Duck, Duck, Goose!

The Ohio winter of 1978 dumped 36 inches of snow in twenty-four hours on the town of Xenia. Calhoun Mane lived with his grandma, Annabelle Le Coureur, on the city’s east side. Grandma Fatso, as she asked her grandson to call her, allowed him to watch his favorite cartoons before leaving for school. Usually, on the walk to Shawnee Elementary, he and his friend Benji would discuss the plots that led their favorite characters into heroic situations. Calhoun wanted to experience an adventurous life unlike the typical adolescence he knew as a seven-year-old. He eagerly planned to talk about the foiled plans of Doc Octopus at the hands of his idol, Spiderman.  

When Grandma Fatso urged Calhoun to hurry and eat his breakfast, she thought that the deep snow would slow him down. He ate a bowl of chocolate cake soaked in whole milk, sitting in front of the television. When Spiderman swung through his city’s skyline, Calhoun cheered for him to defeat whatever villain appeared in the episode. After bundling up in layers of warm clothes, he hugged his great-grandmother, Elizabeth Edward, before leaving the coziness of their home. Each of his steps stomped through the deep snow drifts, unable to tell exactly where the sidewalk exists, Calhoun kept moving forward.

By the time he reached Benji’s house, his pantlegs had frozen solid. Benji answered the door and said he had come down with a head cold. Calhoun wished his friend a quick recovery and walked down the road, determined to get to school before the first bell. Benji watched him disappear into the blizzard, his silhouette fading into the whiteout. Each step grew more difficult, and the snow was as tall as his waist.

He replayed his grandma’s last comments before leaving through the front door, like a broken record in his head. Grandma Fatso had ordered, “Go straight to school, and don’t stop until you reach the front doors.”

Once Calhoun had reached Shawnee Park, now just blocks from the school campus, he struggled to move his limbs. His coat had stiffened to the point of no flexibility. The wind whistled past his ears under a toboggan. Even though much of his skin remained unexposed to the howling wind, he began to listen to each burst with a fearful conscience. He crawled into a tin shelter where ducks and geese slept. Sitting with his back to the entrance, the warmth of the flock felt comforting. As the birds raised their heads in recognition of his presence, Calhoun said, “Duck, duck, goose… how are you?”

Read our narrative nonfiction title, “Raising Mother Nature,” now, and share it with those you love. Love is what we’re selling, after all.