That boy with the red hair told me he lived here from since before the storm. The younger one said no, he moved here after. I asked him “ya’ll go to Tryst middle?” Then we talked in great detail about the schools in St. Bernard Parish…naming all of them.
Then the younger one said: “we caught a snake.” He showed it to me. It was nestled down inside a pet bottle. God knows how they got it in there. “Is it poisonous?” I said. “No.” They were trying to catch it food. Minnows or something.
Instead, they ended up catching two identically sized turtles and giving them to my nephews Daniel and Nickabob. “We’ll catch you one, too,” said the boy with the red hair to my youngest nephew Derek. “No thank you,” said Derek. “I don’t like turtles.”
