“Good day, sir.” I greet Mr. Calaveras while he’s watering his lawn.
He glares at me, and for a moment I fear that he might see through my clever disguise. But my fears prove to be unfounded when he merely grunts at me. It’s remarkable how far a pair of exaggeratedly large-rim glasses, a baseball cap and a slight drooping of the shoulders go toward making you look like a totally different person.
“What do you want?” he says gruffly as he suspiciously eyes the plastic bag filled with chocolate bars that I am carrying.
I start toward him, but stop cold in my tracks when he shoots me a menacing glare. I am about to step on his freshly watered lawn.
“Sorry,” I say apologetically. I approach him via the sidewalk instead. “I’m selling chocolate candy bars to raise funds for summer band camp.” (It’s Michelle’s summer band camp candy, and she warned me that if anything happened to it, a blood-sucking monster would be the least of my worries.)
“What kind?” Mr. Calaveras asks, his voice a low growl.
“Excuse me?”
“What kind of candy do you have?”
“Any kind you want,” I say. “I’ve got a wide assortment.”
“I don’t want anything with nuts,” he says, pointing to his teeth. “I hate it when nuts get stuck in my teeth.”
“I have milk chocolate…. No nuts of any kinds in it, sir.”
Mr. Calaveras reaches into his wallet and pulls out a crisp dollar bill.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of what looks like a bite mark on the back of his neck. “That looks painful,” I say, pointing to the wound.
Mr. Calaveras glares at me and quickly pulls up his shirt collar.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that it looks like it must have hurt.”
For a moment, Mr. Calaveras looks daggers at me, but then his gaze softens. The once stern look in his eyes turns to one of sadness.
“The bite hurt,” he tells me in a soft murmur. “But it’s what came afterward that really hurt the most.”
His words puzzle me. The bite hurt, but it’s what came afterward that really hurt the most? What does he mean by that?
“One dollar for the chocolate bar, right?”
“Two dollars,” I counter.
“Two dollars?!” he says in disbelief. “When I was a kid candy bars cost a quarter.”
“That must have been a very long time ago.”
“Yes, a very long time,” he says, unwrapping his chocolate bar and taking a bite.
He pays me and begins to walk away. He suddenly stops and begins sniffing, like a hound catching a scent.
I watch him. He turns to look at me. “Please don’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, kid. Some things are best left alone.”
