Saucer in the Dunes

17 Coming Clean

Later that afternoon, some of the guys came by to get me for a ballgame. I heard my mom telling them I was sick; then it came, the reply that Ronnie was also ill, to come out and play too. I took that as reassurance of his safety.

Mom had gone to the mailbox, and one of the neighbors stopped her and talked so I could call Ronnie again. Sure enough, the Sheriff had come by there too. He hadn't been able to make Fidget be quiet, but he didn't go to the door either, and his mom was at the grocery store, thank goodness. We both had a feeling this was far from over. We were right too.

That night after a long hot day in the solitude of my room, I thought it best to take my questions to my father if I was ever going to have an understanding of what we saw. I waited until after we ate supper when my mother was doing the dishes and making dad's lunch for the next day.

Back in Atlanta, Dad usually stood out on the stoop after supper, watched the cars go by, or just stared out at the neighborhood being quiet. He called it his winding down time. Now we had a nice front porch where he went, and I followed him that night.

First, I stood on the bottom rail at the end of the porch. He loved to sit out there in the evening before retiring to the den with mom, the newspaper, and the television. I could faintly make out the faces of our neighbors on their porches as well up and down the narrow street.

Dad called me over to join him.

"Feeling better?" he said in his deep, grumbling voice, not looking at me yet.

He seemed so old and wise then, but he could not have been more than thirty or so.

"Yes, sir," I said, "I wasn't that sick, just tired."

I paused to see if he was following along, and he was.

"I didn't sleep too much last night."

There it was. He nodded and smiled to himself and looked almost relieved for some reason.

"Oh?" he said, then focused on me.

"Any special reason for that I don't know about?"

I skipped over his question. Mine was more important. We would get it all out in a few minutes anyway.

"Dad, do you believe in flying saucers?" I asked directly before I could hone down my question more subtly.

Dad guided me over to sit in the woven wicker rockers we had brought with us from Atlanta.

"Flying saucers?" he asked.

I knew he knew what I was talking about. We had to begin these roundabout discussions every time.

"Is this about the radio show the other night and all the police excitement?"

"Dad, flying saucers, like the one in that movie we watched, The Day the Earth Stood Still."

"Like in the movie? That's what all this is about? Have you been out looking for flying saucers?"

"Yeah, the other night we..."

"What do you mean, yeah?" he interrupted.

"I'm telling you, dad. That's what I wanted to ask you about. Me and Ronnie were camping with the guys out in Ronnie's back lot..."

I continued the story from the radio show that he and mom let me hear the other night, Ronnie's dog getting out of the fence, the camp-out, and what we saw when we were walking out on the dare to get plums, then finished with our clandestine trip to the hut the previous night to rescue Fidget. He listened intently, not once moving or interrupting me.