Swan Place by Augusta Trobaugh

and had a good time anyway. Next, they wanted to go on the round-and-round—I really don’t know what it was called, but that’s what Molly called it. It had a round base that was mounted up on some kind of a pole, and metal bars for hanging onto. I put Molly and Little Ellis on and made sure they were holding tight, and then I pushed and ran until it was going fast, and I hopped on and stretched out on my back, so that I could see the rich, green leaves on the trees circling round over my head. It was such a wonderful feeling.
    After we played for a good, long time—all with that hot summer sun burning down on us—I spread out the sheet in the shade, and we ate cookies and took turns drinking the orange juice. Then I started reading some of the books to Molly and Little Ellis, but I noticed that a brown pickup truck had turned in at the entrance to the school. I wondered maybe if it was someone come to tell us we couldn’t be on the playground when school wasn’t going on. It just kept on coming toward us so slowly, and there was something about it that made me feel worried. But I didn’t know what it was.
    I didn’t want to frighten Molly and Little Ellis, so I said in my most cheerful voice, “Okay, let’s gather up our things and head on back toward home.” I had almost everything back in the bag when a strange man got out of the truck.
    “You children okay?” he hollered to us.
    “Yessir,” I yelled back.
    “You got a grown-up with you?” The question sounded dangerous, and I was thinking about as hard as I could of what to say. Because Aunt Bett had talked to me several times about being careful around strangers, now that I was getting pretty grown up.
    “You’ll be getting a woman’s figure soon, Dove,” she had said, shaking her head as if that would be a terrible thing. “So you gotta be careful.” Maybe I had frowned, or in some way shown my confusion, because Aunt Bett added in a whisper, “Men.” She said the word as if it made a bad taste in her mouth. And now here was a stranger—a man—and him asking if we were alone at the playground.
    “You got a grown-up with you?” he repeated, and my scalp went all prickly.
    “Our daddy’s coming for us any minute,” I said. I had the sheet folded across my arm, and I lifted it a little and looked at my arm, as if I had a watch on.
    “Oh yes—he’ll be here any minute now.” And strangely, I almost believed it myself. Almost could see Roy-Ellis’s truck coming and Roy-Ellis, big and strong and wearing his cowboy boots and hat, walking up and standing beside us and taking care of us.
    The man stared for a long time, and then he said, “Okay. You all want a ride?”
    “Nosir  . . . No.” I changed from my good manners. He got back into his truck, but he took a while to drive away. We stayed right where we were. But I wondered if maybe he would be parked somewhere down the highway, in a place where he would be able to see us walking back home, and then he would know I’d lied—that nobody was coming for us.
    All I could seem to think about was our own safe little gray house, and how I wished we were there and not out in a wide open playground with nothing near but a deserted school building.
    I had to get us home where we would be safe. But how? Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll take good care of Molly and Little Ellis. Right at that moment, a huge flock of noisy, black crows flew over our heads and landed in the trees above us. They seemed to tilt their heads and look down at us with black eyes that were lost against the black feathers. Then all at once, they started cawing, over and over again, to each other or to me—I didn’t know which. So I just stood still and listened.
    “Caw! Caw!” they said. And in an instant I knew what they were saying.
    “Caw! Caw!”
    Run! Run!
    I handed the storybooks to Molly.
    “You carry these. They’re not heavy.”
    I picked Little Ellis up, got him settled on my hip, and said, “We’ll go