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baby of the bunch and he would have missed Andy's annoyances

had Andy not been there.
Jimmy came to Andy's defense. "Be quiet, pave. If you

and Rick and Tom hadn't knocked the lights out throwing those
ftones Andy wouldn't have run into you; so just let him alone and

et me.finish telling you about my game." .

Rick and Tim followed silently, waiting for Jimmy to

explain. The two had learned it was always good to leave things

up to him.

Jimmy stopped short in front of an iron gate that reached,

up about. three or four feet high. The light from a street lamp

seemed to shine directly on the gate as if it were showing an actor

~n stage. Jimmy, star of the group, stood directly in its aura.

Now, the yard's surrounded by this iron fence and you gotta

watch it because of these spikes. on top, but come on in."

.' The five boys walked one behind the other, clinging to the

ShIrts of one another as guidance. "Pop has laid the foundation so

that it makes a nice square here," Jimmy explained. ''There are .

trees to hide behind inside the fence and a little garden along the

b~ck. I will start the game to show you all how it's played." .
JI~my picked up two beer cans that lay on the ground at his feet.
HIS father had long been an alcoholic. The wife had begged him
to get help a few years earlier, but her efforts had failed. This .
was how Jimmy knew he would find the props for his game. In

fact, this was what had given him the idea.
He banged the cans together. "Can Man's Land!" he

shouted, standing in the middle of the foundation. "I close my
eyes and when 1 shout this, you all run and hide somewhere
Inside the fence, but not the foundation- that's my land. 1 count

out loud to twenty-five and give you all a chance to hide. Then 1
gotta bang the cans again so you know for sure I'm done counting,
set them down, and you gotta try to get in and get them without
me tagging you. The first person who gets the cans, he bangs
them together and yells 'Can Man's Land' and he's the new Can

Man and we start all over."
The game went on in this manner and they played it

successfully a few times until Jimmy was Can Man again. He put

the cans to one another and as he started counting the others ran.

"... ten, eleven, ... " he said while the wind picked up. Suddenly
he froze as heard two more cans banging together somewhat
Simultaneously from the back of the iron fence. Oh my God, Mrs.
Zeller really is haunting this place, he thought, terrified. Jimmy
had never believed the rumors, or so he though t. Yet, deep in the
back of his mind he wondered about all those stories he had
heard. Children have such imaginations that they will believe

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