James and Randy were bored like every Saturday. They always stayed inside and played video games and it was starting to get old. There was nothing exciting to do, and they were craving something cold.
“Why not go up the road to the ice cream shop and get something to eat?” suggested James.
“I don’t know Man. We’d have to walk all the way up the highway, and I don’t feel like taking that much time just to get some ice cream.”
Then James remembered something. During Cross Country they used to run through a junkyard which would bring them up to a park which was right next to the ice cream shop.
“Hey Randy, why don’t we just cut right through the junkyard that we used to run through during Cross Country. That would cut the time in half instead of going up the highway.”
“That sounds good, but I don’t know if we should go through there. I think Shiner (the coach) might know him. That’s probably the only reason that we were aloud to go through there anyways. He might get angry if we try to cut through there without permission.”
“Nah, Man, we can just run through, and if we get caught we’ll just tell him that we lost our way.”
They followed through with James’ plan and went down to the junkyard. As they walked down the rocky hill with sweat on their brows, they saw one of the construction vehicles moving at the bottom.
“We should go back,” Randy strongly suggested.
“We’re already down here. We can just tell him that we’re sorry and just keep going towards the park.”
They did just that until the junkyard man slammed on his brakes, and angrily walked over to them. He looked to be in his late 60’s. He had a wrinkly face, and his nose was scrunched up with his eyes practically piercing through both of the boys’ bodies.
“What ‘er you boys doin’ down here? You know this is private property, doncha’?”
“Sorry sir, we were just at a friend’s house, and he said that this was the easiest shortcut to get to the ice cream shop down by the park,” James nervously replied.
The junkyard man looked sternly at them and pondered over what he would do to these reckless boys that decided to intrude his treasure trove of old auto parts.
“A couple of nights ago someone broke one of the windows on my pickup truck over there, and I would very much appreciate if you boys didn’t come back. This is my warning, or next time I’ll handle you myself, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?”
James and Randy nodded nervously and proceeded down the rocky trail through the brush that continued to the park. James couldn’t get the though out of his head about the last words that the junkyard man had sternly told them.
“I’ll have to handle you myself.”
“Hey James I’ll bet you that the junkyard man probably hides a bunch of stolen stuff down below all of his trash,” Randy jokingly said trying to overcome his true feeling of nervousness. It had been an interesting experience even though it had only lasted for five minutes or so. The junkyard man was one intriguing character, but he was a very odd man, and the image of his face stuck in James’ mind for the rest of the trip.