“No, that’s not what I wanted to show you. This is what I wanted to show you,” Billie said and pointed to a rusty handgun. It matched the toy gun from her pocket, which she pulled out to compare the two.

“What? A gun? Oh, who cares? My uncle has dozens of them,” Benny said. He rolled his brown eyes for emphasis. Dennis and Louie playfully took turns tapping my shoulder and soon all three of us were running around in a circle playing tag.

“No but look,” Billie said, turning back to look at us for emphasis. She cocked the lever and opened it to reveal four bullets.

“Look what?” I said, laughing and chasing after Louie with a stick. Only Benny was standing near her. Sam and Davy were fighting with plastic swords. Both boys had towels draped around them like superheroes. We all heard a loud boom and turned around. The crazy lady was banging pot lids together. That only meant one thing and I looked at my watch to confirm. It was almost midnight. Benny, who was still in front of us, looked back and bumped into Louie, who was running over a tire; Louie fell down and kicked his shoe to help break his fall but

he still fell and kicked up a cloud of dirt that rested in the air.

“It’s real. Loaded with bullets. I wonder where it came from,” Billie said this, Benny was standing next to her and we had stopped playing to go over to her and look at the gun. She tossed it to Benny; Louie and Dennis ran over to him and were looking at the gun over his shoulders. Even Sam and Davy stopped their sword fighting to come over and see our find.

“Does it work?” Benny asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll shoot it and I guess we’ll find out,” Billie said. She stood up and walked over to the middle of the hill where there was a clear path between the trees and fired a shot. The gun rang with the intensity of a firecracker and a piercing sound hurt my ears. Everyone agreed that it worked.

Then, Louie spoke up. “Hey, does anyone know what time it is? ‘ Cause my

brother said he’d meet us up at the top of the bridge at midnight and I don’t want to make him mad. Besides, if we get home too late, then there’s a chance we could run into my dad. He went to a poker game but he’s going to be gettin’ home soon.”