Mom, I asked, why are you closing the blinds?

Our neighborhood has a peeping tom, she responded, peering with a single eye into the gloom

of suburbia and winter.

I didn't know exactly what my mother was looking for, but I knew that she was nervous, and

that made me nervous.

I was eight years old that Christmas, and the words, peeping tom, and nothing to me.

I knew that peepers was another word for eye, and I couldn't help but imagine the mad rolling

eyeballs and black hat of Judge Doom, from who framed Roger Rabbit.

It had been over a month since I'd seen that movie, but it still gave me nightmares.

The next morning, however, I had to face something even more frightening to my eight-year-old

mind than a peeping tom.

My mother insisting on walking me to the bus stop, just to be safe, she said, but she

wouldn't have to endure the snares and laughter of classmates for the rest of the year.

It started as soon as I got on the bus, a loud chant from the back of Mama's boy,

that felt like it would never end.

Trying to ignore them, I looked out the window, and what I saw chilled my blood.

My mother was walking home alone, and a figure in the bushes was watching her.

A figure in a broad, billed, black hat and battered, black trench coat.

From the fast-moving school bus window, I couldn't see its crazy round eyes, but I knew

I just knew that they were there all the same.

Wait, I screamed.

Stop the bus!

...