Tales Around the Jack O'Lantern II - A Mary O'Reilly Series Short Story (Mary O'Reilly Series Short Stories) by Reid Terri

Author:Reid, Terri [Reid, Terri]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

“Do you have any idea who he might have been?” Art asked his father.

Timothy shook his head. “I have my own theories,” he said. “But nothing I could ever prove.”

Margaret reached over and took his hand in hers. “Whoever he was, I’ll be eternally grateful,” she said. “And I hope one day he finds peace. And I hope they find out who killed him.”

“I’m sure they will,” Timothy said. “When it’s the right time.”

“Speaking of the right time,” Art inserted. “How long is the statute of limitations on not telling your parents the truth?”

Margaret glanced over at him and shook her head. “There is no statute of limitations on that.” Then she smiled. “But if we’re going to get a good story from it, we’ll grant you clemency.”

“Well, I hope it’s a good story,” Art said. “Sure scared the heck out of me. It happened back in high school when I was trying out for the basketball team…”

Several dozen young men sat in the bleachers, wearing their school issued gym clothes, waiting nervously for their name to be called by the coach. Once on the polished wood gym floor they would be put through their paces; doing lay-ups, dribbling the ball and making shots from the free-throw line. Then the coach would have them play a one-on-one game with one of the members of the Varsity team. It was generally a humiliating experience for the student trying out, one that Art O’Reilly wasn’t looking forward to.

Being an O’Reilly was a blessing and a curse, especially when your older brother was a school icon. Sean had played football, basketball, baseball and excelled in each. His grades were good, he had never done anything dorky and despite it all, he was actually a nice guy. Coming up behind his brother in school, the twins were very often compared to their older brother’s accomplishments. He could still remember a woodshop class where the teacher held up his project, smiled encouragingly and said, “This is good, O’Reilly, pretty good. But you should see what your brother did.” Then, to Art’s mortification, the teacher went to his backroom and pulled out the three year-old project his brother had done. “I saved this,” the teacher said in a reverential voice, displaying it to the entire class. “Because no other student has ever come this close to fulfilling the artistic aspect of this project.”

Art had wanted to crawl under his desk. And, now, here he was again. Sean had been a point guard, arguably the most important position on the team, and he had been great. The coach, seeing the last name O’Reilly, was probably expecting more of the same. But Art didn’t want to be a superstar. Didn’t think he could. He just wanted to play the game.

The coach called name after name on the roster and the minutes clicked by on the clock. Art had purposely put his name on the very bottom. He didn’t want an audience to experience his probable humiliation. He glanced over at the locker room.

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