incident at the border - 40. one year later

by nick nelson

illustrated by konrad kraus and roy dismas

part forty of forty

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it was teresa’s seventeenth birthday, her day to leave mother smith’s home and head out into the world, as joe had done the year before. she had not flipped a coin, as joe had, but had decided on her own to head for the city, rather than the country. as she walked along the highway, she wondered if she would make such a big splash in the world as poor joe had. it did not seem likely! the whole smith family had been astonished the year before when joe had made the lead stories in the nightly news for his heroic role in foiling the attempted kidnaping of two diplomats, lord chandler and mr mahmoud, who had been engaged in arranging the preliminaries of the newest world war. joe had, of course, perished in his exploit, which made his story particularly interesting and sensational. two of the persons who had, like the diplomats, survived the grisly proceedings - the young duke of dent, and a young woman named mary brown - had known enough of joe’s background to give some details of it to the reporters who had flocked to the scene, and these had been picked up in the stories and headlines. pig boy saves world! thanks, pig boy! yokel earns hero’s laurels some reporters found their way to mother smith’s and interviewed mother and the children. one in particular, ms carlotta bligh, who had described herself as “the last of the old time newshounds” spent two whole days at the farm, interviewing everybody and promising to produce “the story of the century”. but interest in joe had quickly passed, as the new war and other events filled the news, and neither carlotta bligh’s nor any of the other stories about the farm ever saw the light of day. life at mother smith’s quickly resumed its normal cycle of days and months. now as teresa walked along, she, like joe the year before, was somewhat surprised by how few people she encountered, and how few vehicles passed by in either direction. she saw a large woman walking about fifty yards ahead of her. the woman had an old-fashioned woven basket on her left arm and teresa wondered what was in it. she wondered if she should try to overtake the woman and attempt to engage her in friendly conversation. teresa thought she felt a few raindrops. but when she looked up there was not a cloud in the sky. the end