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A Children’s Story

by Ronen Verbit

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Once there was a boy named Caesar.

Caesar was very quiet.

Every day Caesar came in to school wearing a new band-aid.

Every day in a different place.

“Maybe his father works in a band-aid factory” the kids said.

When they asked him why he wore the bandaids, he said ‘because I got hurt there’. When they asked how he got hurt, he just said, “oh, you know.”

One day Stacy Smith was at Caesar’s house for lunch on saturday (she was in his sister’s class, and became friends with her to try and figure out the mystery).

“So,” she asked, after some conversation, “how did you brother hurt his knee?”
“Oh, you know,” said Caesar’s sister. “He was jumping off of the cliff with a rope tied around his waste and tied around the Fig Tree at the top of the cliff, diving to catch pearls underwater, when a big gust of wind came and blew him towards the cliff. He realized he was going to hit it, so he opened the pearl clam and cut the rope loose and leapt onto the face of the cliff, catch a steep ledge and climbing back up to the top. When he got to the top, he saw that when he hit the cliff face he’d scraped his knee a little against the rock. So he put a band-aid on it.”

Stacy was upset at Caesar’s sister for making up such a stupid lie, so she didn’t tell anybody and never played with her again.

Henry Rollins was bunkmates with Caesar’s first cousin, Horatio, from summer camp, and one night after lights-out he asked him why Caesar had a band-aid on his elbow. “Oh, you know,” said Caesar’s cousin Horatio, “when we were off the coast of Malaysia on a fishing expedition and our boat got attacked by Phillipine Sea Pirates, and Caesar dove over the side of the boat, swam underneath the pirate’s boat, and broke through the bottom, and their boat began sinking. Then he swam into their boat and disconnected their propeller engine, swam back to our boat, and attached it to the side. Then he motioned for us all to sit, and started the engine - our boat sped off, and all the pirates holding us fell into the water. When they tried to follow in their boat, it had no engine, and we got away. Afterwards, he noticed that he’d bruised his elbow knocking in the boards of the Pirate’s boat, so he put a bandaid on it.”

Henry Rollins was so upset that Ceasar’s First Cousin Horatio had told him such a stupid lie, that he gave Sam Ferguson five dollars to switch bunks with him.

After a while, all the kids were talking about the mystery so much that even the children’s parents got curious.

One day Michael Hutchin’s mother, Sara, went to Caesar’s Father’s Studio to talk to him about designing a website for her company (she made small handbags to carry your baby puppy in). After they negotiated a price and agreed on the design, Sara Hutchins said, “Ah, yes, my son Michael is in your son Caesar’s class. He mentioned that the other day, Caesar had a band-aid on the tip of his finger. Is he alright?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Caesar’s father said. “Thanks for asking.”

“However did he get a cut there?” she asked.

“Oh, you know,” said Caesar’s father. “The other day after the schoolbus dropped him off, men from the government came to speak with him because they’d heard about his science project he was working on, and there was a new disease going around in the flu, and they were working on a top-secret project to cure it and wanted his help, to see his research. So once he got his mother’s permission, he spent the rest of the night working in a top-secret-government science lab to combine his research with theirs and cure the disease, which is why nobody had the flu this year. Since he did his research with himself, the scientists drew some blood from his fingertip to match the research, so they put a band-aid on it.”

Well, needless to say Sara Hutchins was so upset at Caesar’s Father for making up such an obviously false, insulting, and stupid story that she cancelled their deal and hired someone else to make her website, and told her son not to play with this Caesar boy anymore.

Then one day, there was a new girl in the class, Bruna, from Brasil. Everyone forgot all about Caesar and could only talk about how beautiful Bruna was. And she was beautiful. She had dark black hair that looked like a crescent moon over her beautiful full-moon eye that started and stared at you until to look away, but she always looked very serious.

Then one day, she started smiling. Every day, after recess she came back with a smile.

So the children followed her during recess, and saw her eating a snack with.. Caesar!

“Are you friends with her, are you friends with Bruna?” they all asked him. “Oh, you know,” Caesar replied as usual, and walked off. As usual. So they asked her: “Are you friends with him, are you friends with Caesar?” And her dark skin blushed crimson red and she smiled so big that even though she tried to hide it with her lips she couldn’t and just said, “oh, you know.”

“She’s so strange,” the children said. “Just like him.” “They should be friends.” “They’re both weirdos.” “My mother said that his father is a liar!” “His cousin is also a big liar!” “What a bunch of weirdos!”

And all the children walked off together, to play and go to class and eat lunch together.

Except for Stacy Smith, who noticed that since Bruna started being friends with Caesar, more than her blushing complexion and beautiful smile had changed. Something else had changed also:

She had started wearing a new necklace, and in the middle of the new necklace was a beautiful

beautiful

pearl.

Where did it come from?

Oh, you know. ;)