Kids

The boy scouts from the group of Varginha were reunited in a council in front of my porch. It was eight in the morning. I heard their voices but tried to guess what it was through the window as I had breakfast. In time, I found out they spoke about their leader, Miguel. I went to the porch when the debate seemed to have subsided and Andrés almost used my nose as a knocker when I opened the door.

"I was really going to call you", he said smiling embarrassed.

"Tell me something I don't know. For instance, were you talking about Miguel? What happened to him?"

"He's gone. No one knows where he is, Miss Grisam."

Bruno approached us but said nothing that could add to what Andrés had already said. The two were worried. I was worried. None of the boy scouts of the group saw Miguel when they woke up. Renato joined us and said he had seen someone talking to Miguel the night before and that was the last he saw of him.

"Can you tell us what he looked like? Have you seen him in the city?", inquired Andrés.

"That's him coming there. The man I saw with Miguel", replied the boy scout seeming perfectly sure of who it was.

We looked that way and it was master Danilo coming up to us. We asked him if he had seen the leader of the troop but he didn't seem to understand what we were talking about.

"But I saw you talking to him last night", asserted the boy, absolutely baffling all of us. He seemed to be so sure of what he said, what only made for more and more confusion.

"The young man must have seen someone with the same look as me. I didn't talk to your leader anytime yesterday", master Danilo assured.

We were in an ever-growing process of confusion. The boy probably didn't believe in the old countryman, but didn't dare to discuss what would incur calling master Danilo a liar. Andrés and Bruno glanced at the two and at me alternately, not catching a thing of what was going on. I said we could spend the day discussing who was who or start looking for the leader immediately.

And we turned the city upside down. He was nowhere to be found. We asked the Obscure Police if they had happened to see him. They laughed a lot with the episode but promised to keep an eye on the man. Seeing a man disappear in Taurinos was not my idea of fun, but I tried to avoid criticizing the two and risk another little wave of hate from them. The last thing I'd ever need was the two tiny monsters able to help but not helping. But Renato didn't seem to think likewise. No wonder he didn't as he didn't know the duo as I did.

"It's wrong to laugh at people's misfortunes, did you know?", declared Renato, looking serious at the two, taking exactly the path I avoided taking. Renan and Anderson frowned at him, saw Renan stretch his neck as he always did when he was angry and hadn't I held them back they'd have sprung on to the boy scout. Renato prepared to defend himself and his viewpoint when I miraculously managed to get them all to hold their horses. The Obscure Police were glaring at the scout at the top of their rage.

I had to ask the old countryman if he had hidden something he could not say at that very moment. I said I didn't have any doubts about him, but that the boy had been so categorical and assertive about it being master Danilo that the idea occurred to me. Master Danilo denied having omitted or lied about anything at all. He simply had no reasons for that. I believed the countryman, but was absorbed like him, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Don't you have of of these… aspects?"

He laughed. Said he had no aspect other than the one I already knew. The more I thought about it, more confused I felt. He himself wasn't of help at that moment.

A t night, silence was everywhere. It should be eleven-thirty or so. I couldn't sleep a wink after a whole day looking for the leader of Andrés and Bruno's troop that mysteriously vanished from their campsite. To think I hoped he internet would send me to sleep quickly.

I went to the porch, but left the lights off to avoid the moths and other nocturnal little creatures landing on the porch wall attracted by the light. I sat in the rocking chair like a farmer in the country.

However, the still of the night didn't hide not everything was calm: Renato's tent shook in a weird fashion as if he tried to stretch and didn't fit the size of the tent. I let my eyes wander around and saw none of the other tents moved like his. As I looked overall, I caught sight of two black horses tied to my gate. I stood up from the rocking chair all but terrified. They were here. I ran to the boy scout's tent and opened the zipper in a single blow. From the inside there ran two heinous black kids with eyes more than just wicked, spitting fire from their open mouths, one of the most bizarre, absurd and frightening things I've ever seen and the poor boy scout all shrunk at the back of the tent, eyes as big as saucers, gazing at me. I looked back at my house's gate, but there was no shadow of horses there anymore.

"The kids were talking to me… You won't believe me, but the kids were talking to me…"