Four boys, a carefully crafted bow, and a childhood adventure with tragic consequences
By Ovi Catanescu, based on my memories and those of my brother, Adi
The Owl Never Forgets.
During our childhood in Brăila, Romania, our games weren't always limited to running around the apartment courtyard or kicking a ball.
We had much greater ambitions.
We were fascinated by stories about Native Americans, their adventures, their bows and arrows, and especially the idea that we could build the weapons of our heroes ourselves.
One of the books that had captured our imagination was The Little Indians (Micii indieni).
So one day, we decided to build a real bow.
Not a toy hastily made from some random branch.
A serious, powerful bow, with arrows to match.
There were four of us: my brother Adi, Marian, his younger brother Dănuț, and me.
Our Bow
We chose hazel wood for the bow.
I no longer remember every step of its construction, but Adi vividly remembers how much work and skill went into making it.
The bow was large, powerful, and, in our opinion, a genuine masterpiece.
But the arrows were perhaps even more impressive.
We made them from fir wood, with copper tips and white goose feathers to stabilize them in flight.
The feathers were secured with red-lacquered thread.
It wasn't enough for our arrows to fly well.
They had to look beautiful, too!
Adi still remembers with pride how much attention we paid to every detail.
And I must admit that, for a group of boys, the result was remarkable.
So remarkable, in fact, that we even began considering the possibility of making poisoned arrows.
Fortunately, we abandoned that idea.
We realized that if we ever hunted something for food, a poisoned arrow would make the prey dangerous for us to eat.
Proof that, every once in a while, our common sense managed to keep up with our imagination.
But not always.
The Basturea Family's Pig
The Basturea family lived in the courtyard of our apartment building.
Mrs. Basturea was a teacher at our school, a stern woman with whom the neighborhood boys had already had their share of conflicts.
The family was raising a pig for Christmas.
The pig had its own pen, and we knew exactly where it was.
One summer day, we decided to put our bow to the test.
I don't know whether any of us truly considered the consequences.
Adi was the one who fired the arrow.
Standing near some sumac bushes, he aimed the bow at the Basturea family's pig and released the arrow.
What happened next unfolded very quickly.
The pig jumped out of its pen, reached the pathway paved with fired bricks, and collapsed.
It died.
This was no longer a game.
It was no longer a demonstration of marksmanship.
An animal had died because of us.
And with it, the Basturea family had lost the pig they were raising for Christmas.
The Uproar
You can imagine what followed.
The Basturea family was furious.
And they had every reason to be.
Their pig had died in the middle of summer, long before Christmas, and the loss was far from insignificant.
But there was one problem.
Nobody knew who had fired the arrow.
And as far as we remember, nobody ever found out for certain.
Mrs. Basturea had a grown son nicknamed “Whale” — Balenă in Romanian.
Adi jokes today that if Whale had discovered who was responsible, we probably would have received a very memorable beating.
But that's only his speculation, looking back.
I don't remember whether the family ever received any compensation for the pig.
All I know is that we escaped without being discovered.
A Bow That Worked Too Well
Looking back, I find it remarkable how our ingenuity and our lack of judgment went hand in hand.
We had spent so much time building the bow and arrows, paying attention to every detail, that we became more concerned with their performance than with the consequences of using them.
To us, the bow was an extraordinary technical achievement.
To the Basturea family's pig, it was a disaster.
There is nothing funny about an animal dying.
But there is a bitter irony in the fact that four boys pretending to be little Native American warriors managed to build a weapon far more effective than anything they should ever have been handling.
We were lucky things didn't end even worse.
And perhaps that's one of those lessons you only fully understand when you look back at childhood from the distance of an entire lifetime.
Not everything you're capable of building should be put to use.
Our bow had been a masterpiece.
But the price of its success had been far too high.
The Owl Never Forgets.