“Hey!” she shouts. The teen freezes and another boy darts out from the bushes, arm midair, caught before he lobs the next snowball at a wise man.
A third boy exits the bushes, his arms voluntarily raised in surrender.
“What’s going on here?” I ask the boys.
“We’re uh … just throwing snowballs.”
One of the downfalls of life around here is the lack of options for teens. The ones on the ranches stay plenty busy working on their family’s properties. They’re up hours before school, feeding livestock or doing other farm chores. After school they do their homework and more work on the property. They tend to fall asleep long before they can get into any trouble. It’s the kids in town who tend to get restless in their high school years. And then they come up with things like pelting the nativity with snowballs.
“You boys haven’t happened to see a few plastic reindeer?” Alex asks.
Good thinking.
“No, ma’am.” Braxton Taylor answers for all three of them.
“You boys want a night at the station?” I ask.
“No, sir,” Jaxon Smith answers, nervously glancing at his friends. He’s dropped his arms.
“You’re guilty of criminal mischief and desecration. Not to mention the potential vandalism if something is damaged.”
“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Pax Wilson says.
All three of them were born that year that parents were into names with Xs in them.
“Come see me tomorrow after school,” I tell them. “I’ll have some community service lined up.”
Pax looks down at his shoes.
Jaxon says, “We’ll be there.” He glances at his two friends and nods.
“I get it,” I tell the boys. “I grew up here too. Sometimes you just get an itch.”
They all nod in unison.
“Just make better choices when that happens.” I look Jaxon in the eyes. “You don’t want to mess up that football scholarship of yours.”
“No sir, Jesse.” He glances at Alex, clears his throat quickly and corrects himself. “Mr. Heinz … er … Officer Heinz.”
I smother a grin. “Okay. I’d say it’s close enough to curfew, you three need to hop in your truck and head home.”
They scurry away like mice from an owl.
Alex looks at me.
“What?” I ask her.
“You can rattle off misdemeanors at an impressive rate.”
I chuckle. “Oh, you want to go there?”
“Maybe.” She’s laughing too. The light from the lampposts around the church property give an almost angelic glow to her features.
“What are you going to have them do?” Alex asks as we make our way back to the patrol car.
“I’ve got some thoughts.”
“Such as?” Her blue eyes flash with amusement and curiosity.
