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911 by Rachel Dickinson The other morning I took my usual walk on the outskirts of my village--past the marshy area with the cattails, past the creek where the Great Blue Heron silently hunts, past the sunken meadows choked with purple loostrife. And I reveled in the cool morning air because I knew it was going to be a scorcher. When I got home, I poured another cup of coffee and was thinking about making breakfast when the doorbell rang. And there, standing on my front porch between the pots of geraniums, were two law enforcement officials--a state trooper and a village policeman. "Oh my god," I thought, "someone's died." But no. I'm informed that they've received eight 911 calls from our phone that morning. "Oh, no. That's not possible," I assure them. "Everything's fine--there must be a glitch with the phone company." "Well ma'am," said the trooper. "The dispatcher heard kids in the background. You got any kids?" Then things started to come into focus--I'm taking a walk, Tim--my husband--is in the shower, and Railey--the 14-year-old--is still asleep. That leaves . . . Jack and Clara, the five and six-year-olds, who I can hear scampering around upstairs. And at that moment, in a flash of clarity, I know who did it. I call everyone for the interrogation. The state trooper leaves because he can see that things are happening. No one fesses up, but there are small cracks in their testimonies. After "no, no, I don't know what you're talking about," Clara pauses for a moment and says, "Well, I didn't really know where anyone was and I was a little bit scared." Jack pipes up. "I saw Clara using the phone in your room when I peeked through the keyhole." Railey says, "Come to think of it, I did hear Jack say 'just hang up' at one point this morning although I thought I was dreaming." And I get mad at the lot of them. The village cop, I can tell, is wanting to suspect the 14-year-old just because she's a teenager so I get mad at him because I can't convince him that the behavior is completely inconsistent with her character. I get mad at Tim for taking a shower. I get mad at myself for having the nerve to enjoy a morning walk. And I get really mad at Jack and Clara--the little perps--because they have just proven that they don't have a clear bead on the difference between right and wrong, and that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that they can't be trusted in the house without direct supervision, and that they don't have a healthy respect for (or is it fear of) the law because Officer Friendly has made too many visits to daycare and the kindergarten class. Tim immediately unplugged and hid the phones ("uh, wait a minute, this is how I do my business" I say) and tried to tell the kids how serious this was and that the police could punish them by taking their money. "What money?" said Clara. "I don't have any money." "Well they could take my money and then I couldn't buy you anything," said Tim. I told them that 911 was to be used only when you saw actual flames shooting out of the house AND AT NO OTHER TIME. They looked a little bit impressed. But when I went on to say that we had wasted the taxpayer's money and the time and energy of two police departments, their eyes started to glaze over. And for a moment--just a brief moment--I remembered an anecdote about Alfred Hitchcock's father having young Alfred--age five--put behind bars at the local jail for five minutes to impress upon him the seriousness of some minor transgression. It scarred him for life. Nah, my kids would probably think that would be pretty neat.
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