Boys will be Boys

The birds that had been beating in the trees suddenly launched themselves in the air en masse after a shot was fired.

"What did you do?!?

Breathless, Keith slowed his pace as he caught up to his older brother Tom, who stood stock still.

Charlie followed Keith up the hill and the youngest brother, Rick, brought up the rear.

"Uh...."

Tom couldn't seem to get the words out or any words out. He just stood there at the edge of the ravine.

"What do we….?”, Charlie began catching his breath. He was about to ask again but, when he turned to face Tom, his mouth just froze at the sight of his older brother almost bug-eyed and his mouth open

The four boys stared down the ravine in shock. Tom shook his head, still gripping the rifle tightly in his hands, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.

Keith looked at Tom and gesticulated, pleading with him. "What do we do?!?"

Charlie and Rick said nothing at all, and just stared, dumbstruck at the ravine and the body that was sprawled out on the ground below, arms twisted in unnatural position.

Rick finally spoke up and said "maybe he's just hurt or something”

The others gave him a withering look and shook their heads.

"No.". Tom said and straightened himself up. He was the oldest of the 4 brothers and he was the one they looked to for leadership so he had to take charge of the situation. He ran his fingers through his short, sandy brown hair while his left hand continued to hold the rifle.

"We tried to warm him....but we got here too late. We don't know why he ran. He had hallucinations like his Dad. He

Charlie, who had a muscular build walked towards the edge of the ravine. "Yeah. If he could've held on to something, I could've pulled him back up. He's not from here, so he probably wouldn't have known that this was here"

Rick looked around and nodded in agreement and in a trembling voice, she said "So that's what happened, right? That's what we'll tell Dad? Cousin Matt just went nuts.like Uncle Jack and ran away and fell down here?"

Keith continued to look at the body. "Is there a bullet wound?"

Tom looked down towards the ravine."No, there's no bullet wound. No blood that I can see, either.”

Keith looked at his brother again. " Did you go down there and check? We all heard that shot! You had the rifle pointed at him!"

"I said, there's no bullet wound!"

Charlie turned to face them both. "Maybe we were never here. Someone else shot him"

"Yeah that could work. Someone else shot him and then he fell down that ravine! Sure!”.

Keith shook his head,. vigorously, his breathing starting to increase. “Our nearest neighbors are 5 miles away. And anyways, the ballistics would show that the bullet came from Dad's rifle!”

Rick began to whimper ..”this is really bad….”. His eyes began to water and his mouth twitched into a grimace. “We were just playin’ that's all! Why the hell did you get the rifle, Tom? You didn't need that! Matt was already scared of us anyway!”

“Stop it!”, yelled Charlie! You're acting like a baby like Matt!

"No, no, no!". Tom continued, red-faced. "I already told you! There is no bullet wound! He was running away from the house, we saw him and we ran after him, but he was too far away for us to catch him and warn him about the ravine!"

Rick looked back at Tom. "You know, his mother might have a field day with that story. Matt had pretty bad asthma and couldn't run very far or fast. Dad took Matt away from her because he told the court that he could do a better job of making a man out of him and we go and kill him!"

Tom glared at Rick, the youngest brother and then at the other two and tried to calm down, breathing slowly and speaking calmly.

"We saw him running away from the house...."

He paused and looked meaningfully at his brothers, who all looked at each other,.then looked back at Tom. “Come on!”, Tom shouted. “Let me hear you say it!”

Rick looked around again to his brothers with a face that seemed to say “HELP!”. Finding none though, he joined his brothers as the spoke in unison, they said "we saw him running from the house.."

"We went after him but he had gotten too far away..."

"We went after him, but he had gotten too far away...."

Tom continued...."by the time, we got here, it was too late"

"By the time we got here, it was too late"

Tom nodded in approval. "Okay, we will all go inside and call the police and when they ask, this is the story we tell them and this is the story we stick to. Got it?"

"Got it", they all said in unison.

One by one, the boys left the area and slowly made their way back to the house and called the police. The boys' Dad was called and he came as quickly as he could to the house while the police continued interviewing the boys. EMTs were there as well as the Fire department to assist as needed.

After about an hour, one of the officers came back to the house with an stern look on his face. He went to speak to the Dad briefly as the EMTs and fire department packed up their gear.

The officer in charge turned to face the boys

"Is this some kind of a prank?"

The boys stared at the officer wide eyed and shook their heads. Their dad looked at them with his arms folded.

"Boys, the police, the fire department and the EMTs are all here to see if they could save Matt who fell down that ravine. All they found at the bottom of the ravine is a scarecrow! What is going on? What really happened?”

The boys stared at him, dumbfounded, not having any words. Tom opened his mouth to tell the story again even though the he had no explanation for this situation. Just as he found the courage to speak, a small boy of about 10 years old entered the room with a yawn.

"Matt?", Tom said aloud.

"Oh hi ,guys! I just woke up from a nap and I heard all of this noise. What's going on?"

Tom shook his head and looked to his father, whose expression only hardened more after seeing Matt alive and well. He turned away from his boys after shaking his head, brow furrowed in disgust.

Tom looked towards Matt again as if in the trance then looked down onto the floor again just as the other boys did, not wanting to meet their father’s eyes.