“It’s not much, but it’s ours, it’s homey and welcoming, our hood.” Gun Roswell

The neighbourhood had seen better days, but Mrs. Pauley had lived there since before anyone can remember. She raised a family of six boys, who were all grown up and moved away. Since Mr. Pauley had died three months ago, she’d had no income. She’s fallen behind in the rent. The landlord, accompanied by the police, had arrived to evict Mrs. Pauley from the house she’s lived in for forty years…

***

I was sitting on the curve, waiting for my best friends Lily and Bobby. We were going to play hops-scotch after school today and as usual, I was early. My homework was done already and mom had awarded me with chocolate muffins she had baked herself. I consider myself a nerdy girl and try to live up to my favourite TV characters, meaning not having too many creature comforts. It’s kinda hard since I like dressing up, the colour pink and I especially love chocolate. Anyways, my grams told me I was an old soul, and I looked that up on the internet, what it actually meant. I kind of understood the jest of it, what it means. And even though sometimes my friends go “What?” when I talk to them in long sentences, and sometimes take the side of the adults, I still feel like a little kid and I like to play.

I was getting bored, waiting for my friends to come. They were usually late, especially Lily, who it took forever to decide on what to wear after the school uniform got tossed waiting for the next day. Then I heard the sirens wailing. I wondered if there had been an accident and got up to catch a better glimpse of the nearing sound. It was two police cars coming to this street. They drove by me and parked in front of old lady Pauley’s house. I got scared thinking Mrs Pauley was hurt or even worse. So I ran closer, to find out what was going on. The landlord Mr Pruitt was also there. He and four policemen walked right to Mrs Pauley’s door and knocked on it.

I had inched myself closer to the house and was standing right behind two of the officers. I tapped on the other one’s back, to get their attention. He turned around and looked at me surprised.

“Hi little girl! What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I’m Emily. I live over there.” I was pointing at our house a block away.

“Nice to meet you Emily.” The officer told me. “Maybe you should go back to playing. We have some things we’d like to discuss with Mrs Pauley.”

“I’m OK. I am waiting for my friends.” I insisted.

By this time, my presence had caught the attention of the other ones too.

“Young lady, run along now. This is grown up business.” The lady officer told me.

“It’s OK. My grandma told me I am growing up really fast and know a lot of grown up stuff.” I tried.

The others were looking at each other, I think the landlord did not like me very much. All us neighbourhood kids knew he didn’t have any kids and therefore did not like them.

“Look, Emily was it?” The nicer lady officer said.

I nodded.

“You should run along now.”

I was going to answer her, but I saw my two friends arriving. They had headed straight to the house after they had seen the police cars in front.

“Hi Emily! What’s going on? Are there robbers here?” Bobby was making his usual assumptions.

The officers seemed to be getting a little annoyed and looking at us kids not sure on what to do.

“I dunno!” I shrugged my shoulders.

“No robbers young man.” The other officer responded.

“Too bad,” Bobby replied.

“Is old lady Pauley OK?” I asked

“She is fine.” The officer told me.

“So why are the police here then?” I was curious now.

“Oh, just some adult stuff, nothing for you to worry your pretty head about.” He started.

“It’s fine you can tell us.” I told him

“Yeah, tell us!” Lily joined the chorus.

By this time a few other kids had arrived to the house and more were on their way. It seemed all this action of police cars had drawn the attention of the kids around the hood. Finally I counted around twenty children who were checking out the yard, the police cars and asking the officers all kinds of questions.

“I think we’d better do this another day.” The lady officer told her partner, “It seems we have drawn too much attention and I don’t feel comfortable dragging an old lady out of the house in front of all these children.” She looked worried.

“What if we ask Mr Pruitt if he could come up with some sort of an arrangement.” The officer told the others.

“Sounds like a good plan.” The other ones agreed.

“Mr. Pruitt, can we have a word with you.” The lady officer waved for Mr Pruitt to step closer.

We tried to listen in on the conversation, but could not hear much. Apparently nothing much was going on in the end since they all left in a while. Us kids started our own separate ways. As I was leaving I looked back and saw Mrs Pauley in the window. She was smiling and waved at me. I waved back and ran after my friends thinking I was glad she was alright.