I never ask for anything. Which is why I think I got away with asking for this. It was June third, the year of twenty-eighteen, and I needed to fix something. More accurately I had to fix someone.

    Four-o-clock found me arguing with my little brother. He spends most of his time in a wheelchair, as he has no feeling below his waist. He recently got titanium rods medically attached to his spine in an attempt to keep him from crushing a lung by leaning over to often. It was for this reason that he wanted to go bounce on the inflated pillow, and I wouldn't let him. My little sister runs past, "I'm gonna go play gaga-ball!" She says, leaving earshot before I can respond without yelling.

    I decide to seize the opportunity, "Ok," I yell, "But we're coming with you." At this I wheel Silas' wheelchair around and start propelling him down the sidewalk towards the gaga-ball pit. Surprisingly he doesn't argue. I soon find out why when we arrive and he starts begging to play with us.

   Let me explain why I thought he couldn't, but first I have to explain Gaga-ball. Gaga-ball is played in an octagonal "pit". Eight two-to-three-foot walls surrounding a grass-less octagon on the ground that the gardeners just can't fix. Players jump inside the pit, and a volleyball is released, players then attempt to be the last man standing by avoiding getting hit below the knee, or hitting the ball out of the pit themselves. This game requires a lot of running, jumping, and avoiding of the ball, which is why I couldn't think of any way to allow Silas to play with us. Instead he sat outside the nearest wall and watched the proceedings with interest.

    Another strange fact about me, I adopt people. Strangers. Whether they want me to or not I will end up designating myself as either an "older brother", or a "parental guardian". Especially if I am surrounded by smaller children. In this instance the other gaga-ball players were between the ages of eight and twelve (excluding my thirteen-year-old sister Clementine). So during the function, while I was jumping, leaping, twisting, and resolving my upper leg muscles to feel like rubber bands all of the next day, I was also trying to get to know these kids, as well as learn their names, which is the hardest part.

    Eventually I learned that my most dangerous opponent in the ring was named Josiah, and so I began to focus all of my efforts towards getting him and Clementine out. Until Shepard arrived.

    You know something bad is about to happen when there arrives a chubby kid wearing a bowl cut and wielding two crutches with no visible sign of a cast anywhere. That was Shepard. My first thought when I saw him had nothing to do with his appearance however, it wasn't even; "Oh no here comes a spoiled rich kid." It was, "What luck! Someone who clearly wants to play gaga-ball but physically can't." I was wrong. It was soon decided by majority vote that Shepard would play, but only one of his feet was to be considered target-able.

    Of course, this was decided when we all thought of Shepards crutches as a hindrance, but we soon discovered that the crutches were in fact extensions of Shepards arms, shields, and a way for him to avoid the ball altogether by folding up his legs so that they didn't even touch the ground all wrapped in one shiny package. It wasn't long before I vehemently disliked this kid, he would insist that the ball never touched him, unless is was directly applied to his right leg, without ever touching his left, and if it did touch his left leg he yelled in pain, guilting everyone into allowing him to get away with yet another false avoidance.

    An hour passed, it was five o-clock, and Silas yells from across the gaga-ball pit, informing me that he needs a diaper change. Our cabin is a five-to-ten-minute walk away, and so we start out quickly, as I'd like to get back to the pit in time for a few more games. We arrive and I pass Silas off to my mother to change his diaper, while I try to find a way to go back down on my own. I discover that the seat of his wheelchair is soaked in urine, and apologetically explain to him that riding on it would just get him more wet that he already was, though I soon discovered that the seat was velcro-ed to the wheelchair and a folded towel provided just as much padding. By this time Silas' diaper was switched with a clean one, and I had no choice but to slide him into the chair. We headed back to the gaga-ball pit.

    When we return I can only recognize three players, Clementine, Josiah, and yes, Shepard. Would he ever decide that swinging those things around was exhausting and decide to go somewhere else? As I was thinking that he got hit in the foot, It was clear to me what had happened but I wasn't playing at the time, so it didn't matter what I thought. What mattered was what the other players saw, which was that it hit one of Shepards legs. Shepard managed to convince them that it had hit his left leg, the sprained one, and they continued the game without any consequences to Shepard. I was starting to wonder if I was the only one who noticed whenever Shepard grimaced in pain, a sure sign that the ball had hit his left foot at all.

    When that game was over (I believe Josiah was victorious, much to the chagrin of Shepard and the others), I joined the next one, making it my personal obligation to get Shepard out as quickly as possible, and as obviously as possible, which was more difficult than I had originally imagined.

    Enter Jake. Jake (whose name I didn't know until a little later) had joined the throng of gaga-ball players sometime while I was taking Silas to the cabin and back. He had clearly joined not long after I had left because he had played enough games to have developed a dislike for Shepard, almost as much as I. When I learned this we began working together, and passing the ball, attempting to get Shepard out under the guise of "Wanting a one-on-one with each other."

    It worked, and eventually we did have a "one-on-one", but I shuffled around the ball once, then cupped my hand and spun around, the result being that the ball got caught in the cup of my hand and propelled straight for the wall behind Jake, to say nothing of Jake himself.

    Soon after a high schooler joined, he was clearly the only other high schooler in the pit besides myself, but I wouldn’t say that my first inclination was to befriend him. For one thing he was tall and skinny, wearing dark clothes and black hair that hung over his eyes, dark enough that it almost looked dyed, which I'm sure isn't far from the truth. I didn't like the gloomy aesthetic around him and hadn't had the best experiences with tall people before then, so I didn't speak directly to him until a little later.

    Around that time, I looked around for Silas, it turned out that he had rolled himself to a lower section of the pit wall, and was trying to negotiate with his legs, though they weren't agreeing on the terms. I walked over and discovered that he wanted to sit more-or-less on the wall, with his legs dangling inside, I thought it over and decided that since he was wearing braces (foot protection) it wouldn't be the worst of ideas, so I helped him rearrange himself accordingly. Afterwards I went back to playing, not thinking twice about my decision to give Silas a better view.

    Of course, it's not as if I never looked over to make sure he hadn't fallen in, I did that quite often, and it was about the hundredth time I did that when I noticed that not only had he not fallen in, but he was talking to someone, and when I checked the someone, I learned that it was Shepard who was engaging him in conversation, asking him why he was in a wheelchair, and looking the smallest bit humbled.

    The game soon heated up once again however, Shepard didn't have much time to expand on his newfound interest in those less fortunate, and soon lost interest when the volleyball was hit in his direction and needed his undivided attention. Shepard lifted his legs and swung them in a different direction, landing on his right foot and readjusting his crutches quickly. Seeing that the ball had come to a stop against the wall he swung a crutch at it, sending it rocketing off in the direction of the tall high schooler being called Joey. Joey, as he did whenever the ball was shot in his direction, flailed around for show, pretending for the little kids that the ball had hit much harder than they had swung at it.

    This act was repeated throughout that game, and all the games following. My opinion of Joey grew every time it did, and then exploded when he started talking to Silas. I didn't see their conversation start, but what brought it to my attention was just after Joey had asked Silas what his name was, Silas responded with, "I'm Silas, you might know me from the bible!"

    Joey responded by saying that no, he didn't know Silas from the bible as he had never read the bible. Silas was confused by this as he had never really met anyone who hadn't read the bible.

    Soon they were discussing Silas wanting to play gaga-ball with us. Joey promptly suggested that if we put the wheelchair inside the pit we could just assign the front wheels as targets, and not worry about his actual legs. I should've thought of that. We worked together to get him inside, and then Silas began playing. Most of my attention was placed on getting Shepard out, but when it wasn't I noticed that Joey was playing with Silas more than anyone else. If Silas got out and Joey was still in he would call to Silas and "trade lives". Giving each other a high-five it was decided that Joey was now out and Silas was still in.

    Soon after that, when Shepard, I think, caught on to the fact that he was being targeted, he began to guard himself more effectively, or at least, use having one foot "out" as an advantage by placing it constantly in front of his "in" foot. Thereby causing himself more pain but not getting out.

    I don’t know how it happened exactly, but soon Josiah was suggesting that we retract the rule of Shepard only having one foot in, and so we did. I'm not one-hundred-percent sure whether Shepard even heard the suggestion, but everyone else agreed and suddenly I heard him complaining that we were cheating. I'll be honest it struck something. Maybe this kid wasn't the most honest, maybe he did cry when he felt slighted. But he was still a kid. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me calling my name.

    It was my mother, and her mother, they were calling us to have some dinner, "We're gonna go get some ice-cream for dinner!" They yelled.

    "I'm gonna have hotdogs for dinner!" Yelled Shepard in response. In the moment it seemed like a trivial comment, but I would soon learn that it was more than that.

    Joey helped me lift Silas and his wheelchair out of the pit asking, "Are you guys gonna come back later?" I nodded and told him we'd try, he really did have a relationship with Silas, even if it had only lasted thirty minutes.

    We left for dinner, making our way down to the registration building of the KOA. Beside the registration building was a line of smaller buildings, and in the closest one was where we found our ice-cream. I ordered a banana split, which I managed to finish despite its size, though no-one else was able to finish their cones, and they were all handed to me to finish, which I found myself unable to do at the time. Afterwards we headed back to the cabin.

Stolen story; please report.

    We weren't the only ones to head back to their cabins then however, because along the way we passed a camper outside of which two children were playing while roasting hotdogs over a fire pit. I immediately recognized the boy, who was standing with the help of crutches. When he turned around he also recognized us, Waving and shouting Silas' name.

    Back at the cabin, I made up my mind, and knew what I had to do, but the only way to do it was to see Shepard again, and we were leaving early the next morning, I decided that I had to go back to the gaga-ball pit that evening, it was my only chance to succeed.

    The hours passed. Somehow we managed to procrastinate going to bed long enough to have a discussion that encompassed politics, credit cards, investments, banks, education, the bible, life, and death, all in one, and by the time we had finished I was even more resolved than before. I asked to go the event that we were hearing faintly but could not see happening down in the lower part of the campground, hoping against hope that Shepard would be there. I had to do something.

    Like I said in the beginning of this paper, it was likely that my success in getting the answer I wanted was probably due to my history of never asking for anything. Thankfully, my mother said yes and I quickly and quietly trotted back to the gaga-ball pit.

    Now the event which was taking place was taking place in the pavilion immediately next to the pit, and there were at least two dozen families watching peter rabbit. I had no interest in Peter rabbit (though it is a terrific movie with a wonderful score), so I headed for the gaga-ball pit, where I was happy to find Joey. He was leaning against the pit from the outside watching the game intently, evidently he had just gotten out.

    "Hey." He said when I approached and began watching next to him.

    "Hi." I replied.

    The next game started as soon as this transaction was over, so we jumped over the wall. The ball was thrown into the air, one bounce, "Ga!" The next bounce, "Ga!" The third bounce, "Ball!" The match began.

    There were at least thirty small people in the gaga pit, preventing me from even guessing where the ball was at any given moment, the positive to this of course was that unless the seven-year-old on front of me moves too quickly, the ball would never come near my feet.

    Then I heard Joey speaking in my direction, "So are your brother or sister coming to play?" I shook my head no before responding verbally.

    "It's bed time, they're in the cabin."

    "Ah," He said.

    I decided to continue the conversation, "Hey by the way thanks for, y'know, interacting with him."

    Joey nodded solemnly. "Yeah," He said, "I have a little sister who's autistic."

    "Oh," I said, surprised.

    "Yeah," Joey continued, "I'm part of her special –ed bowling group, one of the leaders there. I just hate to see people treating them differently just because they-"

    Joey didn't get a chance to finish, but I didn't have time to see him do anything else as the ball did come towards me, and the seven-year-old in front of me was, in fact, fast enough to jump out of the way. I managed to lean down and deflect it fast enough however and stood back up presently.

    "Hey!" Someone yelled, "Glad to have both of you back!" I turned to look at the speaker, it was a kid who had donned a red hoodie over a blue shirt and crutches. Shepard. I was glad to have seen him but also knew that now was not the time. I made a noise indistinguishable by any language on earth, but it being accompanied by a nod clearly conveyed recognition of his statement. Joey (the reason for Shepard saying "both") said nothing, or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention to him.

    The game continued. The pit was dark, black, except for the light from a lantern held by one of the parents on the sidelines that caused everyone to cast inky shadows on everything and everyone behind them. I immediately became recognized as the best player there, which tends to happen whenever gaga-ball is played in a sandy pit. I'm glad that it happens, because when a little kid wins against a moderately skilled older kid, it's exciting, but not as exciting as when a little kid wins against the unanimously voted best player in the pit. Of course, no little kid can win against me unless they make it to the final, my job was to eliminate all of the older kids while there were still little ones in the game.

    Unfortunately, in the dark there were significantly more older kids than younger ones, which made everything harder. The only little kid that ever made it to the end was wrongly accused of double-touching the ball and was voted as the loser of the one-on-one with me, I tried to make it clear that I thought he was the winner, but everyone was already clamoring into the pit and my voice was drowned out by the noise. Then it happened.

It was in the very next game, there was a squabble over the ball, which had made its way into a tight situation. Apparently, a stray crutch hit someone in the wrist. I had been hit in the wrist by one of Shepards crutches earlier that day, and it hurt, fortunately I hadn't made a sound and kept playing the game, similar to when a stray hand of Joey's pulled off most of the fingernail on my thumb, but I'm sixteen, and the kid who was hit by Shepards crutch while we were playing in the dark was closer to six. The kid started crying, and immediately Shepard was shunned by everyone. The parents of the injured child yelled at him, telling him to watch where he swung those crutches, the other players started yelling at him for hurting a little kid, and I was once again reminded that Shepard was a kid just like the rest of them.

    He started crying, backing into a corner and sitting out of a couple games. I went to stand next to him but didn't touch him in fear of being creepy. Soon he got up and began playing again, but it wasn't the same.

    Shepard didn't have a name, he was crutches. Only that, only his injury, his weapon, his shields, his, pardon the pun, his crutch. It made me mad, I can't stand it when people call other people names. Crutches. Crutches. "Crutches did it!", "Crutches is out!", "Crutches, watch it!". Every time Shepard was called crutches I'd mutter "His name is Shepard!" Under my breath, and then target the speaker with my next hit at the gaga-ball. But soon I couldn’t, no-one could be targeted because everyone was guilty. I stopped caring who I hit, it didn't matter their age, or their size, or their threat, none of it mattered, all of them were guilty, all of them had called my brother a name. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized what exactly had happened. I broke, I got mad, but how could I have felt all that? It was simple, in his injury I had adopted him, he was my little brother, my apprentice, the kid who I was meant to guard. Yes he was dishonest, he was a liar and a cheat, but I wasn't supposed to shield him from that, I had to show him that he could be forgiven. That he was forgiven.

    He had been humbled, that was for sure. After crying publicly, and being treated as less-than-human, he certainly seemed to admit when he was hit one-hundred-percent of the time. So what was my job?

    First of all why was he dishonest in the first place? Why was he so desperate to win that he would cheat to do it? He needed positive attention. It all pointed to it. He was the little one, the "crutches" the one trodden on, and he wanted to lead. What he had forgotten, it's true, was that to gain respect you don’t need to win every game, you need to be honest. If you know for a fact that the ball never touched your foot, but everyone else is saying that they saw it happen, even if you're on the opposite side of the court relative to the ball, and they saw it touch you, it's better to step out saying, "I didn't feel it, but okay." Than to argue and yell to get things going your way. Of course, I didn't have the time or setting to tell him that, all I had was the next couple of games, ten-o-clock was approaching and I had committed myself to getting back to the cabin before then.

    I leaped over the gaga-ball and landed, sending it to my left, someone jumped in its way and sent it towards Shepard who was in the middle of the pit. WHACK. It hit his sprained foot. The game continued but not for Shepard. I watched him freeze and grimace. It was nine forty-three, I didn’t have time to wait for another chance, robotically I stretched out my hand and patted him on the back, "You'll be okay." I said. He looked up, probably not knowing what to expect, and saw the high schooler. By now Joey had left, so standing there above him was the biggest kid in the vicinity, the sixteen-year-old who could beat everyone there at gaga-ball in under a minute, who had seen his pain and wanted to comfort him. Then I noticed that nothing before mattered.

    It didn't matter that he had been prideful, that he had complained before about the game not being fair. But it had all mattered. In the future when he remembers his stay at the Rushmore KOA, what will stand out? The four headed stone monster that had been sculpted by hand sometime in the far past? Or the gaga-ball, where he met other kids his age, and a couple older than him. Where he had tried to befriend the master at the sport by starting a conversation about what he was having for dinner, then discovered that the master had cared about him the whole time. Where he learned the importance of the kindness of strangers. Where he learned that the best player didn't care about the game raging around him, but about the players therein. His mind will flash to me helping the kid in the wheelchair in and out of the pit. He'll remember me "accidentally" being the only older kid in the pit before getting myself out and leaving the game to be won by a little one. He'll remember when I stopped playing in the middle of the game to explain Silas' legs to him, getting myself out in the process. He'll remember that his favorite person didn't care about anything but the people around him. And finally, he'll remember when he was experiencing excruciating pain, but didn't cry out knowing that it'd only increase the teasing that he was already the target of, and then he'll remember the high schooler that noticed, noticed and cared.

    I felt then that my job was over, so I skipped the next game, and walked home early. The campground was dark and quiet, giving me plenty of time to think. I thought about everything that had happened, and then I remembered Joey. Joey had disappeared right when I had told him that Silas and Clementine weren't coming down. I thought about what he had said last, and his disappearance. It was clear that Joey felt a duty to protect those who are mistreated without cause.

    "So why don't I feel that duty towards Silas?" I asked myself as I slipped into the cabin, trying not two wake anyone.

    "Because you feel a different duty," Myself answered me. "Joey feels a duty to those who are unfairly mistreated, you feel a duty to those who are fairly mistreated."

    I rolled this thought over and over in my head until I went to sleep, but right before I dropped off I thought something else.

    "Yeah, duh."