Well, I don't know what made me leery of him, but bells and lights were going off in my head and I felt uneasy that he was there at my house. He just had this look in his eyes and I had fear in my soul and started to walk away from him fast!

He followed, everywhere I went he was behind me gaining ground. Never saying a word to me. As any hunted animal, they will head for cover as I did in our wash room. I ran inside, but I was not quick enough for him. He was there in a heartbeat and inside with me shutting the door behind him. I realized my mistake too late. He just stood at the door and looked at me. I started to cry as he stared to advance toward me slowly. I was backing up as far as I could get and bumped up against a tall stool that my Mom used to sit on when she did the wash. He then stared to telling me that I shouldn't cry he wasn't going to hurt me as he took another step toward me. Over and over again he was telling me not to cry he wouldn't hurt me. My mind was trying to find a way out and I didn't see any. I didn't know what he wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to do it. I climbed up on the stool and cried harder.

Suddenly there was a noise from outside, don't know what caused it, but it caused him to turn toward the noise and I was off that stool like a shot and got by him and out the door before he knew I had moved.

The chase was on!! I was running like the wind for the woods and safety. He was just behind me. I had a special place in the woods, lots of pine trees and I had a plan already in my head that would work, if I could just get to my special pine trees before he caught me.

I was running with fear as my companion. I made it to the trees. I was climbing my one special pine tree as fast as I could go. Never looking behind me afraid I would loose time if I did. And what I had in mind I needed the right timing to work. Now you have to understand these pine trees were tall, very tall.

I was half way up and he spotted me and stared to climb after me. That was what I had wanted him to do, I knew then my plan would work. There was a second pine tree that didn't have any branches on it until way up in the top. But it had a big branch that reached out to the tree that I was in and the tree I was in had a big branch that reached out to the tree with branches only at the top. Like a crossover. I could hold on one branch and walk the other one without fear of falling. I had done this many, many times before. This was my special place that I came to play everyday. I waited till he could almost reach out and touch me and then I crossed over to the other tree and wrapped my legs around the rough tree trunk knowing full well what was going to happen to my thighs as I slid down the rough tree trunk. I hit the ground and was up and running even before he could start to climb back down. Don't ask me why I knew he wouldn't slide down after me. I just knew he wouldn't. If he had I would of been lost.

I took off toward my house and ran inside and went and hid under my parents bed, crawled way in the back, even ran into a spider web, but it didn't scare me half as much as the one chasing me did. I was as quiet as a mouse and I heard footsteps coming my way. Just about the time he got close enough to the bedroom, he left.

I was afraid to come out and see if he was really gone. I was content to stay in my dark hiding place forever if that is what it took to wait him out. Then I heard my Mom calling my name. I still didn't move. I still wasn't sure it was safe to come out. She kept calling for me and I answered her and told her I was under the bed. She ask me why I was there. I told her something about looking for something. By then some of the fear had left me and my thighs were starting to burn like fire. I never told anyone, not even my parents about the visitor I had had that day. When I took a bath that night and the abrasions on my inner thighs started to sting again, it made me smile to think I won my race that day.

Part Two

We moved the last six weeks of my 4th grade. My Grand dad had lung cancer and we moved to be with him and Grandmother. We never went back to Florida to live after that move. I finished up the 4th grade in Iowa. Later, a year or two, Mom had to go back to sell the place and took me with her for company. We went and stayed at the boy's home that chased me. His mom and my Mom were good friends. She had lost her husband to TB and she had I think 12 or 13 boys to raise on her own. She was living in a Jim Walter's home. You know the kind, they put up as little or as much as you want. Anyway they had walls up but no ceiling put in. You could see the rafters. I was told to go take a bath and so I did and Mom came in and took my dirty clothes as I was in the tub. The house was pretty quiet, I could hear the women talking way off, then I heard a door shut softly close by, then I heard someone climbing the walls next to me. I didn't have to 'see' who it was I knew who was behind the wall in the next room. I was in a bad position no clothes no where to hide, no bubbles either, and no towel in sight. I hollered for Mom to come, she didn't at first answer me. I saw a pair of hands on the wall above me and I screamed out then, I was in terror I was trapped. And that wash cloth didn't hide much. I heard Mom comming to the door and I also heard the boy drop to the floor, and the door shut in the next room. Mom ask me what was wrong. Dumb me I told her I was wanting out and needed a towel to dry off and my clean clothes to put on. She laughed at me, and said was that all! The way you screamed I thought something was wrong in here. What good would it of done, he had left the other room by the time my Mom got to the bathroom. I also heard his mom call out to see what made the noise from the next bedroom. He mumbled something to his Mom as he went out the door. I never had to see him again. We left the next morning.