Bug races

(when do I find time to compose short stories???)


I don't guess there was a place alive as boring as Miss Nelson's Sundy school class.

First off, there was just three of us.

My brother, Billy, who is only 6 and its just not fair to a six year old little boy with an magination like Billy to give him Miss Nelson's class. I will splain that later. Then there's me and I am seven. And then there's Molly, and she is also seven but when push comes to shove she is the first to remind you that she was born in April not June so she is technically my senior and owed the respect that comes about with age. I think thats hogwash myself. She may be two months older but I was a preemie and s'possed to have been born 6 weeks earlier which would of made us almost twins.

Miss Nelson was a nice enough lady and 102 years old if she was a day. On count of only having three pupils in her Sundy school, she didn't work very hard on her lessons which is what made the class so trying on Billy and us. I guess we were lucky as the older classes all had hard lessons and some of the kids would pretend to have sore throats to miss them. But none of us had it as good as the nursery where they sang sweet songs like "Jesus loves me" and made crafts with popsicle sticks and glue and got a snack with juice. I loved the nursery and was sad when Billy and I had to graduate. I specially miss the snacks.

Miss Nelson started the same way every Sundy. She'd pull out her lesson book the church gave her and ask us to turn to page number something while she'd stare at her copy real hard like then change her mind and look up and say "What children your age need to know about is THE DEVIL!". She said this with a sternness in her eyes that used to scare us until we saw her look that same way at a church supper when the pastor got a second slice of cake before she and Mrs. Thompson had the first. He cut into line and everything which made for quite a scandal and all the ladies were unhappy and said so. Except for Mrs. Fuller who had made the cake and was flattered. I don't think the pastor ever did know he did something awful because he went and had a third slice.

But back to the devil. So Miss Nelson would lean forward and stare sternly at us and tell us that kids our age didn't hear enough about the devil anymore because parents didn't want to scare us and wanted us to know only about heaven but what we didn't know was that there was a devil and we would surely get to meet him real fast if we didn't mind our parents and behave like Jesus. Then she would cite some examples of devil behavior and tell us we should think about that and then she would look over at the clock and every single Sundy say the same xact thing. "OK, I am going to rest my eyes a bit before Sundy service while you children read your lesson and think about the things I have told you".

I told my daddy about her once and he said that it was a perfect example of the differences between baptists and methodists. Only I don't know what he meant and I am not sure which one Miss Nelson is.

And then she would fall asleep while she rested her eyes.

The first few times she did that we would just stare at one another and wonder when she would talk some more. But she never did. A long time would pass and then someone would come by and tap the door for us to go on upstairs for service and then she would say "Huh?" and rustle and jerk startled like and then rub her eyes and say "Time for prayer!" before headin up to church.

So while she was asleep we would play games. Sometimes the game was to see how many times we could count a certain word in the lesson book and whoever counted it the fastest and most right won. But this wasn't fair to Billy as he wasn't that good of a counter. Molly always won cause of being 6 weeks older than me. Even when she didn't win she said she did and there was no arguing with her as she would get loud and wake up Miss Nelson who would tell us more about the devil.

Then sometimes we had races. We raced bugs, frogs, and little cars when Billy had them in his pocket. I guess thats what I will tell you bout today.

The church basement was kinda damp after a rain and we would have these large bugs that were crunchy if you stepped on them. I am not sure what they are, but we called them "Water roaches" because they only came after a rain and they looked menacing like a roach would if he wasn't fraid of people.

We would catch a couple and then get up against the cement wall in a corner and put them down and then drawl a line with our lesson books about five feet away and wait and see whose water roach got there first. Billy was good at this game. He would always catch the fastest water roach because he wasn't scared to pick them straight up and he crunched the ones that tried to get away. I don't think I am a prissy girl like Molly is but I really don't like the sound of them crunching. And if you let Billy, he would just spend the rest of the class stomping them behind the old musty bookshelves just to see us squirm and make quiet faces. Its hard to squirm when you know it might wake up Miss Nelson. And you just couldn't let Billy's magination run wild like that because before too long he would be dancing and making faces to see how long we could hold our giggles in. Once he took his fingers and stood behind Miss Nelson making devil horns and Molly and I almost burst. My dad had popped in to tell us that we would be missing sermon cause my mom felt bad and saw Billy making fun of "poor ole Miss Nelson" and all the way home we got a speech on something called "reverence".

But I was talkin about the races.

It was one one of these races when Molly got herself all worked up. She was a "sight", my grandma would say. It had been a good rain the day before and Billy caught FIVE water roaches to race instead of only two or three. Molly never could get on her knees with us because she wore only good dresses to Sundy school on count of her being an only child. So she sat in a chair that she pulled to the corner.
Well, on this occasion one of the water roaches went crazy and climbed the leg of her chair and went right up one of Mollys better dresses that she said came from a "mail order catalog" which meant it was nicer than any of mine because mine came only from Sears which everyone has access to.

Molly just opened her mouth and screamed. She stood up in the chair with her fists clenched down by her sides and opened her mouth wide and screamed and screamed and her face turned as red as her hair and poor Miss Nelson fell out of her chair and took Molly by the arms and yelled "Whats a matter with you girl?" and shook her.

Molly was always one to think fast and she said "I got to thinkin about the devil and it gave me a fright, Miss Nelson". Molly could really pour on the syrup when she wanted to. This seemed to impress Miss Nelson and she patted Molly on the head real sweet and said it would be better for us if the Devil always gave us a fright and on that Sundy we got two lessons even before sermon started. After that she was partial to Molly and would ask Molly to sit beside her and acted as if she was the only person in the class who understood her lessons. I told my daddy about it one night and said that I was tempted to tell Miss Nelson that Molly had drawn a picture of her in the back of her lesson book with bug antenna on her head and wings but daddy asked me what Jesus would do which was his way of saying I better not.

And what made me mad about the whole incident is that it was the first Sundy that I was going to win a race and Billy crunched my bug before I could capture him for the next class.

The end.