This is the fourth installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
The fifty mannequin heads floating in the pool kind of freaked them out. From a distance, they had assumed, of course, that the objects were real heads, but their relief upon learning the truth didn’t last long.
There’s a reason bobbing for apples is considered a feat of skill, Mrs. O’Connor thought as she wielded a leaf skimmer and tried to scoop heads out one by one. They tumbled from the net almost as often as she caught them, and within five minutes, she was considering just listing the property and being done with it. Her youngest son, Mark, heard her muttered expletives and donned his swimsuit to try to help. He shepherded the heads toward the skimmer with a grin—was this a game to him?—and Mrs. O’Connor flung them across the yard. Teamwork.
As they fished out the fourteenth head—thirty-six to go, God help them—Mrs. O’Connor realized that Nicky hadn’t said a word. He’d been on his stomach, leaning down over the edge of the pool, for a while now, and he hadn’t removed a single head; he just batted at them like Mittens with that half-dead family hamster.
Mrs. O’Connor lay the skimmer on the pool deck and positioned her hands on her hips. Asking him what he knew, she tried to look as dignified as possible even with half the pool on the front of her dress.
Nicky froze, and for a moment, his arms just dangled in the water. Mrs. O’Connor invoked his middle name—James—and asked again. He grimaced and rose. Waving his hand, he led them through the wooden gate at the back of their house and into the woods. Mark’s wet swim trunks sloshed as he skipped after Nicky, and Mrs. O’Connor could barely keep up with her sons.
The well-traveled path received them amicably at first, but as they ventured deeper, knobby roots poked through the dirt and tree branches jutted out at all angles. They bobbed and weaved and ducked—and all the while, Nicky ignored his mother’s questions. Anyone else might’ve silenced after two or three minutes, but Mrs. O’Connor didn’t; the sound of her own voice brought her a comfort she couldn’t explain.
They stopped in a small clearing where Nicky and Mark used to practice for soccer games. Nostalgia didn’t find Mrs. O’Connor, though; she saw only the circle of headless mannequins. She counted fifty of them, just as she had done an hour ago with her pool.
Finally, Nicky spoke: “I was working on an art project—but I got nervous when I saw Jillian’s and I—I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I think she decided to get even.”
Mrs. O’Connor felt a surge of gratitude that she wouldn’t have to go to a middle school art exhibition.
Miles Away 