True Story

Roger was ten. His mother asked him to clean the basement. He usually hid under the bunk bed. This time, he said, “No.”

His mother stormed to the kitchen for the wooden spoon.

Roger ran outside. He hopped on his bike, escaping the mad woman who chased him waving the spoon.

He rode fast, down the street to the neighborhood school.

It was a remorseful return trip. Riding slowly toward home, he braced himself to face the spoon. Instead, his mother gave him a hug.

After that, he never complained when his father took him and his two younger brothers to buy wooden spoons for their mother for Christmas.