in on the history.

I am almost 50 years old, and so I do indeed go to The Girl for advice on these pre-teen, teen things, for she is very,very astute.

I simply ask her for advice, what I should do.

She tells me, if the phone rings again, call me.

I tell The Girl that I simply want advice, but she insists upon taking the call.

Ricardo does indeed call once more. Very pleasantly, I say oh, just a moment and call The Girl.

The Girl gets on the phone and tells Ricardo that she ( The Boy) has a simply dreadful cold. She listens to Ricardo’s story- all of the time, of course, Ricardo thinks that The Girl is The Boy. And then The Girl, posing as The Boy, basically tells Ricardo that if he ever calls our happy home once more, she ( he) will turn him into the police for stalking.

The Girl ripped into me after the phone call.

Of course, I should have done it.

On the other hand, I did not ask her to do it, I simply asked for advice.

But she seems to know the Dutch laws very well indeed.

And should Ricardo call us once more – which, having had an earful of The Girl’s mouth I doubt very much indeed- I do think that I might consider calling the police.

We found Ricardo´s last name in the phone book.

Isn´t a phone book just a handy, dandy tool indeed …

We sold the first horse today.

It was a good sale, K.has helped care for B. since we bought him, her family has land where the some what lame beast can party- hearty on and The Girl wanted it.

He was sold for a token amount of money and with an however… however, should K. ever wish to sell B, – at any point in time- we shall have the first option to buy him, for the same token amount that we have sold him for. In theory, only The Girl and K. shall ever own him.

Talking to K.’s mother, I believe this is true.

But then, of course, despite all DNA results, I also still believe that Anna Anderson was Anastasia…

This morning was perhaps comic, perhaps a disaster but most likely one of those things that are labeled a Learning Experience.

What was learned? Well, to read the deluge of papers the night before and to prepare the book bag then as well.

The Boy needs a good amount of time to focus his attention away from the Land of Nod and back into Life As We Know It. He did not have enough time this morning, and so that means that we will be getting up at 6 am, not 6.30 from now on.

He was too drowsy to even think about breakfast, too drowsy to talk about lunch. I stuffed a bottle of diet Coke into his book bag, as well as various and sundry bus tickets and paper money.

There was no phone today – a fact that The Mother rued later in the day.

But back to the 6.30am frame of mind. We had decided the night before to shoot for a 7.52 bus, but in the morning, at just about 7.10, The Boy decided that he wanted to take the 7.22 bus. I said, Boy, you shall never make make it.

He said, sure I will.

I said, Boy, you still have to brush your teeth and you only have one sock on.

He looked at his feet and ran upstairs, in search of...

With three minutes left to catch the bus, he jumped on his bike and took off, into- as far as I was concerned- the Twilight Zone.

I could not imagine that he had caught the bus, thought that he had missed it and would have to wait for 30 minutes in the drizzle, that he would see the other children hopping on their bikes and heading off to W. and would join them. Especially since I knew that Jesse, from his soccer team, would be heading out as well.

But only the Phantom- at that point- knew for sure. I certainly had no idea of what The Boy was doing. Although I certainly had my druthers.

Later in the day, I went with The Father to a great book store in The Big City. The Father had received a number of book gift certificates in his Get Well Soon cards and so I joined him, well versed in my role as Kunte Kane, willing to be his mouth piece.

Because of the work being done on the road, we had to pass just exactly by where The Boy had said he would park his bike, when he caught the bus in the morning.

The Father ( finally) slowed down the car and I scanned the parking lot : no red bike to be seen.

I secretly hoped that The Boy had biked to school, had joined up with Jesse and chit chatted the early morning away as he pedaled to school.

I knew that school let out today at 2.10. I warned everyone not to give him a hard time, as he had had a long day yesterday ( soccer/football training at 7- 8, after a First Day at A New School) and a tragically early morning – truly, I could empathize with The Boy- today.

The big mystery was the missing bike. Had he biked to school ? Had the bike been stolen, on the very first day ? Neither option portended a happy camper arriving at our home.

I asked The Girl how long it would take to bike 10 kms. She said, oh, I could do it in about 45 minutes. It will probably take him at least an hour, an hour and a quarter.

2.10. 2.10. It was nearing 4. As I am paid to worry and fuss, see danger in every corner ( we will not leave the children in the car alone, not for one second, Bub !), heebie-jeebies were beginning to run through my veins. Vague vignettes of an unconscious lad, broken and battered, bleeding slowly, thickly onto a bike path smoked up into my vision.

Tick tock. Tick tock. We should have given him The Father’s phone, tock. Stupid, tick.

A little after 4, the doorbell rang. As The Father cannot talk at this moment, Ole Kunte ran to the door and there was The Boy. One glance told that he had had a wonderful day and the visions of broken teeth on the bike path evaporated into folly.

I opened the back gate and let him in.

He had missed the first bus, but used the time in between the buses to hide his bike very well indeed, right next to that cemetery, dontcha know. That is why we could not spy his bike.

His faced wreathed in grins, he told me that he thought that he was popular, a state of grace which The Girl has always been very interested in and vocal about. Oh, I replied, in that sortof vague way that one must adopt at times ( hey, Freud, read my lips…). He told me that people were talking to him and he had a lot of fun and the boys seemed to like him well enough and even..even some of the girls.

That’s great, I said, in that very vague sortof way. I could picture it : The Boy hasn’t a shy bone in his body, when we get the one, lone seat on the airplane, he can take it. Chats with the people next to him, offers bubble gum…oh well, it is after all the polite thing to do.

As he hadn’t a lunch, some one offered to share their’s with him, as he doesn’t bike to school, he has a lift tomorrow for the Sport Day.

And while my Billy Budd hasn’t a vindictive bone in his body ( and don’t I wish that he had), I think that all of the Gods above, whatever flavor or form that they might have , would forgive him for taking pleasure- in a very small way- in today, as he glanced at the two children from his old school.

He told me that they did not talk to anyone in the new class.

And then he told me that- perhaps- they were just used to being accepted all of the time, not having to make any effort, that their mode was simply waiting for people to come up to them and chat.

And I was very, very glad to see that my boy ( who will never, ever say one bad word about the two) could find pleasure today in his new school, that he found people who would talk to him and simply had fun with him.

And that some where, in the back of his mind, he could see that The Mother was right when she told him- over and over again- that the problem was not within him.

And then he pulled out a hunk of that rotisserie chicken , the odor of which had always captivated him as we took the bus to his keyboard lessons, on that very same bus that he took today, at that very same stop, just going in the other way.

And said, I am really hungry.

As The Baby and The Mother walk home today from school, The Baby tells The Mother of what simply must have been an horrific day at school : one of the boys just lost it. Things were flying through the air, feet were stomped, quite a scene indeed.

The boy goes to a special class called * Tum Tum * ( don’t even begin to ask me why), one of those * remedial * classes, set up for children who need extra help in, oh, learning the social mores of our times.

The Mother received a paper the other day telling her that The Baby would be in * Tum Tum* once more.

It could be because The Baby can be very shy with strangers, or it could be that her tendency to be a closet Nazi at home has filtered into her school days.

The Mother sips her mug of coffee, and although she knows- deep in her gut- that Freud was full of shit and a child of his times, she cannot help wondering if this is all her fault.

After all, according to Freud, it is always The Mother’s fault.

Even though we all know, these days, that a fortune cookie gives a more apt analysis than Freud ever could.

Today, The Boy went to his new school, very,very far away. Oh, about 10 kms away. It was an *Intro Day*, starting at 2 and The Father drove him there.

The Mother wrote down the times for various buses that could bring him home once again, back from far, far away. As the phone that The Girl helped to set up did not work, The Boy had The Father’s phone, and with a rather grownup feeling, he called The Mother to let her know which bus he was on. That he was on his way home.

It was a familiar bus, a familiar stop, just in the opposite direction and so he did what he has always done at that stop- albeit going the other way- and bought an ice cream cone as he waited for the next bus, the one that would bring him home once more.

The Mother fiddled about in the garden, topping the basil, watering the hanging baskets until she heard The Boy at the back gate.

I am home !

The Girl helped to select his clothing for this first week- she has a keen eye for cool and nerd. We found things that they could both live with.

But when The Boy came home, telling of his day, the only thing that The Girl said was that The Mother should have made sure that no one,absolutely no one , from The Boy’s old school should be in his new class.

The Mother drifted back in time and remembered holding her beautiful son’s chubby little toes in her hands, never imagining the days to come.

That the old saw – little children, little problems, big children, big problems- could actually have a foundation in truth.

Even though she has always known that most cliches are true.

The Girl comes down stairs in a fine, foul mood. After sleeping in for weeks on end, it is once more time to get up with the cows.

This day, The Girl has 5 hours of something that The Mother cannot translate. But The Girl has some choice : she can ( I kid you not- and this at 14) go for being a nail stylist ( or whatever the sh*t they call that), a…oh….an…oh.. beautician ?….a change the pampers on old folks person or someone who deals with small children .

The Mother looks over her mug of coffee at her infuriated daughter and says, go for the kids thing. After all, for the last few years, The Girl has been the one at the manege who has taught handicapped children ( of various and sundry flavors. Sorry.) how to ride a horse.

The Mother hasn’t a clue what else to say, for she loathes and finds the options dull to death as well.

After The Girl leaves, The Mother sips her coffee and remembers telling her little girl that she could be whatever she wanted to be.

The Mother has now been proved a liar of the first degree.