Lindsay Walker

Troop 109

I came home to find Conrad, my neighbor’s cat, had devoured the tiny boy scout troop which had been camping in my closet. I shooed him out with the broad side of a broom and dropped to my knees.

Wafts of campfire smoke still curled in the pockets of my blazer. I found the shoelace suspension bridge stretched across my red and gold stilettos unaltered; the white rubber heel of a sneaker was spotted with seven bull’s-eyes and pocked with splinter-sized arrows. The only survivor was the scout master who, dozing in the shade of a loafer, remained unaware of the massacre.

Just then my phone rang. The urgency in the telemarketer’s voice caught my attention immediately. The boys are gone, I told her.

“Can you honestly say you are satisfied with your service?” This was a trick. I hung up the phone and yanked the scout master up by his rawhide lanyard, placing him in my palm. He was terrified, clearly, but there was no time to explain. Together we made our escape through the kitchen door.

Our hiding spot in the privets established, we sat trembling. He, fearful at the newness of the situation. And I, desperately hoping once again to avoid catching the attention of the giant girl scouts who, by now, would already be on their way.

Lindsay Walker is a graduate of Tulane University and a second-year master’s student in poetry at the Center for Writers. Currently, she serves as Poetry Editor for the literary journal, Juked. Her work has most recently been published in The Bare Root Review, Voix du Vieux, and The Jabberwock Review.