“Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” my brother asked as I tested out my bow string.
“I’m an expert,” I explained.
“Yeah…at stealing! What do you think dad’s going to say when he finds out?”
“Dad doesn’t need to know,” I reminded him. “Besides, if I don’t practice, I’m not going to get good…and Old Will said I was a natural.”
“He looked at your hand and said that you might turn out to be a decent shot.”
“Same thing,” I insisted, grunting slightly as I tried to put the string onto the bow.
I swore with the effort it took and my brother’s eyes bulged, “Dad said if you ever said that word again he would drown you in the river.”
“And I said that dad doesn’t need to know about this…any of this….There!”I finally slipped the string into place.
“Pass me an arrow.”
“You’re going to shoot that!”
“Why would I string the bow if I wasn’t going to shoot it?”
“What if you hit something?”
“That’s the point, idiot,” I groaned.
“I mean something you shouldn’t hit.”
I grabbed the arrow from my brother and put it back against the string. I rested the front of the arrow against the hand holding the bow and pulled back with my other hand. Raising up the bow, I held it in front of me and pulled the arrow back against my arm as I sighted down at a tree in the forest.
I released the arrow and simultaneously yelped in pain. The bow string had bounced when released and hit the inside of my arm. I could already feel the large, painful welt growing.
“Wow, you’re a natural,” said my brother, “that arrow really soared…until it hit the ground right there by your foot.”
“Shut up.”
Oh was this inspired by Ranger’s Apprentice?
Partly…that and the latest Robin Hood movie (with Crowe.)