Flea Barn ‘vermin’ in our sights

The boy lined up on the target and steadied his breathing. His finger curled around the trigger, cheek cushioned on the stock, left eye softly closed, exactly as I had taught him. Halfway through his out breath, he paused briefly then, with fluidity, completed the trigger pull.

Whack. The Nerf bullet caught me squarely between the eyes. “Right in the noggin,” Charlie shouted with glee as he reloaded his gaudy blue-and-white plastic instrument of, if not death, certainly brief, stinging pain.

As I rubbed the emerging red weal on my brow and ducked behind his bedroom curtains to avoid a second volley, I mused on how his marksmanship had improved. On an