Harrowing Halloween

The car's headlights shone on our group of costumed kids as it came way too fast and swung too wide around the curve. From near the house where we had just collected candy, I watched as the driver cut hard to the right, sending the car into a 360 spin, its lights tracing a panoramic arc through the wooded neighborhood. It slowed then and I lost it to view as I ran clumsily toward the kids, lugging a heavy Bitty Bantam. I had vaguely seen a shadowed form go over the guard rail and into the ditch.

One of our kids had been hit. Our kids, I thought. It didn't matter if the child was not my own. This whole group was comprised of kids from our theater program--kids I had teased and praised and ordered around, kids whose hair and faces I had touched as if they were my own children.

"Lord, have mercy," I prayed, as I ran. Mercy on this child. Mercy on me. Mercy on us all.

I knew where Chicklet was, ahead of me on the driveway, but my other four kids were all out there with their friends somewhere in the dark.

"Lord, have mercy," I breathed again. Liturgy gives you prayers to pray when you have none of your own.

As I neared the little group, I saw that the fallen child was one of Bantam11's friends. He was gasping for breath and crying, his leg bent awkwardly underneath him. But his eyes were open, he was sitting up, and in a second he was able to talk. He unfolded his leg--it didn't seem broken.

One of the other parents called 911 on his cell phone. Another dialed the boy's parents. A mom ran up to report that she had tried to stop the car, but it drove around her and fled. She had the license number.

I asked the boy if he wanted to try to stand and he nodded. We helped him up. He seemed all right.

The ambulance, fire engine, police and sheriff's cars arrived. The ambulance took the boy to the ER, while the sheriff took statements from all the adults and from the other kids that had nearly been hit. Then someone told me that Bantam11 had been walking next to the boy who'd been hit, and he had felt the car graze his pant legs.

I found him, shivering in the cold. He had ignored my advice to wear warm clothing under his "emo punk guy" costume--black shirt and ball cap, pink tie, bandana around his wrist. I wrapped my arms around his narrow shoulders and held him tight, the cold an excuse to hold him a little longer, a little tighter than usual. "It's okay, Mom," he finally said. "I'm fine."

They caught the guy before Bantam11 and I had finished talking to the sheriff. One of the kids had correctly guessed who the driver was--an 18 year old kid who lived in the neighborhood, who'd been arrested before, for robbery. He was drunk. (It was only 6 p.m. when it happened.)

No one complained about their near-empty bags of candy as we headed back to the hosting family's home. It was cold, late and everyone felt in shock. The kids all cheered when we told them the guy had already been arrested, and they rejoiced again when the boy who'd been hit rejoined the party. He said he felt fine. Incredibly, he hadn't a scratch on his body.

The car had come inches from hitting a whole group of our kids.

If you say, "The LORD is my refuge,"
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
"Because they love me," says the LORD, "I will rescue them;
I will protect them, for they acknowledge my name.
(from Psalm 91)