Walter & Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

commanded you not to eat from?”
    Okay, that isn’t what the voice said. And it actually wasn’t a “voice.” It was more like a roar.
    “Hey!” Reverend Hendricks shouted from the window in his house. “Boys, get out of my trees! I sees ya, I sees ya! I knows who you is!” Reverend Hendricks had obviously snuck himself home without our knowing and was just sitting quietly, watching us, waiting for his moment. Definitely an ambush…and it worked in scaring the living crap out of us.
    Instincts kicked into gear, and I was gone. I shot over to the fence like a deer, bounced off once, and then hit it again, bare feet first, and two-toe crawled it over the fence and into the woods. I guess the whole “never leave a man behind” thing hadn’t made it into our military-style plan, because I didn’t even think of helping Walter, who was struggling to get his fat butt over the fence.
    Now, y’all only know Walter as “Sweetness” and one of the best football players of all time. So you probably won’t believe me when I tell you this, but at one time I was quicker than Walter. It’s true. In fact, at the time of “Operation Plum Poach,” you might have called him “Slowness.” I was no doubt much faster than him that day, because I disappeared into the woods while he continued to climb over that dang fence. I would just tell him to stay on the other side if I had to do it over again.
    Walter finally jelly-rolled himself over and crashed into the woods like a big ol’ buffalo. Back in the cover of the woods, we took off together. It was like one of those Road Runner cartoons, with our legs and feet just circular blurs. Straight home and into the backyard we went. We could still hear Reverend Hendricks yelling in the distance, “I sees ya, I sees ya! I knows who you is! Just wait ’til your daddy gets home!”
    Oh man, our daddy? It started sinking in when we heard “wait ’til your daddy gets home.” That’s when we were really scared and started thinking, Okay, maybe we shouldn’t have done that.
    By the time we got back home, we checked out pockets. All we had left was a couple of plums apiece, and they were squashed in all the frenzy of getting out of there. They were still edible, though, so we ate ’em. One thing we learned from hanging out with the older boys in the neighborhood was that if you’re stealing food, you always eat the evidence.
    There was this one man outside of Columbia, Mississippi, where we grew up, who grew watermelons in a huge field. The older boys would sneak into his field and eat the heart of the watermelons but leave the rest in the field to rot. That put the farmer on alert to the fact that someone was stealing his melons, so he started watching and caught those melon robbers red-handed. Well, Walter and I learned from that. We weren’t going to get caught with any plums, so we ate them all up. Also, we just plain wanted to eat them all up. We hunkered down in our shared bedroom, savoring the taste of those juicy plums and hoping Reverend Hendricks was just talking when he said he saw us and knew who we were.
    We tried to convince ourselves that we had pulled it off, but down deep inside, I think we knew the Reverend wasn’t just talking, because we kept looking out the window to see if he was coming. It wasn’t long before we saw the slim, well-groomed man of God limping his way up the street, straight to our house. He looked as dapper as could be in his suit, just like a pastor should. The only thing that didn’t match his suit was that scowl on his face. We were all made in the image of God, I know, but on that day, Reverend Hendricks’ image was definitely favoring the wrath of God. Every limp he took toward our door would send another surge of adrenaline through our bodies. And then the limping stopped. Was he healed? No, he was at our front door. There was a knock, and our daddy opened up.
    “Hello, Reverend Hendricks, come on in,” Daddy said, thinking (or