‘Bacon Scrapins’ are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the ‘nutrition’ sometimes needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.

Ralph and his wife had no children yet. They lived in a two-storey townhouse, one of four just like it attached together in a row. The backyard was only 20 feet deep, but it looked out over a short fence onto the neighbouring schoolyard.

Ralph’s wife worked days, and he worked a rotating shift: days, afternoons, and midnights. This week, he worked afternoons. He had gone to sleep at 1:00 a.m. and was now up and doing the lunch hour dishes at the kitchen sink.

Like most kitchen sinks, it had a window through which you could see events unfolding before you as you washed up. On the other side of the fence, Ralph could see the boys in the schoolyard playing ‘500’. Some folks call it “Pops and Grounders”.

‘500’ is a game where you only need one bat, one baseball and a group of buddies. One guy is the batter. With the bat in one hand, he tosses the ball up in the air with the other, puts both hands back on the bat, and takes a mighty swing to see how far he can hit it. If a fielder can catch the ball in the air, then he gets 100 points. If he fields after one bounce of the ball, it’s worth 75 points. Two bounces equal 50 points, and a grounder/roller gets nothing. The goal is to accumulate 500 or more points, and then you get to switch places and move from fielder to batter. With each new batter, the fielders start over at zero. The batter wanted to stay “up” as a batter, so he tried to hit the ball where the fielders weren’t, so they took longer to get 500 points.

Because they had gotten into trouble when they aimed the hits toward the school building, and toward all the little kids playing there, they had reversed the direction and now the batter was closer to the school, and the fielders were out toward Ralph’s fence. The hits were aimed toward the fence line. In the past, a few balls had landed just over the fence, and a kid had hopped over, retrieved the ball, and hopped back into the field of play. No problem.

This lunch hour recess was different. The batter was hitting more balls closer to the fence line, and rather than backing up, had continued to hit long fly balls. The fielders loved it because it gave them more chances to catch a pop fly for 100 points.

Ralph was bent over, focusing on scrubbing a grimy plate, when there was a crash and a splash of sudsy water in his eyes. After quickly rubbing the suds out of his eyes, he spotted a baseball in his sink and a hole in the window glass.

He leaned closer to the window and saw a boy, two hands on the fence rail. He was peering over the fence toward Ralph, who was visible from outside through the broken window.

Ralph yelled at him, “What happened here?”

The boy replied, “I don’t know. I wasn’t watching.”

After a two-count, the boy then said, “Can I have the ball back?”

This is where my teacher’s story would end.

I’d then ask my grade 8 students if there was anything to be learned from this.

Someone would comment that the kid at the fence was probably telling the truth. He was probably facing the other way and didn’t see what happened because he was facing away. He wasn’t watching the ball hit the window.

Another would ask, “How do you know he was facing away? How do you know he was telling the truth about not seeing?”

Another student would observe, “If he was telling the truth, and didn’t know what happened, then why did he ask for the ball back? He must have known the ball went through the window.”

I’d then tell them to pick groups of three and discuss what this anecdote told us about the character of the kid peering over the fence. Each group had to come up with 3 words to describe the kid’s character and be prepared to explain why they picked those words.

I’d choose a few of their words and put them on the next week’s spelling list.

(Learning is often drill-and-practice.)

Have you got 3 words?