Becoming invisible

My childhood hiding place was in my mother's garden. She cultivated a large chunk of our backyard with strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, leeks, onions, chives, cucumbers, beans, and -- most delicious of all -- raspberries. I used to go on the backside of those vines where they arched over the wires restraining them and leaned across the neighbor's fence.

I was thin as a reed and knew a place where I could slip through the thorns into that dappled bower. In the heat of July, among the buzzing bees, I blended into the shade. The dirt was always cool under my knees and the scents time-traveled me into prehistory where I foraged beneath the twisting vines for berries among the toothy leaves. Out of sight from the front of the patch, these jewels stayed longer to ripen and were fat and sweet. I made a sling with the bottom of my t-shirt and gathered rounded handfuls into it. Then I leaned back into the fence and ate my treasures, one by one.

If someone came to the back door and called my name, I didn't answer right away. Instead I crept to the far edge of the line of vines, away from my secret entrance. When Mama or Daddy or my brother went back inside, I popped out from hiding and circled the house before going in. "Were you calling me?" I asked, oblivious to the way my red-stained fingers gave me away.