"What do you mean you didn't do it? Don't lie to me. I saw you plain and clear," scolded the younger nun.

There were two of them, sisters, that is – my teacher and the much older grammar school principal. They looked like trial judges dressed in long black robes covering their entire bodies.

"I didn't do it," I said with conviction.

"Don't lie. You know it's a sin to lie. Tell us the truth," said the younger sister.

"God is watching you. You'd be wise to admit to what you did," threatened the principal. She was visibly becoming frustrated by the lack of any prospect of getting the answer she desired from me so desperately.

"I saw the stone hit the poor boy in the back, right between the shoulders, and it distinctly came from this young lad's direction," Sister Veronica explained to the aging principal who was also the Mother Superior.

"Now, surely, you don't think your teacher would lie. Do you?" asked the Mother Superior rhetorically.

"No," I answered sheepishly as my lips helplessly tried to form a "b" for "but" yet all I could get out was a whimpering stammer – "b..b...bu..bu.."

Mother Superior threatened me one more time, "Do you want me to call your father? That'll get the truth out of you."

A tear rolled down my right cheek as I struggled to contain any outburst of anguish, fearing it might mistakenly indicate a sign of remorse.

"Why must you be so insolent?" said the principal as she reached to her desk for a pointer – a long dowel made of the hardest wood known to any parochial school child. I've had my knuckles rapped with one only once or twice, but the memory lingers well beyond the physical pain. "Enough is enough," she nearly shouted with the dual-tone of authority and finality.

At that moment, I burst out, not in tears, but laughter as if I were a juvenile Jekyll and Hyde. I must have given the sisters a good scare since they jerked their heads back so swiftly I thought they would recede into their habits like frightened turtles. "YES! Yes, I did it," I shouted.

"Okay. Now, was that so difficult?" said the younger sister with a nervous sigh of relief. If nuns were allowed to smoke, I believe she would have lit up an unfiltered Camel, right then and there, Mother Superior be damned!

Sister Veronica turned toward her superior, "What form of punishment do you suggest we impose? After all, he did confess... finally," she added with a hint of sympathy for me.

"Well," Mother Superior began with a heavy exhale as if she had also just taken a long drag on a cigarette, "I think the least he should do is apologize to the other boy." She asked Sister Veronica, "Do you know who he is?"

"Yes, Billy Thompson. He's in Sister Jillian's class."

As they discussed my fate, I continued to laugh to myself uncontrollably, yet more quietly than before.

Story and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2023 by Michael DeFrancesco