The man in the boot

Okay, so we went to a wedding today... or at least, sort of. That is to say, we (Mom, baby Lydia, David, and I) drove to the site of the reception, discovered a huge crowd and nowhere to even sit down, and left again after about a half hour. We got to see the beautiful bride and a few other friends, and we each got a green ribbon pinned onto our shirts.

But that wasn't the exciting part. Oh no.

We were on our way home, just about to cross those awful railroad tracks I mentioned in my last post, when the traffic came to a stop. This isn't too unusual since that part of the road is so terrible, so I didn't think much at first. But then I noticed the car passing me going the other direction. It was full of men yelling and pointing to our right, where a road branches off from the main road. Startled at all the yelling, I just wanted to get out of there. I heard others yelling outside the car--pedestrians, motorcyclists, and people in other cars--and I was afraid of a riot. As the car passed, though, I thought I saw a hand waving from the boot (trunk) of the car!! I shook my head and tried to concentrate on the potholes; I must have imagined it. The motorcycle in front of me had stopped altogether, blocking the road, so I honked and honked until he turned back around and crossed the tracks ahead of me. I maneuvered around the tracks and pothole and gunned the engine. Just then, we heard gunshots ringing out behind us.

"Let's get out of here!" I cried to my passengers, and we sped away. David yelled, "They're robbers! That's what was going on!" And as he told Mom and me what he'd seen from the front passenger seat, we pieced together the story.

The car of shouting men had probably been involved in an armed robbery and had kidnapped somebody. That was the person whose hand David and I saw waving from the open boot. They were speeding away from the crowd, but people could see the hand waving and were trying to block the car's escape. But once a gunshot was fired, everyone ran for cover, and we assume the car got away.

Wow!! I explained to David and Mom that my first instinct when I hear yelling is to RUN AWAY! I don't want to get caught in any sort of riots or demonstrations that involve angry people. So I guess we'll never know what exactly happened, but we'll sure never forget the day we went to Talitha's wedding and saw a hand sticking out of the boot!