ichael and Stefan were lying on a blanket on the beach. Between them lay Michael’s father. It was the boys’ naptime, but, as usual, only Michael’s father was asleep.ichael and Stefan were lying on a blanket on the beach. Between them lay Michael’s father. It was the boys’ naptime, but, as usual, only Michael’s father was asleep.
The boys were lying with their eyes closed listening to the noise of the ocean: a soft ssswhishh followed by a loud RRROARRR! Sssswishhh ... RRROARRR!
The ssswhishhh was made by weary old waves as they slipped out to sea after trying to climb clear up the beach and onto the blanket with Michael and Stefan. As each thin old wave slid down the sandy slope away from the beach it ran smack into a fat new wave coming toward the beach. The fat new wave would trip over the thin old wave, trip and stumble and tumble and flop right on its face with an angry RRROARRR. Ssswishhh ... RROARRR! Ssswishhh ... RRROARR!
Right beside the two boys, Michael’s father was making a similar noise, going aahhhh ... pooooooo! ... aahhh ... poooooo! Sometimes the noises would get mixed up and go Ssswishhh ... aahhh; RRROARRR ... pooooo. Or even RRROARRR ... aahhh; ssswishhh ... pooooo.
It would have put the boys to sleep if it had not been naptime.
Michael opened his eyes. He yawned. He scratched his knee where a fly had been sitting. He rubbed one eye and rubbed his nose and yawned again. “Ooooooh,” he yawned. Then he rolled over on his side and propped himself up on one elbow.
“Steffy,” he whispered.
Stefan opened one eye and whispered, “What?”
“You asleep?” said Michael.
Stefan opened the other eye, thought for a moment and said, “No.”
“Let’s play a game,” whispered Michael.
“Your father said to be quiet till rest is over,” whispered Stefan.
“But my father is asleep!” whispered Michael.
“I am not,” said his father, opening his eyes.
“Daddy! You were!” cried Michael.
“But I’m not now!”
“Good!” said Michael. “Then you can play a game too.”
“Oh, fine,” said Michael’s father.
“Goody, goody!” cried the boys.
“You were quiet while I took my nap. I’ll play a game with you. What shall we play? Tag? Hide-and-seek ...”
“Bunnies and the wolf!” cried both boys, dancing happily in the sand.
“Bunnies and the what?” said Michael’s father.
“The wolf!” cried the two boys.
Michael’s father shut his eyes.
“Please, please, please,” said Michael, crawling on top of his father. “The blanket will be your house and you will try to capture the bunnies and put them in prison in your house and eat them, only they get away. You leave the door unlocked a little.”
“Get your sandy foot out of my mouth,” said Michael’s father.
“Look out, he’s a wolf,” cried Stefan— and pulled Michael away.
“I am not,” said Michael’s father. “Anything else. Not a wolf.”
Soon they were playing bunnies and the fox. The bunnies, Michael and Stefan, would dance around the blanket singing, “ya, ya, ya, you can’t catch me,” until suddenly the fox, Michael’s father, would reach out and grab a bunny and drag him into the house and put him in the icebox, but as soon as the fox turned his back the bunny would escape, shouting, “Ya, ya, ya, you left the door unlocked!” After the bunnies had been caught about twenty times, Michael’s father said, “Well, boys, we’d better start home now.”
“No!” cried Michael. “Not so soon!”
Stefan didn’t say anything, but he looked very unhappy.
“You have been such good boys we can get ice cream or popcorn to eat on the way home,” said Michael’s father.
“Yea!” cried the boys, forgetting how much they hated to leave the beach and thinking only of ice cream and popcorn.
As they drove home, Michael’s father picked up the story where Waldo the wolf ran into the forest.
“Jimmy Tractorwheel carried Rainbow the hen all the way home on his shoulder,” said Michael’s father, “and when they arrived at the Tractorwheel farm, Jimmy’s mother and father and brothers were in the yard, and they all cheered ‘Hurrah, hurrah,’ and shouted, ‘Good boy, Jimmy!’ and ‘Welcome home, Rainbow.’
“Jimmy wanted to tell his brothers that he would rather have had their help in finding Rainbow than all this cheering afterward, but he said nothing. Jimmy loved his brothers and when you love people you do not go around finding fault with them. Or at least you shouldn’t.
“ ‘We have filled up that hole the wolf dug under the fence,’ said the farmer, Jimmy’s father, ‘so Rainbow will be safe in the chicken yard.’
“ ‘What did you fill it with?’ asked Jimmy.
“ ‘Dirt.’
“ ‘But if the wolf came again he could dig a tunnel in the dirt the same as he did before,’ said Jimmy.
“ ‘That’s true,’ said the farmer. ‘Yep. I never thought of that. What do you suggest, Jimmy?’
“ ‘I suggest that we dig a deep trench underneath the fence all the way around the chicken yard and fill it with concrete,’ said Jimmy. ‘Then we will cover it with dirt, and if a wolf tries to dig his way under the fence he will run into the concrete.’
“ ‘Say, that’s a good idea,’ said the farmer. ‘No wolf can dig through a concrete wall.’
“ ‘Not only that,’ said Jimmy, ‘but if he tries, he will stub his toenails and maybe he will yell Ouch and we will hear him and come running out of the house and take care of Mr. Wolf.’
“ ‘Good idea,’ said the farmer, and all of Jimmy’s brothers agreed that it was a good idea, but when it came to digging the trench that afternoon they were all busy somewhere else and Jimmy had to do it by himself. He didn’t mind, though. He knew it would strengthen his shoulder muscles for swimming and canoe-paddling.
“When the trench was dug he lined it with boards and poured in concrete. Next day when the concrete was very, very hard, Jimmy attached the bottom of the chicken yard fence to some hooks he had put in the concrete, and covered the concrete with dirt. The chicken yard now looked exactly as it had looked when Waldo the wolf came the first time, but it was certainly not the same, and if Waldo tried to dig into the chicken yard again, oh, brother, what a surprise he would get.”
Michael’s father paused here to eat a handful of Michael’s popcorn. He also ate one of the fruit drops that Stefan carried. Stefan had a slight cough and carried fruit drops to suck when his throat began to tickle. The boys could hardly wait to hear what happened when Waldo came to the chicken yard again. Of course they knew perfectly well he would come again.
“Make it that he comes again that very night!”
“First, I’d better make it that we get some gasoline,” said his father.
He drove into a filling station and the boys sat quietly eating popcorn while the filling-station man put in gasoline, checked the oil and washed the windshield.