We were playing at the end of my street where no houses are.  Mom says if I want to play in the road this is where I have to do it since no cars ever come down here.  She doesn’t want me to get run over.

Mikey had pulled the slug out of the jar and put it on the road.  It was crawling very slowly.  It left a silver slime trail behind it.  Josh made me give him the magnifying glass.  He’s very bossy sometimes but he’s bigger than me so I have to do what he says.

“Get out of the light, shrimp,” Josh said to Mikey.

Mikey moved.  He’s more afraid of Josh than I am.  Josh is nine.  He has his own BB gun.  When Josh held the magnifying glass over the slug the sun went through it and made a bright dot on the slug’s back.

“What are you doing?” Mikey asked.

“Just watch.”

“What are you doing?” Mikey asked again.

“Shut up!  I’m trying to concentrate!  Billy showed me how to do this.”

I wanted to know what he was doing too.  It was sort of boring just watching Josh hold the glass.  After a long time the slug started smoking.  Josh laughed and got real excited.

“Do you see that?” he yelled.

“What are you doing?” Mikey asked.

“I’m burning him, Mikey.”  Mikey got up and went home crying.  He’s only six years old and my mom says he has a very tender heart.  Josh asked if I wanted to do it but I told him no.  The slug wasn’t crawling anymore.  Or maybe it was and I just couldn’t tell.

I heard a loud whistle.  Josh looked up.  “Oh no, my mom,” he said.  Josh dropped the magnifying glass and took off running down the street.  I watched him go.  He could run very fast.  He was scared of his mom.  She turned mean after his dad went away.

I stood up and stomped on the slug in case it was hurting.  It stuck to the bottom of my shoe like nasty gum.  I was getting ready to go home when a man got out of a gray car that was parked at the end of the street near the woods.  He was very tall and had long black girl hair.  He came toward me.  I was afraid but he didn’t even look at me.  He just walked right past me up the street.

Something fell out of his pocket onto the road but he didn’t notice.  I went over and picked it up.  It was shiny and expensive-looking.

“Mister!” I yelled.  The man turned around.  “You dropped this.”

The long-haired man came back.  He looked down at me.  He didn’t smile.  Most grownups smile at little kids.  “You dropped this,” I said.  He opened his hand and I put the shiny thing in it.  “What is it?” I asked.  It looked very neat.

“A laser pointer.  It makes a laser beam.”