The Secret of Kite Hill

Do you know every nook and cranny of your neighborhood? How about UNDER your neighborhood? Do you let your kids walk home from school? It’s just a few blocks, right? What lurks in the shadows? In the bushes? Or scarier yet, under the bushes? Or is it all just happy-go-lucky Huckleberry Finn and exploring and adventuring in your own neighborhood? When do you know the difference? Maybe your kids know. Maybe they don’t. How will you learn? It began as a simple walk home, the same one we did every day after school. But our dog’s ball went into something of a hole, or was it a cave? Maybe a tunnel. But are there tunnels in the city? The ball was pretty close to the entrance, but just far enough to be a little spooky. Should we just forget it? WARNING TO PARENTS: there are some questionable parenting decisions in this book. It is not intended as a parenting handbook. There’s a fine line between making the right decision and making the fun decision. When to choose which? How much do you involve your children in daily decisions? What if they involve danger? But what if your kids think it might be fun? You get the idea. Maybe I need a disclaimer … 😉 You know in scary movies when you yell, “Don’t go in there!” We went in. Yeah, I know. Ask your 8-year old why.

I slid as quickly and quietly as I could, and I caught up with Lu around the first bend. I tried to slow myself down, but still I crashed into him, and he let out a quick “Ow!” I was going to remind him to be quiet when we were both immediately quiet. I was listening for other voices. They seemed to have stopped, but they quickly came back. I’m sure, OK, not that sure, that the voices were more excited or elevated or at least talking about us. They were talking about what they were going to do to us. OK, so I wasn’t sure of any of that, but we did hear the voices.