Yesterday, I was saying hello to Topaz upstairs when I looked past her and saw a deer across the street. I ran down the stairs, shouting for Pete to grab a camera and run for the door. He did not ask why because I play for Team Crazy and he threw open the front door, camera in hand. A doe and two fawns came running toward us across a lawn. Almost invisibly, the doe and a fawn escaped the yard and bolted for the street. As Pete and I hit the sidewalk, he was snapping pictures as one of the fawns got caught behind the fence and panicked.

Whaddoo I do whaddoo I do whaddoo I do?

The fawn ran from us and toward us, over and over, and could not figure out how to get out. I was afraid it would try to leap the fence, but it didn’t. I hesitated. The doe stood on our side of the street, two yards down, with the other fawn. I thought, ‘I have to do something here before something very bad happens,’ but I had no idea what it would be.

Word to the wise, buddy: if your wife hurts my baby, we’re gonna rumble.

I stepped out of the driveway and clicked my tongue the same way I do to get my cats’ attention. The fawn was making a pretty similar noise as it ran back to the corner. I stopped walking a safe distance away in the middle of the street and clicked my tongue until the fawn locked eyes with me. It realized there was no fence between us. A second later, the fawn sprinted around the edge of the fence and toward its mother. Then Pete and I went to the farmers market for fresh vegetables and wild ideas.

Mama mama mama mama mama mama mama!

Odd footnote: while I was in the street, someone behind me was talking to her dog. I turned to look and recognized the dog as the one that lives directly behind us, so the only witness to my deer-whispering besides Pete was the neighbor we don’t speak to. That was amusing. I have no explanation for how she and the large dog walked past the doe and the fawn, as they must have. But how?