"Harmless
Prank"
by Phil Temples
“Eeeeoooh!”
exclaimed little Sally, looking over Billie’s
shoulder to see what he was up to.
Billie, a
slightly pudgy, 11-year-old with no friends and
few interests besides watching TV and playing
computer games, had pulled a single wing off a
butterfly captured earlier. The wounded butterfly
flopped helplessly upside-down on the ground.
Billie poked at it with a stick.
“How
would you like it if somebody did that to you?”
“Oh, shut
up Sally,” Billie replied. “Go play
with your doll or somethin’.”
“I’m
gonna tell your mom!” she cried.
“Go ahead,
Cry Baby. See if I care! She’ll tell you
that it’s just a harmless prank.”
The younger
girl stomped off the playground, resolute in the
belief that all boys were simply awful.
When Billie
wasn’t watching TV or playing computer games,
he was generally outside perpetrating so-called
“harmless pranks” upon small animals
and insects. Just last week, he dumped an entire
can of green paint on Mrs. Quigley’s tabby
cat. The poor thing was so confused that it ran
away—then it stopped a few feet later to
lick its fur. The tabby ran again for a few feet
and continued the cycle a couple of times. Billie
thought this was so funny he almost made himself
sick laughing about it. The problem—as
Billie saw it-—was that he had no friends
with which to brag of this masterful prank.
After a few
minutes, the butterfly had stopped flopping;
Billie grew tired of poking at it. He turned his
attention next to one of the many ant hills in
the southwest corner of the lot. Billie flicked
small pieces of dirt upon the mound to block the
tiny hole. As the ants came up to clear the
debris from the entrance, Billie proceeded to
ambush the first responders with the aid of his
trusty magnifying glass. The ants shriveled up,
then disappeared in a small puff of smoke
accompanied by a sizzling sound like frying bacon.
Billie was
delighted by the stench. He likened it to the
smell of combat in the trenches. Except that
Billie wasn’t slugging it out in the
trenches. No, Billie’s status was more like
that of a commanding general. Yes—General
Patton! He would direct the glorious battle from
a distant mountain top.
Cool!
Billie
observed a centipede crawling nearby. It was no
doubt coming to the aid of the ant fort presently
under fire. Yes! He would turn his powerful
weapon of destruction upon the creature. He would
destroy it. No—-better yet, he would disable
the creature by directing his powerful particle
beam weapon at its individual legs. Then, his
flanking troops would deal a death blow to the
wounded monster!
*
* * * *
At that moment,
Mytos, the idiot son of the God Thor, fixed his
five eyes upon a small pebble in the distant void.
Looking more closely, he spied one of the pebble’s
inhabitants attacking a smaller creature with
star light.
“Whe-ee!”
Mytos drooled with delight. Mytos liked to play
with star light, too.
Mytos held up
his own toy magnifying lens between a nearby star
and the pebble. Soon the pebble flashed and
popped, producing a small puff of smoke,
accompanied by a sizzling sound like frying bacon.
“Whee-ee!”
cried Mytos.
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