The Widow Kowalski

"If those kids kick that ball into my yard one more time...," Mrs. Kowalski thought to herself. She was drying dishes at her sink and looking through the cheesecloth-like curtains at the handful of neighborhood kids playing kickball in the street in front of her house. She looked on as Stevie Nichols kicked a screaming line drive past Peter Schaub and on down the street. As Chris Perkins retrieved the red rubber kickball from the drainage culvert, Mrs. Kowalski thought to herself, "How many ball have I confiscated and yet they just seem to find another one and keep playing..." Just then, Ben Simmons hooked a ball that seemed to hang in the air forever before it dropped directly into the rose bushes beneath Mrs. Kowalski's nose and kitchen window. Before the ball had even landed, boys were scrambling in all directions to escape the Wrath of the Widow Kowalski. "That one's mine!" shrieked Mrs. Kowalski while she hustled away from her sink and out the screen door. "You boys come back here!" But none of them did. Mrs. Kowalski gathered up her sixth round, red annoyance and wished that, just once, one of the boys would try to talk her into returning their kickballs.