It was a fine sunny day, and the sunlight dabbled golden green through the canopy of high branches.
Mr. Smith leaned his back into the lonely park bench. He carefully rustled a page of the newspaper that he was not reading, and held it aloft between his hands as he crossed one ankle over the other. He even admired the shine glimmering off his just polished shoes.
Dressed finely in a tailored pin stripe suit, he thought of himself as a picture of a man that was intent on minding his own business. At the moment, his own business was certainly not what he was minding.
"No." said the high pitched voice from beneath neatly trimmed brush behind him. "You do it."
"You." Replied a similar high pitched whisper from the same brush.
"You do it."
Mr. Smith thought the voices sounded familiar. Perhaps they belonged to the pair of brothers that were his neighbors. He was aware today was a weekday, and he wondered vaguely why they weren't in school at this time in the morning.
He was sure they were young boys, those two, of about the age of six or seven.
Whispering as they were to one another, they had to be up to some sort of mischief.
"No, you."
"You."
"Tcha!"
"Go on."
"No! You."
Mr. Smith thinned his lips in a wide grin. He held back a chuckle as he listened in on the easily heard argument.
Soon enough, he heard the shuffling crunch of dead leaves, followed by muffled thumps of hurried footsteps headed his way. As they drew closer, he lifted his brows and pretended to be far too absorbed in the words printed before him to be concerned with anything around him.
A heartbeat followed a excited, in drawn breath.
Mr. Smith snapped the paper down hard upon both boys' heads.
He hissed as he felt painful twinges on his forearm.
He glanced down and frowned at the two pairs of stubby fingers pinching his sleeve between chubby thumbs.
He then glared at the pair of watery brown eyes looking owlishly up at him.
"What's the meaning of this!?" He demanded in his best commanding voice.
One boy cringed back, and dropped his hold as he examined his shoes. The other, with a hint of defiance, said,
"You're not wearing green."
Mr. Smith brows knitted together.
"Green you say?"
"It's St. Patrick's Day. You're supposed to wear green on St. Patrick's Day."
"Only if you're catholic, dear boy. " Mr. Smith smirked, and pointed to his bright orange tie beneath his chin. He was rather proud he had found it.
Both boys widened their eyes at his gesture, and a two pairs of skewed eyebrows raised in confusion.
"You wear orange if you're Protestant." Mr. Smith stated with authority, and raised his nose slightly in superiority. In the silence that followed, he reopened his newspaper.
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