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The 11-year-old boy who drove 200 miles in his parents' car instead of going to school reminds me of the Roman pipe found at the archaeological site in England. He was unable to handle the bullying at his school, so he left at 5:00 before his parents would rise for showers and breakfast. He ran out of gas and was given more by construction workers along the way and I wonder if he's one of those man elevens, big, tall, with wisps of what he'll grow to be, instead of one of the boy elevens, unready to shift into the next phase, because what were the builders thinking? Then again, they gave him the fuel, they didn't sell it to him, so they were with him on his journey out of bounds. The boy said he'd driven a tractor before, not the family car, but this was in the conversation with the cop at the end of his drive, not with the builders, who, no doubt, wanted no such clarification to ruin their imaginary escape. Neither the boy's teacher nor his parents knew of any trouble, and that doesn't surprise me, at all, although I gather they try to know more these days. My entire 5th grade class, minus two, ganged up on me because they could, and they were bored, and picked on themselves at home, and we were learning about sex and it was ludicrous and had to be taken out on someone. Nobody in Northumberland, let alone at the Vindolanda Roman fort, knew that there were working alder pipes from around 100 A.D. still trying to feed the old hospital with spring water. They didn't guess because they were archaeologists working with what once was, 238 boots and shoes, 1,700 writing tablets. Every day, the trenches flooded and every day, they cursed and drained them, until, whoosh, it all made sense. Whoosh, the boy was gone from home, where the signs were ankle deep.

© 2005 Amy Holman