Critter

His name was Rolf, Rolfie for all the kids who teased him, daily while waiting for the yellow bus. He stood behind the fence ears perked and all wound up the driver was a mama of three hundred pounds or more, she took a fancy to the critter and gave him little treats out of her bulging esky just one to greet the day. She always winked at him, and he winked back at her as if to say I like you too and all your blubber is okay. The day before Thanksgiving, the snow had just begun, a foolish postman did a big one-eighty, in front of Rolf. Knocked down his fence and slid into the deepest ditch. It was his chance and Rolfie left the safety of his property behind. And as the bus accelerated he ran, with eager legs and sudden purpose quite unknown to him. It had to happen, he slid and disappeared right under the big monster by GM. All kids now screamed and pounded their little fists in great despair, and one fat foot stomped on the brake, she flew right out the door and crawled no athlete could have beaten her beneath that bus, expecting on this day, when she had burned her toast and broke the coffee cup, the one from Rome, and when there was no time to waste because the principal would not be kind, she did expect the smirk of death, of course. And, burning now her face on red-hot pipes, while looking in the dark, within the snow for one sad bundle of a snuffed out life, the kids, now peeking too, between the tyres, were startled by her sudden laughter, by screams of joy and muffled cries. And there she was, sprawled in the snow her arms around the stupid critter, tightly. 'Twas very hard to tell for any of the kids who was the happier right then, between the two.