Murder

“Oh, you’re finally home! You’re late. I was worried something had happened.”

“Happened? Nothing ever happens.”

“Sure it does! Things happen all the time. Why, just the other day, Mrs. Simms, down the road, she - “

“Gossipy things happen. I guess. But nothing important.”

“No news is good news, they say.”

“Yeah. Well. They’re boring.”

“Boring is good. Boring is nothing bad happening.”

“Boring is boring.”

“Well. Are you hungry? Do you want a PB&J?”

“Sure.”

“See? PB&J is boring, but it’s good boring, right?”

“I saw a murder on my way home.”

“What?! A murder! Are you alright?!”

“Sure, I’m fine. They weren’t interested in me.”

“They? They were still there? They didn’t run off?”

“Nah. They just hung out, crowing at each other.”

“Did you call the police?”

“What for? I told you, they were just hanging out. What are the cops going to do?”

“Well, go after them, of course! We can’t just let them get away with murder! Did they run off?”

“Nah! They were still there when I passed them on my way home. Making an awful racket, all that yelling.”

“We can still call the cops!”

“I dunno if they’re still there now. It was, like, an hour ago when I saw them. They probably won’t hang around all day.”

“Well, I’ll go check! Can you tell me where you saw them?”

“I guess. You know the park? That big tree by the swing set?”

“The park where all you kids play? That’s where you saw the murder?”

“Yeah. Up in the big tree. And down on the ground under it. Oh, and over by the picnic table. There were a lot of them.”

“How can you be so calm?! We may know them! They could be our friends! Our neighbors!”

“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s not like I recognized them.”

“No? Are you sure? Well, anyway, whether we know them or not, we have to do something! We can’t just let a murder happen right in our little park!”

“Well, I don’t know what we can do about it. We’re outnumbered! There’s gotta be 50 of them, maybe more!”

“Put your coat back on. You’re going to show me. Come on!”

“I came down Maple Street … turned at the corner … Summer Street before that …”

“Are we getting close? Do you see anything yet?”

“I doubt we’re gonna see anything until we’re right there. They’re not really all that big. We’ll hear them first.”

“Not that big? What do you mean by that? And what are you smiling at? This is no joke!”

“A joke? No, of course not! I would never - I think we’re getting close. Hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“You don’t hear that racket? Maybe we’re not close enough. We can keep going, but we have to be real quiet. We don’t want to scare them away.”

“Scare them away? What murderers are going to be scared away by a kid and his mom?”

“There! See them now?”

“No.”

“Do you hear them? Stop and listen.”

“All I hear is …. Let’s get closer. We’re almost to the edge of the park. Stay in the woods at the edge.”

“You can’t hear them?”

“All I hear is … cawing? Like a bunch of crows.”

“A bunch of crows. Look at them all! There must be at least 50 of them!”

“50 what?”

“Crows. A bunch of crows. Know what a bunch of crows is called?”

“No. What?”

“A murder. A murder of crows.”