Five boys and a dog stood in front of the pregnant oak tree. The tree had a collection of knots the size of a watermelon on one side. The oldest boy joked it had been made pregnant by a maple in the front yard. The youngest didn't know why that was funny, but the others boys had laughed, so he had laughed.

     The oldest was enunciating the ground rules for a game of hide-and-seek.

     "No going into the Nelson's yard."

     The second-oldest served as enforcer, delivering a shoulder punch to the third-oldest.

     "Yeah, Tim."

     If there was any confusion as to who caused the rule to be drafted, the admonition had cleared it up. Tim didn't like hide and seek. Tim liked Fluffernutters and Leave it to Beaver, both of which were in ready supply at the Nelson's house, in which a boy Tim's age resided.

     The last game of hide-and-seek had been upset when Tim could not be found. A thorough search was unsuccessful, leading the other brothers to wonder if Tim had come to a bad end. Maybe he had tried to hide under a sewer cap and been washed away into Lake Michigan a few blocks away. Cutting through the bushes to the Nelson's yard was an infraction in and of itself, since it meant stepping on Dad's flowers. Combine that with the unsportsmanlike conduct of sneaking out of a game, leaving your brothers climbing trees, crawling under porches and removing sewer caps looking for you, and, suffice to say, the shoulder punch was richly deserved.

     "And Mom says no goin' on the roof."

     The youngest bolted the circle before the shoulder punch could be delivered. He knew full well the consternation he had caused in a recent game. The little fart was a helluva climber, and had climbed an evergreen in front of the three-story Victorian house and stepped off the tree at the second floor, as it were, or the lower section of roof, which covered the home's most striking feature, a wraparound porch with white pillars. From his perch on the roof, Little Fart (Dad's affectionate nickname) could gleefully toss acorns onto the heads of the game's designated seeker. More unsportsmanlike conduct.

     "Awright, awright, Timmy, you're 'it.' Count to ten and no peeking." Timmy put his face up against the pregnant oak and his hands to the side of his face as the other four scattered. The youngest knew his strategy for this game. If he couldn't go up, he would go down.  He scampered around to the front of the house, across the front walk and around an evergreen bush to the secret entrance to the three-foot-high space underneath the wraparound porch.

     Slats kept larger critters out of the space, but they were no match for enterprising boys. On a previous adventure, one of the boys had smashed a few of the slats with a rock, thereby gaining entry to the perfect hiding spot. The opening was left behind after the game, of course, and a raccoon had taken up residence inside, causing the dog, Queenie, to go after it. Hearing the commotion one night while on the screened-in section of the porch, Dad had to put down his gin-and-Squirt and go after the dog, for whose safety he feared. A cornered racoon was likely to inflict great injury, even if Queenie  wound up killing the critter. This was quite the kerfluffle, of course, the upshot being that Howard received a tongue-lashing about the responsibilities associated with being the oldest. And, of course, no one, henceforth and forever, was to smash slats or anything else on the house, for that matter, or hide under the porch for any reason whatsoever. 

     Since the no-going-under-the-porch rule had not been enunciated that day, what with no-going-on-the-roof rule and the no-cutting-through-the-bushes rule, Little Fart reasoned that the no-going-under-the-porch rule had been stricken from the books or at least temporarily suspended. He was certain he should not, however, smash the house. On a previous and secret reconnaissance mission, he had discovered that Dad had nailed, not screwed, the replacement slats in place. An enterprising hider could pry two slats out, crawl inside, and pull the slats back into place. Said hider could then could read a comic book, eat a Clark bar (both of which he had smuggled with him in a pant leg) and cackle at the frustration of the seeker. This would be more fun than tossing acorns off the roof, though that had been a hoot.

     He pried off the slats with a golf club he had hidden in the evergreen bush while on his reconnaissance mission. He scurried in and was guiding the slat nails back into their holes when he was discovered by the game's most talented player, the dog. She was a teammate of the seeker and a valuable one. Crawling under a pile of leaves was no strategy against the nose of Queenie, who would happily sniff around, wag her tail, and bark.  Games of hide and seek at 259 Hazel Avenue in the summer of 1960 were pretty short.

     He would be caught, and not just for purposes of the game, but for entering the forbidden area below the porch. All his ingenious planning, reconnoitering and smuggling would be for naught.

     "Go away, Queenie. Bad Dog!" She barked at him and wagged. He removed a slat, reached through the opening and punched her in the throat. "Stupid dog. I hate you." He pulled the slats into place and crawled away from the opening as Tim approached.

     "Jimmy you better not be under there." Little Fart crawled back against the stone foundation of the house and hoped for the best. "HEY! I GOTCHA!" Kevin had been discovered out front. Always a poor hider, Kevin figured he would become invisible behind a tree. When the seeker had passed, he would return to the pregnant oak and hide behind it, by which time no doubt all others would be found and he would be declared the winner and they could all go inside and eat Fluffernutters.  Tim had by chance looked back and seen Kevin scampering through the yard. The rules stipulated that, once discovered, a hider joined forces with the seeker until all participants had been rounded up.

     "I think Jimmy's around here somewhere. Queenie was barking over by the porch, but Dad fixed the hole. Did you see him?"

     "He came this way. He must've gone into the trees in back."

     A gravel drive along the side of the house opposite the yard led to the back. An entire wooden ladder had been nailed against the tree, and delivered one up and into a fort of sorts, pounded into a fork in the tree's massive branches. It wasn't much of a hiding place, but off the two boys went with the dog trailing happily behind, oblivious to the assault delivered by the skinny four-year-old under the porch. She was much larger than he.

     Jimmy unzipped his jeans to extricate the comic book and the Clark Bar when he felt the pain. A stab into his left forearm. Another below the belly button. He pushed off the wall toward the loose slats eight feet away and began to crawl. A rock bit his right hand. He curled up into a ball and kept feeling something touching his head, the back of his neck. Something like a spider web or a moth, something fluttering, flying. He slapped at his head and face maniacally. The stabs exploded with pain. He made for the opening and caught his head on an exposed nail sticking through  a crossbeam above. Blood ran into his eyes. He screamed. He swatted. Whatever was flying around his head, there was more than one. He waved his arms and shook his head. And screamed more. And screamed and cried and hollered and wailed and bellowed. He dug his Keds into the dirt and torpedoed toward the loose slats. He gained three feet and landed on his face. His unbuckled pants slid down his skinny hips. The fluttering thing touched a cheek. He pulled his shirt up over his head. Another sting on his exposed back. He dug his heels in again and lunged forward. Then again,  head-first into the loose slats. They popped out at their top ends and peeled out. He crawled forward and a slat nail stabbed through his hand. It didn't hurt as bad as the stings, even when he pulled it off the nail. He was a Tazmanian Devil, a whirling dervish of blood and screams and pain as his brothers tried to get a hold of him.

     "MOMMMEEEEEE!!!!!

     "MOMMMEEEEEE!!!!!

     "WHAAAWEEEEEE!!!!!

     He tore through the arms of his befuddled brothers, around the evergreen bush and up the front walk. He tripped on the steps. A cheek slammed into a step as he writhed out of the t-shirt.

     "What happened?"

     "Why are his pants down?

     "Dad's gonna kill him for going under the porch.

     "Get Mom."

     Mom threw open the front door and the boy leapt into her apron, nearly knocking her backward. She wore rubber kitchen gloves still wet with soapy water. She held him and turned into the house demanding to know "what happened? What in dickens happened. Howie!?"

     The boy felt it again. A fluttering at the back of his crew-cut head. He twisted out of his mother's arms and bounced in a crooked circle in the foyer room floor until he ran out of real estate. He backed into a corner and looked out toward the door. He could see the spot, darting and floating a foot in front of his face. He swatted. It moved and returned. He pushed back into the walls as it landed on his left eye. There was a flash of black fur, a nick of tooth on his eyebrow and a long, wet tongue.

     "Close that door!"

     He was carried, whimpering, through the regal dining room and into the kitchen in back. Each brother held a limb as he was stripped and laid on his back, stretched across a formica-topped table.

     "Don't pee, Jimmy."

     A one-eyebrow-lifted glare silenced their giggling. Mom mixed and applied a baking powder poultice to the stings and wrapped or taped them with gauze. She crushed aspirin, mixed it with sugar and warm water and spooned it into his quivering mouth. 

     "It gets into him faster this way."

     He woke later in his own bed. Mom was there, of course. The nail had punctured the fleshy webbing between the thumb and index finger. The wound was clean. The cut on his head was small, though the lump beneath it was not. Tetanus shots were a regular requirement for these boys. He wouldn't need another one today. The swelling had gone down on all four stings or bites, as paper wasps were capable of both. His eye was not harmed, save for the scratch on the brow left by Queenie as she snapped up the angry wasp. Mom spooned him Campbell's Tomato Soup, more aspirin-sugar and told him to stay in bed, as he had had quite enough adventure for one day.

     He awoke in the dark and shuffled in his footie-pajamas down the hallway to the bathroom to pee. He felt better and walked down the back stairs. He heard her tags jingle as she lifted her head. She was in her sleeping spot, next to a radiator in the dining room. Here lay the only nice rug in the house, a burgundy oriental with gold trim and thick padding, which made it attractive to the dalmatian-shepherd mutt.

     "You saved me, Queenie. I'm sorry I said you were bad. You weren't bad. I was bad. I hit you. I hit you. I'm so bad I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry."

     He hugged her and rolled over, laying face-up with his head between her spotted paws. She licked and licked his tears until he cried no more. And when they awoke, he was better.