Loving Miss Libby

Libby
Langstrom strained to compel the old push mower across the too tall grass in
her backyard.  She swiped a hand across her brow, wishing desperately that her
gas mower hadn’t recently broken down.  If only she had the expertise to fix
it, but alas, small engine repair wasn’t among her talents.

As she struggled with the relic of a mower, she came
to a startled stop when she was struck in the temple by a wayward soccer ball. 
She felt the sharp sting of contact, and took a staggering step back.  Wow,
that ball packed a punch, she thought, as she reached a hand up to check her
head. 

After a beat, she yelled, “Marky!” 

She knew full well where that ball had come from. 
Sure enough, her five-year-old neighbor scrambled over the fence separating
their yards and dropped into her vegetable garden, landing squarely on one of
her tomato plants.  He glanced down, seeming to register the squished tomatoes
under his feet.  He looked up and gave her a wan smile.  “Sorry, Miss Libby.  I
forgot about your tomatoes.”

“Sweetie, for once, could you use the gate?”  She
gestured toward the nearby entrance to her yard.  “I leave it unlocked just for
you.” 

She’d discovered it made more sense to leave it
unlatched, since Marky was forever launching balls and assorted toys into her
backyard.  Rather than contend with the constant ringing of her doorbell and
his repeated requests that she find his lost items, she’d opted rather to give
him permission to retrieve his toys whenever the need arose.  Of course, the
little guy often helped himself to more than his lost toys.  Her fruit trees
and plants were fair game, to his way of thinking.

“But Miss Libby, I don’t like to use the gate.  I
like to climb,” he said, his freckled face very serious. 

“I know you do,” she said patiently, her green eyes
fixed on his face.  “And I’m pretty sure that’s why your daddy constructed that
jungle gym for you in your backyard.”

He gave a dismissive wave.  “It’s boring.” 

“More boring than an old fence,” she said dubiously,
watching him with a pronounced frown.

“But I like coming over here to see you,” he
declared, smiling winningly.

Her heart promptly melted and she returned his
smile.  The little boy had already learned to lay on the charm with the
opposite sex.     

“Hey, did you see where my ball went?” he asked,
dashing over to her and watching her with earnest eyes.

She nodded and gestured to it.  It was a couple feet
away and hidden within a bush.  “Not only did I see it, I felt it.  It hit me
in the temple.”

“Oh, Miss Libby, I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely
contrite, as he scooped it up.  “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“Yes, well, young man, if I take another blow to the
head, I’ll probably end up in the emergency room,” she murmured. 

As much as she liked her little neighbor, spending
time in her backyard often felt a bit like living in a warzone, where items
could be launched at her with no warning or provocation.

“Do you think you may have brain damage, Miss
Libby?” a concerned voice said from nearby.

Both Libby and Markey glanced over to the source of
the voice.  Marky’s sister Kate was presently stepping through the open gate,
her face set in a worried frown.  At eight years old, she often seemed to have
the weight of the world on her thin little shoulders.  “Where’d he get you this
time, Miss Libby?” she inquired, appearing to brace for her answer. 

“In the temple, but I’m all right.”

Kate glared at her brother.  “I told you to be more
careful.  I read in a book that you can actually die if you get hit hard enough
in the temple!  You could have killed Miss Libby!”

Marky glanced at her, worriedly.  “Are you dying,
Miss Libby?”  His eyes began to tear up.  “I don’t want you to die.”

“I’m fi—”

“You don’t want her to die?” Kate cut in
accusingly.  “Well, you should have thought of that before you hit her in the
temple with a soccer ball.  The last time you hit her with a ball, you made her
bleed
.  Dad says we’re lucky she didn’t sue us.”

Libby gave a surprised laugh.  “Oh, yeah?  Your dad
said that?”

“Yes.  He said if he had to live next door to two
kids who are always throwing, kicking, or hitting things over the fence, he’d
get a taller fence … or a good lawyer.”

Marky moved to stand beside Libby.  “Dad said you
might sue me…”

“He didn’t know what ‘sue’ meant, but I explained it
to him,” Kate interrupted smugly.

“Are you going to sue me, Miss Libby?  I only have
fourteen dollars in my piggy bank and I want to buy a Nerf gun.  If you sue
me…”

She pretended to mull over Marky’s question.  “Well,
I don’t know.  Does my nose look all right to you?”  She turned from side to
side, giving him a view of her face from all angles.  The last injurious
contact courtesy of Marky had involved a softball and her unsuspecting nose. 

As per usual, Marky had thrown a wild pitch.  She’d
been watering the tomatoes when the ball had sailed over the fence and hit her
squarely on the bridge of her nose.  She’d promptly fallen over backward from
the shock of it.  If she hadn’t landed on a pile of top soil, she might have
sustained further injury.

Marky moved closer to her and appeared to do a
thorough examination of her face.  “Yeah, you look all right to me.”  He
shuffled awkwardly and gave her a shy smile.  “Really pretty.”

“Marky likes you, Miss Libby,” Kate said
matter-of-factly.  “Sometimes I think he throws things over here just because
he wants a reason to talk to you.”

Libby expected Marky to wail in protest, but he only
grinned and continued watching her as if she was, indeed, the object of his
affection.   

“Oh, you’re sweet,” she said, laughing, as she
pulled him into a hug.  “But if you want to visit with me,  I’d prefer you come
to the front door and ring the bell, rather than throw things at me,” she
directed in a mock-stern voice.  “Or at least call out a warning, so I can
duck, or run for cover.”

He only grinned in response.

“Marky told Daddy he thinks you’re pretty,” Kate
volunteered. 

“Yeah, well, she is!” Marky cried, and promptly
launched the soccer ball at his sister’s face.  She sidestepped it, as if she’d
perfected the move.  “Daddy thinks she’s pretty too!” the little boy wailed.

“Hey!” Libby cried.  “Don’t throw balls at Kate’s
face.  You could hurt her.” 

Suddenly, she registered what Marky had said.  His
father thought she was pretty.  He did?  The poor man, a single father, worked
so many hours, and was so busy taking care of his two children, she was
surprised he’d even noticed her.

“I’m going to marry Libby some day,” Marky
announced, with a swift stomp of his foot.

“No, you’re not,” Kate said.  “You’re too young for
her.  Besides, we want her to…”  Her eyes suddenly widened, as if she’d almost
said too much.

“You want me to what, Kate?” Libby asked. 

“Oh, nothing, Miss Libby.”  The little girl glanced
at her brother, a worried frown on her face.

Libby watched the little girl with concern.  “Kate,
are you all right?”

She gave a woeful sigh.  “I guess so.  It’s just… 
Daddy … broke up with his, er … girlfriend,” she said sadly.  “Isn’t that
right
,
Marky?”

He hesitated slightly, his face crunched with
confusion.  He lifted his shoulders in question.

Kate pinned him with a look.  “Remember?  You know,
Daddy broke up with…”

“
Oh
!  Oh, yeah,” he said.  “Daddy and his,
uh, girlfriend broke up…”

“Yes,” Kate said.  “It’s soooo … tragic.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Libby said.  “You must have
liked her a lot.”

“No, I didn’t, but I guess Daddy did.  And now he’s
going to be sad…”

“Sadder,” Marky said with a solemn nod of his head.

“And grumpy,” Kate added.

“And cranky,” Marky said.

“Grumpy and cranky mean the same thing, stupid!”
Kate cried.  “And … it’s … your fault … Cherise left!”

“It’s … not my fault she hates kids!” Marky wailed.

Kate nodded.  “She hates
you
!” she cried.

“Hey, hey,” Libby interceded.  “Enough of this!  I’m
sure … Cherise … doesn’t hate anybody.  Besides, you two are adorable.  Nobody
could possibly hate either one of you.”

“Oh, she does,” Kate asserted with a sigh.  “I heard
her tell her friend that we’re so bad, she’d ship us off to boarding school if
she had the money.  She said we’re like a couple of wild goats.”

“She did not!” Libby cried, reaching out to both
children now and pulling them close.  How could anyone say anything so awful
about these two kids?  They were precious.  Sure, Marky was a typical little
boy who couldn’t keep track of his toys, but that didn’t make him a wild
animal.  The nerve of some woman—their father’s girlfriend, no less, berating
them—and close enough for them to hear her. 

“She did say those things,” Kate said solemnly.

Libby squeezed them tighter.  “You two are wonderful
kids, and don’t you forget it!”

“Cherise said we need to go to charm school too,”
Marky informed.  “And she said if we were her kids, she’d return us for a
refund.”

Libby gasped and pulled them tighter.  “That woman
wouldn’t know a good kid from a Billie goat,” she said angrily.  “You are
not
to feel bad about anything that woman may have said
about
you or
to
you.  Do you understand?”

Marky began nodding his head up and down.  “That’s
what Grandma said too.”  He giggled.  “Do you wanna hear what Grandpa said?” he
asked, as he stepped away from her.

“What?” Libby asked.

“He said Cherise’s bra size is bigger than her IQ.” 
That said, he dropped to the ground, clutched his sides, and laughed
uproariously as he rolled from side-to-side.

“That’s enough, Marky,” Kate scolded, as she stepped
out of Libby’s sheltering arms and gave a tremulous smile.  “Thank you for
caring, Miss Libby,” she said, sounding much older than her years.  “We
appreciate your support.  Anyway, we have to go.  Daddy just got called into
work.”

“Are you going over to your grandparents house?” 
Libby knew the childrens’ grandparents often watched them when their father was
at work.  

“I guess so,” Marky said sadly.  “But I don’t want
to go.”

“You don’t?”

He gave a sad shake of his head.  “Sometimes I …
just want to stay home.” 

“It seems like we’re always ‘going,’” Kate said with
a sigh.  “It’s hard on kids, you know.  Bouncing around, never knowing where
we’ll be sleeping from one night to the next, trying to keep track of our
homework and backpacks and shoes…”  She gave another sigh, this one long and weary. 
“Sometimes a kid just wants to stay home—in her own neighborhood at least.” 
She gave Libby an imploring glance, as if trying to communicate something to
her.  Libby was unsure just what that was.