Lesson

Flash Fiction

Lesson

“Where’s your hat?”

“What hat?” Jerad asked.

“You were supposed to wear a hat,” Ted said, “It’s a rule, it was on the paper.”

“How do you know, you can’t read yet.”

“My mother can, and she did. It said you need to wear a hat.”

“Why would we need a hat? We’re just going into the woods. There are trees and rocks, squirrels and birds, why would you need a hat?”

“I don’t know. Grown-ups always say stupid stuff we are supposed to do. Do you think they will let you go anyway, with no hat?”

“Probably, because if they don’t, one of the grown-ups will have to stay with me until my mother comes to get me, she’s working all day.”

“Huh… that’s a smart thought… How do you think of those things?”

“Well, when you have a pushy mother like mine, you learn how to ‘handle things,’ she calls it. She almost always gets her way because she makes people crazy when she doesn’t.”

“Wow. I never heard anybody talking about their mother like that. Is she scary?”

“Pfft! No! Not to me. She says that people make up rules all the time, but a lot of the time it’s just because they want it their way. If it was really important, they talk differently. She’s teaching me to listen like she does.”

“Like what?”

“Like why would you need a hat in the woods in the summer? They just say that so everybody looks the same, not because it’s dangerous.”

“Maybe they’re afraid a bird will sit on your head…?”

“See how silly that is…”

“Huh… Can you teach me that stuff too?”

“Sure! Why don’t you come over Saturday. I get to have a friend over on Saturdays.”

“Great!”

And another pushy friendship was born.