Little Roberto's Lesson
George Baldillez
Published by: George Baldillez at Smashwords
copyright 2010 George Baldillez
Little Roberto sat on the bottom step in front of his house. When he was happy, he sat on the top step.
All of Roberto’s friends were gone; he had no one to play with. Roberto sighed. Roberto found some ants on the sidewalk in front of his house; he used a stick to play with them. The ants were in a long row gathering food. Roberto followed the ants as far as the curb. He watched them go out onto the street. Per Daddy’s instruction, he was not allowed to go out into the street. Roberto sat on a curb and sighed again.
Roberto thought, “I’ll look for a quarter.”
Ben, his best friend once found a quarter on the sidewalk. Roberto walked close to the street as far as Old Man Presley’s house. Roberto didn’t find any quarter there.
Roberto did not want to stay on Old Man Presley’s property for too long. His daddy told him that some people in the neighborhood did not like children. Roberto couldn’t understand this but did what his daddy told him.
Roberto walked to the end of his side of the street. He found no quarter there either. Shockingly, he found something else... Roberto found a wallet.
It was smooth, brown, square and fat. Inside there were pictures of a lady with yellow hair and a red bathing suit. There were pictures of two kids in a pool splashing bubbles. There was also a picture of an old lady with white hair and black clothes. Roberto also
saw a baby in a pink dress. The wallet also had a lot of money behind the pictures.
This is much better than a quarter, thought Roberto. It’s just like daddy’s, only the pictures are different. Roberto had wanted a wallet of his own. This one can be mine.
He looked at the wallet until he heard Mama call him.
“Roberto, time for lunch!”
Roberto knew she would not want him to keep the wallet. He stuffed the wallet into his pocket, but it was too big. He tried to stuff it into his sock, but it was too fat.
Roberto stuffed the wallet into his shirt. Maybe if he held his arm tight over it and ran to the bathroom to wash his hands, Mother wouldn’t see it.
Roberto tried to hurry through the kitchen, PLOP!
The wallet was on the floor and Mother was looking straight at it!
“Can I keep it?” Roberto asked with wide-eyed wonder. “It’s mine. I found it. I like it.”
Mother picked it up and turned it over in her hands. She opened it. Mother towered over Roberto.
“This is nice Roberto, that you want to be grown-up and have a wallet like Daddy, but this one belongs to someone else,” Mother said. “Someone must have dropped it and is
looking all over for it right now.”
Roberto tried not to cry.
The next morning, Roberto’s mother asked him to sit at the breakfast table.
“We are going to put this wallet in a package and mail it back to the person who it belongs to,” Mother said. “See Roberto, this is the address of the person the wallet belongs to.” Mother let him put the wallet in a small box and tape it up.