"Why does he do it, Mom?" We stood across the street from the dilapidated three story house with the wrap-around porch. It was a safe distance.

A sign hung on a gate that straddled the front walk. "No Trespassing - This Means YOU!"

"Because Old Man Calhoun served as sheriff for 25 years." I cleared my throat and whispered, "And because he can."

"Will I ever get it back?" His voice caught.

I knelt down and pulled him close. "Probably not, sweetheart."

I pointed toward the left of the gate. "See the pink ball? The one with the blue polka dots. It's a bit faded."

"The one next to the tennis ball?"

"No. Look to the left of the tennis ball. About 12 slats down. Beside the bright orange one." I sighed. "That one must be new."

He squinted his eyes. "Oh, I see it."

"That one's mine."

"Really?" He looked back at the deflated ball, bleached by years of sun, with splotches of bird crap on it.

A third floor window was shoved violently open.

We gasped. I pushed my son protectively behind me where he hid his face against the small of my back. His trembling shivered up my spine.

A head and torso thrust out of the window. Arms like sausages braced a round body in the frame. Hands as large as my Easter ham gripped the wooden edge.

"Who's out there?" A growl emanated from Old Man Calhoun's bulbous face. "I can see you over there."

A car door slammed to my right. Footsteps scurried and a house door banged shut.

No one in my memory had ever confronted Old Man Calhoun. When he served as sheriff, there was something, like, two crimes per year - both committed by strangers. Kids from neighboring towns who'd never heard the stories whipped down Main Street on a joy ride. A man who took the wrong exit off the Interstate double parked at the Post Office while he asked someone for directions.

The sheriff took care of these hapless "criminals". No stories appeared in the local newspaper; no court hearings. The interlopers quietly disappeared.

We all remained quite safe - never any real crimes, and that's how the citizens liked it. If they didn't cross paths with the sheriff, they didn't care how he ran the town.

But I felt weary of being bullied by a retired fat man whose hobby was terrorizing children. I used to be one of those children. But I had grown up. And the time had come to act like a grown-up. For my son. For me.

I drew myself up to my full 5 feet 2 inches. Time to teach a lesson: to my son and to Old Man Calhoun.

"I said, 'Who's out there?'" He snarled.

"It's me, Maggie Stone, Calhoun."

He slammed his meaty fists against the house. The siding rattled and paint flecks rained onto the porch roof. "What did you call me, missy?" He pointed a chubby finger at me. "It's Sheriff to you and that brat of yours."

My son burrowed into my back.

"My son and I want what's ours, Calhoun!" I couldn't help it. My voice shook.

His flabby neck wiggled as he threw back his head and laughed. A sound I never thought he possessed the capability of making, not that it was a contagious laugh. That laugh promised pain and retaliation.

"Your things? Ha! When they land inside my fence, they become part of my collection. Isn't it a lovely display? Artwork, it is." He swept his arm from one freshly painted fence post to the other.

I stared up at him on the third floor of his shabby home. A pathetic, aging has-been, drunk on power over mere children. For my son and I, this ended here. Now.

I turned and grabbed my son's hand. "Come on."

I practically dragged him across the street. We plucked his red, spongy ball off the fence. Then we raced to the other side past the gate and snatched my old pink and blue one.

The last I saw of Old Man Calhoun was a raised fist waving from his window. My son and I ran all the way home leaving behind the dozens of multi-colored balls impaled, like heads on pikes, on each slat of his white picket fence.