“Do you want a blind fold?” asked Dave.

“No.” I replied, why would he even ask me, I was confident in his abilities; after all he was almost a teenager, what could possibly go wrong?

“Well here, put this cigarette in your mouth.”

I spread my lips open slightly and took the white stick into my mouth clamping down on the filter with my teeth until it was flat, it tasted like dried paper, I didn’t like the taste. He grabbed my two shoulders, spun me a few degrees to the right then dropped his hands. I tried to concentrate on his last instructions to hold the cigarette straight out and not let it drop as I did not want to mess up Dave’s shot.

“There that’s perfect, now remember stay still and don’t move,” instructed Dave as he turned his back, paced off the distance and drew a line in the sand with his sneaker.

I had no plans to move, let’s just get this over with; I was starting to get fidgety.

“Don’t move now.” He said one more time as he raised the rifle to his right cheek and took a deep breath; he closed his left eye like a true marksman should and slowly squeezed the trigger. The gun made a popping noise and kicked back against Dave’s shoulder as the compressed air propelled the silver pellet through the air towards its target.

My eyes blinked and I flinched as the cigarette snapped in two pieces, the twelve year old marksman’s shot was perfect.

My mother ran to Dave clutching her apron in her left hand , bent over and pressed her forehead to his scolding him as I never heard her yell before, she pushed him in the direction of his home, he began running and she turned to kneel by me.

“What on earth were you thinking Jerry, you could have lost an eye or even worse,” she smacked me on my backside with her open hand then threw her arms around my slight frame and hugged me for several seconds. What a safe place this was in my mother’s arms. Then about the time I was getting comfortable she pinched my ear and unceremoniously dragged me home.

“Boy I hope Dave didn’t see that.” I said to myself. I didn’t want the sixth grader to think I was a goof.

“What did I do,” I cried as she pushed me through the front door. I was only six years old and totally confused by my mother’s conflicting behavior.