The Böseboy and the Shade

Part I

It was a lazy Sunday when the Böseboy went for his fateful walk. There was nothing on TV, so he fetched his worn out skateboard from under a pile of junk in his room, grabbed a handful of M&Ms for lunch and headed outside to skate along the uneven sidewalks in the neighborhood. His favorite route was to push the board up the long hill where Farewell Pastures cemetery was, feel the cool breeze on top of the hill, and then coast down with his arms outstretched, pretending he was flying. It was great fun.

The summer air was thick with insects. Fat grasshoppers buzzed by with their funny legs sticking out behind them. It was hot. He wished he had worn his baseball cap, but it was too much trouble to go back for it. Never mind that he would have to dug under his bed for it. He shuddered at the thought. Digging under his bed was too horrible to contemplate, with all the candy bar wrappers, pizza boxes, broken glass, and other refuse that lay there. He thought he’d seen a rat living there last time he peeked. No, it was better not to think about it.

He smiled as he came to the graveyard and started up the steep slope. The hike would be worth it when he got to the top. The old gravestones at the bottom of the hill were leaning and some were broken. This was the oldest part—at least 150 years old. The top of the hill was the expensive part, with little stone buildings called mausoleums holding the remains of the dearly departed. He was always intrigued by their open doors and the mysteries that might lay inside.

It seemed to be getting hotter. The sun bore straight down on his head. He felt like his hair was actually baking, like in the oven. He wished he’d brought some cheese slices to put on top of his head. He was sure they would melt nicely. A drop of sweat rolled off the tip of his nose and he caught it with his tongue. Salty. He dreamed about an ice-cold bottle of water, and searched his pockets in case there was one there by accident. No such luck. That made him a little irritated. How come he never had such luck? He saw other people in the heat who had water bottles. Why couldn’t he have one too? He assumed that they had found them in their pockets by accident, but he never had any good luck himself.

He was most of the way up the hill, and the skateboard seemed to be getting heavier with each step. He looked around for something to sit on. Of course there was no park bench. It figures that if you don’t have enough luck to find a cold bottle of water in your pocket that your also not going to find a bench to sit on.

He tried to sit on the fence bordering the cemetery, but that was uncomfortable. There was, however a small gravestone just inside that seemed to be the right height. He leaned the skateboard against the wall and climbed over. He sat on the warm stone. It was good to sit. The sun was not any dimmer here though, and now that he had stopped moving the air seemed to trap the heat and make it stick to him like, well, melted cheese. He stuck his tongue out like a dog and panted. Then he felt the tiniest breeze imaginable. And it was cool! Could it be that his luck was changing?

He could see that the cool air was coming from the open door of a large mausoleum a few feet away. The shade inside was complete, making the small room pitch-black. It looked nice and cool. A little creepy maybe, but nice and cool. It was too far to walk, though, now that he had sat down. He lay back on the flat tombstone and stared up at the sky. A bee landed on his nose.

Yikes! He jumped up and swatted ‘round and ‘round until the bee found something that smelled better, which frankly wasn’t very hard. The Böseboy looked again at the inviting mausoleum doorway, shrugged, and walked to the entrance.

If he didn’t smell so bad himself, he would have noticed the rotten smell within as he stepped into the cool shade of the little room.

[End of Part 1. What do you think will happen next? Leave a comment if you like.]