. . . . . . .In Lost Hills there’s a little Mexican kid that rides a girl’s bike, a schwinn, around town. I’ve never heard his name because he didn’t go to my school. I heard that his family couldn’t afford to put him in school. He’s only got one shirt. It’s a blue one with a glittery transformer iron-on. That’s the shirt he wears everyday and some forrest green corduroys. He’s got shoes too but they’re velcro. His hair gets in his eyes and stays there.
. . . . . . . You can see him everyday coming down the train tracks walking his girl’s bike. Then he gets on it and rides down Rte. 17 to the store where he buys pies and chocolate milk. At five to noon you can see him under the street light eating and drinking. Then he walks his girl’s bike over to the church at the intersection of 17 and 32 and goes inside. At noon, every single day, the bells ring.
. . . . . . . The Mexican kid never gets picked on because he rings the bells at church and he’s never late and he’s never forgotten to do it. I don’t think he gets paid either. People in Lost Hills leave him alone and they are very religious people. They pray all the time.
. . . . . . . The Church is about a mile from the store and there’s nothing else at the intersection but the street light. There’s no houses or anything. Just pine trees and the church and some street signs. All the grass is sand from the sun and it’s windy most of the time.
. . . . . . . Lost Hills is not a big town. Only sixty seven people live in it and all of them can hear the twelve o’clock bell no matter where they are. At the store, which is also a hardware store, they shut off the radio at two minutes before twelve and don’t turn it back on until two after twelve and at the seafood stand Ben says a prayer to himself. People in the streets, driving, or whatever, walking, they usually get kind of quiet. The bell is the one thing that is reliable. When it tolls it means that things are okay for today and now all we got to do is wait for the next bell tomorrow. It represents our town and community and our faith in God too.
. . . . . . . That’s why today, when noon rolled around and there weren’t any bells, people got worried.