The Incident at Bolans
F.G. Baker

The kitten ran away as it always did, just a short distance ahead and then stopped until Maribelle nearly caught up. Playfully, or according to some little kitten logic, it darted forward again with little Maribelle in pursuit. Down the dirt track they went, between the wooden houses, each needing a little paint but the pride of its owner, the kitten in and out of bushes along the side of the path, Maribelle darting in and out after the kitty.

“Come back here you little kitty. Here kitty, kitty!” Maribelle was breathless but determined to catch her little friend and bring her back to the house for a saucer of milk and a lot of petting. She tripped on a stick once and scrapped her knee, just a small scratch but a drop of blood oozed from it and mixed with the dust she landed in as she caught herself on her hands and knees.

She sat down to look at the scrape, deciding whether she should cry or not because it hurt but not too much. She sat down for a second to look at her knee and rub some of the dirt off of her otherwise smooth black skin, but then she remembered she had on her good, new turquoise shorts and her Mama would be angry if she got those dirty.

She spit on her hand and used it to rub the dirt and blood off her knee. It didn’t look so bad and it didn’t hurt much, so she got up and axed, “Where be you, little kitty?”

She saw the kitten down next to the main road, looking back at her, ready to dart across the blacktop and into the high grass of the empty lot on the other side.

Jaron was excited and tired from a long day of driving the bus back and forth to the seaport of St. John. His fifteen passenger Nissan van had been packed with passengers from way before dawn today. People coming in at bus stops all along the road into town, most getting off at the market, then riding home again after work. He didn’t even have time for lunch today, it was so busy. He felt tired and his eyes hurt from scanning the road, even the side streets to see if anyone was running late to the bus stop, flagging him down for a ride.

He missed Mrs. Garrity and she was mad as a hen when she ran to catch up to him when he finally stopped a hundred yards from where her footpath meets the road. One of his passengers saw her just in time for Jaron to stop, but she sure gave him an earful.

Running a route bus was hard work and it kept Jaron busy looking for passengers who might signal with a wave of a finger or the nod of a head, talkin’ to a few people at once, making change from the little counter between the seats, checking who would get out here or there, keeping traffic at bay, dodging his van in and out of traffic and around parked cars, bicycles people and the occasional dog or donkey. Whew! What a day it was. Busy, busy.

“Can you make change for this and drop me by Chen’s market, Jaron?”

“Yeah, yeah. No big ‘ting.” Jaron pulled back into traffic ahead of a truck and then when up to speed, looked down at his counter to count out the change.

“Winston, where’d that little Maribelle go to of a sudden? She was just here with that yellow kitten you got her from Mrs. Wirth.”

“She was just here moment ago. She sure crazy ‘bout her little kitty!
“Well, look out the window by you and see where she gone to. She not in the yard o’ here.”

Winston stepped to the window to look for Maribelle and called out the window. “Maribelle! Maribelle! Where are you?”

He looked down the hill along the path that ran between the houses. “Damn! She on the path down the hill by Olive’s garden. And the cat is running ‘head o’ her.”

He walked out on the path between the houses. “Maribelle! Maribelle!”

“She can’t hear you, Win. Better go down the hill and get her, ‘fore she goes too far.”

“Yeah. I best do dat.” He walked down the path. “Maribelle? Maribelle! Come here, girl!”

He saw his daughter fall down on her knees and then sit down. “Baby, are you okay now?”

He watched the kitten run toward the main road and his little, blue-clad daughter run after the cat. “Maribelle! Maribelle! Stop! Don’t go by that road. No!”

He began to run as his neighbor, Olive, looked out her window. “Winston? Is that Maribelle down dey? She kind o’ close to the main road and all that traffic, eh?”
Winston ran down the path, fear in his voice. “Maribelle!”

The yellow kitty ran into the road right between two parked cars. In the middle of the road it stopped and saw something big coming at it very fast. The kitten stood right there on the asphalt, back arched, afraid.

Maribelle ran down the path, saw her kitty enter the road and stop. “I got you, you little Dickens.” That was what her Daddy called her when she was naughty, ‘little Dickens.’

She ran past the two cars, caught the kitten and picked it up. Then she saw the big blue and white Nissan bus barreling down on her, a man inside named Jaron with eyes as big as saucers, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, standing on the brake, mouth open in fear, a woman sitting next to him with her eyes big too, mouth open shrieking but unheard by Maribelle. Tires screeched on the bus, a car behind her swerved onto the side of the road, people shouted, the bus sliding right at her.

She stood up to face the bus, eyes wide in her new blue shorts, white blouse and little white sandals. Her face was slack in surprise, her clear black face, pink lips and hair tied up in two tufts like horns, all frozen in place as everyone on the bus saw her in the middle of the road. She held her kitty close in her arms.

The bus skidded to a stop inches from her face. She jumped back in reaction, just as her father, Winston, ran to pick her up. “Oh, Maribelle!”

He nearly squeezed the air out of her little body.

The little kitten snuggled into her neck, “Meow.”

Suddenly, everyone was surrounding her, her Daddy, Mama, Olive, Jaron, all the passengers from the bus, neighbors. All covering her with love and cooing, talking about a miracle.

Traffic stopped for nearly half an hour on the main road. Everyone who heard what happened took a moment and thought of their own loved ones. Even the waylaid drivers stopped honking their horns as word spread from passersby along the road about what had happened.

From a passing airplane all you would see is a traffic jam on a narrow highway, cars stopped in both directions, people standing by the road, people talking in the small town of Bolans on a small island in the Caribbean Sea.

One might ask, “All that caused by a little girl and a kitten?”