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The Box by Matthew Chambers

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Little Betty stood at the schoolyard gate waiting for the three girls, who had blocked her way, to attack. She was scared. There was no way to escape. The school building was locked up and retreating into the schoolyard would only delay the inevitable. All the other children had long since gone home.

The first girl, a broad shouldered red head named Sandra, jabbed her finger into Betty’s chest.

“What’s your hurry?” Sandra asked.

A second girl, Mary, stepped out from behind Sandra.

“Ugly shouldn’t be in such a hurry,” she added.

Betty pushed Sandra’s hand away and spit on the ground.

Shirley, the third girl, stepped out from behind Mary. Shirley waved her fist at Betty.

“I didn’t like what you said to my little sister. She didn’t do you any harm.”

Betty sneered, her arms folded defiantly across her chest. She didn’t know Shirley’s sister.

“I didn’t do nothing to nobody!” she responded.

The three girls circled Betty. Betty turned back and forth trying to keep each of the girls in her sightline, trying to prevent an attack from her blind side.

A man in a white suit stepped up behind the girls. He had a smooth puffy ghostly face and dark brooding eyes. His mouth was lipless and wiggled like a worm across his face. Though his appearance was odd, it did not detract from his otherwise amiable countenance.

“Now girls,” he said, “I don’t believe this is the way young ladies ought to behave. We must mind our oughts.”

The three girls who had surrounded Betty were surprised by the intrusion of the man in the white suit. No one had seem him coming. Shirley muttered something to Sandra who repeated it to Mary.

The man in white smiled. “I’m sure that ladies from Our Lady of Sorrows School ought not to talk in such a rough manner.”

The girls began to retreat.

“All talk!” Betty spat out in a last taunt at her enemies now in full flight.

The man in the white suit wiped his brow with a handkerchief and then grabbed the fence for support.

“I’m feeling quite faint.”

Betty cried out to the girls who had now moved off down the street.

“Dikes!”

The man in white laughed briefly than grabbed onto the fence with both hands. He hiccupped.

“That’s another word from the ought not list,” he said with conviction but with little energy.

“What’s it to you!” Betty cried.

The man in white took a deep breath.

“Actually, it is my business. That’s why I am here.”

Betty put her hands on her hips and examined the man in white who seemed in some distress.

“You some kind of pervert?”

The man in white’s smile broke under the onslaught of another hiccup.

“Hold your breath, stupid,” Betty suggested.

“Excuse me?”

“Hold your breath. It gets rid of the hiccups.”

The man in white held his breath, held if for so long that he began to turn blue. Betty slapped him on the back. He gasped for air.

“I didn’t say forever!”

The man in white took several more breaths. He raised himself up and began to breath easily.

“You look like a pervert,” Betty said. “What’s with the white gloves?”

The man in white looked down at his hands and quickly removed his gloves, stuffing them into his pockets. There seemed little difference in his appearance. His hands were as white as his gloves.

“My name is Mr. Willis,” he said with a smile. “I am quite respectable, I can assure you. I have letters of recommendation.”