Nate knows all the British football songs and chants. I’m no fan of Liverpool, but I do love me some Darwin Nuñez. And I love to sing his song, even though I only know a couple lines…
Darwin, Darwin Nuñez,
He came from Benfica to the big Reds,
It’s frightening with him and Luis Díaz,
There’s nobody else like Darwin Núñez
So speaking of Darwin, a few weeks before school ended, Jacob was driving us to school (more on that later) and we came across a teeny tiny Bambi in the middle of the road. She was the size of a dog, tons of spots. Literally like “born yesterday” little. No sign of her mom.
We creep along as she runs down the middle of the road. This might be the first time she’s ever run before. But her instincts are “cheeks” as Nate would say. She runs downhill, all the way to the bottom, never once considering going off the side or up the hill like every other deer.
Poor baby is limping from all the exertion and she keeps running down the middle of the road. Now Jacob’s worrying about being late to school so we stop the car and tell Nate to get out and chase her off the road. This is what happens when you’re the little brother.
He successfully scares her to the side, but by the time he climbs back in the car, she’s back in the middle of the road, running towards Laguna. We continue to crawl along as she merges onto the Canyon road and continues doing the exact opposite of what we’re hoping she’ll do.
Now there are cars behind us and cars coming at us and finally, finally she goes into the grass and looks at us like we’re the crazy ones. I name her Darwin and we’re all convinced she won’t make it through the day. Over the next few days I keep an eye out, hoping to spot her alive and well, but we’re not optimistic.
A week or so goes by and I see two little Bambis in our front yard with their mom. I watch them and they keep tasting the artificial turf. All three of them. Multiple times. Most deer are smarter than this. I’ve watched them.
No doubt, it’s Darwin.
Post Script
It recently occurs to me Nate doesn’t know about Charles Darwin and thinks I’ve named our neighborhood fawn after my favorite Liverpool player. But my favorite Liverpool player is Salah so… I digress. I test my theory and turns out, I’m right. Looks like he should know it from seventh grade but, mmmm, Ms. Longabach. There’s a refresher in ninth. Phew.