Paddy Clarke Snippet

I ducked. It went sailing right over my head. He was winding up to throw another so I hid behind a tree. The snow was icy and stiff: good for sledding and snowballs.
– Missed me! I said
– You cheater!
I threw mine just as one hit me in the ear. I heard it more than felt it. Mine struck the tree he was crouched behind and exploded. He jumped out and zipped a big one at the tree beside me so the exploded snow would cover me. I threw another from the other side of my tree and hit him right on the side of the head.
– That’s one for me. I shouted.
Then a snowball hit me on my arm. I ran behind another tree that was to my right: a tall pine tree. This one had pine cones all around its base. I accidently kneeled on one and it hurt. I said a bad word.
From behind the next tree, I could see him. He was making a bunch of snowballs for his next volley. Then he looked at the tree I used to be at. He kept looking for me. I launched a real hard one at him. He heard me throw it and looked at me. It was too late. Half of it smashed his nose and the other half went in his mouth, which was opened
–Winner!
I thought he might cry – I would. But he didn’t. I ran back behind my first tree before he could grab one of his snow balls.

Cars would drive by on the road way down at the bottom of the hill. I would throw snowballs trying to hit their roofs but I always missed. Kevin wouldn’t do it but he kept telling me to, so I did. But I missed, every time.
A big grey Suburban went by on the road at the top of the hill, near us, and drove pretty fast. Instead of throwing mine at Kevin, I whizzed it over his head and hit the Suburban. It hit the Suburban right on the plastic garbage bag which covered up the place where a glass window should have been.
I was glad that it didn’t stop. But then it did. The tires made a loud screechy noise on the road and an angry Cuban got out.
-- You just threw that snowball at my car you little mother@#$*%&!
-- You could kill someone doing that!
-- Don’t you see all the ice on these roads!
I didn’t know what to say. I just froze.
Then the angry Cuban got back into the Suburban and drove away. But not really. He drove into the driveway of the house across the street. Kevin’s mom came out and wanted to know what happened. At first she blamed Kevin, then Kevin blamed me. That liar!

That night, Kevin’s parents took us out to an Italian restraunt that they really liked. They had lots and lots of different kinds of pastas and pizzas and all sorts of different types of deserts. Most of them were chocolate. I liked the cake I saw as we came in. It had a dark brown chocolate out side with mountains of white cream on the top and a bunch of little fruits like strawberries. I didn’t want to eat it, I just liked the way it looked.
We sat down at one of the tables in the back, away from the real big, long tables with lots of people at them. The tables were only able to seat four so we had to sit apart from the adults. I sat next to Catherine and Aidan and across from Kevin who kept making weird faces at me to make me say something but I didn’t. It made him make even uglier faces until his mom saw him and yelled at him. He looked at me like it was my fault but I pretended not to notice. He knew I did.
Kevin ordered pizza. I ordered pizza. We all ordered pizza.

Then I saw the angry Cuban. But He wasn’t angry any more. He was sitting at the table next to ours. It was in the corner. He was talking with some woman who was eating with him. She was much younger than he was. This time the angry Cuban was wearing glasses and was fatter.
-- What’s wrong? Kevin asked.
Then I told him that that was the angry Cuban. He looked and said it wasn’t, that I was stupid. I swore it was. We argued about it the whole night, even after the angry Cuban and the woman left. I was glad he didn’t see me as he walked out. We ate a lot of pizza that night and I wondered if I’d ever see that angry Cuban again.