"Would You Like A Peppermint Drop?" | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: "Would You Like A Peppermint Drop?" | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kathy Warnes
07/14/11
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Nelson made sure his cap pistol was cuddled in its holster and tiptoed to his front door. I’m going outside to play, mom,” he called to his mother who was in the kitchen washing dishes.
“Don’t go too far, Nelly,” she called to him. “I’ll be through with the dishes in a minute; then we can walk down to the playground by the river.
“Catch up with me, Mom, I’ll walk slow,” he said., slamming the door behind him.
Nelson trotted down the sidewalk leading to the Log Cabin Café on the river front. As he reached the door of the café, he curled his fingers over the trigger of his cap pistol, then took his hands out of his pocket and banged on the thick wooden door. After a few minutes an eye appeared in a round peephole about halfway up the door.
When the eye saw Nelson holding out his cap pistol, it blinked. “What are you doing here?” the eye’s voice asked Nelson.
“I came to see Lefty,” Nelson said. “Let me in, please.”
The eye disappeared from the peephole and the door creaked open.
It was so dark inside the café that for a few minutes Nelson couldn’t see anything. He could smell things though like hamburgers and cigarettes and coffee, and he could smell Lefty. He walked over to the wooden table where a group of men and women were sitting and talking. He stopped beside a rough looking man dressed in a pair if baggy trousers and a long brown wool coat with a black cap covering his head and most of his face except his mouth. The man was drinking a cup of very strong looking coffee. Nelson liked the smell of coffee. His Dad used to drink a cup every morning before he went to the Police Station. Nelson pulled out his cap pistol and stuck it in Lefty’s back. “Why did you kill my Dad?” Nelson demanded.
Lefty turned around and put up his hands. He stared at Nelson. “So you’re the son he talked about before he died.”
The gun wavered in Nelson’s hands. “What do you mean he talked about me?”
Lefty grinned. “He asked me to tell you goodbye and how much he loves you.”
Nelson felt tears spring to his eyes. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to shoot you like you shot my Dad.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“I knew it was you because you drink coffee and eat peppermint drops.”
“How’d you know that kid?”
“Because when my Mom brought home my Dad’s cloth badge that they gave her after he died, it smelled like coffee and peppermint. I knew if I found a man at the Log Cabin Café that smelled like peppermint he probably was the man who killed my father.”
Lefty turned around. He slapped Nelson on the back with his left hand and grabbed Nelson cap pistol with his right hand. “Smart kid, but not quite smart enough, “Lefty sneered taking a peppermint drop from his pocket and putting it in his mouth.
He shoved the cap pistol in Nelson’s hand and pushed him toward the door. “Now go home and play with your toys before you get hurt.”
Nelson put his finger on the trigger of the cap pistol. Then the faces of his Sunday school teacher Miss Harper and his mother floated up out of his mind and he heard their voices reading from the Bible about forgiveness. That verse just wouldn’t be quiet. It kept shouting. “And be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” *
He closed his eyes, trying to blot them out, but they still stayed in his mind. Nelson lowered his cap pistol. He grabbed a peppermint candy from the dish and threw it at Lefty.
Lefty scrambled to catch the peppermint drop.
Nelson threw another peppermint drop and then another. Lefty got down on the floor like an octopus, trying to rescue his peppermint drops.
While Lefty was rescuing his peppermint drops, the sheriff and his deputy came, handcuffed him, and took him to jail.
“I’ll be back,” Nelson shouted after Lefty.
Nelson is keeping his promise. Along with his regular job as police chief, he moonlights as a cook in the Log Cabin Café and always keeps a cup of coffee and a dish of peppermint drops waiting for Lefty.

*Ephesians 4:32, King James Version

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