All right, I'll admit it was stupid to point a water pistol at a complete stranger-especially one that looked so real. But in my defense, I had just bought it as a birthday present for my little brother.

Standing outside the store in the parking lot, I held the dusty, old pistol in the hot afternoon sunlight, admiring how it looked. I couldn't believe my luck. I'd found it in the bottom of a bargain bin-priced at next to nothing-in the back of a second-hand store.

Also in my defense, it was only my second day in Florida. Miami, Florida, to be exact. I had just finished my first day of high school, about a block down the street. I didn't know yet that in Miami, people have good reason to be nervous about guns.

You see, I was born and raised in Wawa, Ontario, Canada. People don't get shot at much in Canada. And especially not in the northern bush town of Wawa. Up there, if someone say you holding a gun, they'd look around for a movie camera and stunt men. Or they'd think it was a cheap water pistol that looked just like the real thing. Which, of course, as I've said this one was.

That was the third thing in my defense. My gun was only a water pistol.

Anyway, this kid about my age-seventeen-walked past me in the parking lot.

He wore a leather jacket, even though it was hot. He had short dark hair. Dark eyes. His face was a Hispanic kind of handsome and real intense.

He glanced at the gun in my hand and froze.

"Hello," I said.

"Come on," he said. "You don't want to be doing that, man." He had a thick accent. I thought the words sounded cool the way he said them: Chu doan wanna be dune dat, mon.

"Doing what?" I asked, still thinking about the way he spoke. I'd try to copy the accent for my hockey buddies back home the next time I called.

Then I noticed his eyes were bugging out at my water pistol. I had unintentionally pointed it at his stomach. That answered my question. He didn't want me to point the gun at him.

"Oh," I said. "This?"

I brought it up to show him that it was only a water pistol. Now it pointed at his chest.

"What you want, man? I got no money. No drugs. Or is this some kind of Black Roses thing?"

Once again I was impressed by his accent. I rolled that sentence around in my mind, liking the sound of it. Maybe I would try to talk like him tonight at dinner when I told my parents and brother about this. After I gave the water pistol to my brother.

The kid brought his hands up. Then I realized I shouldn't be trying to imitate his voice in my mind. He thought this was a stickup. Like at gunpoint.

"No," I said, waving the water pistol. "You don't get it. This is a-"

He didn't give me a chance to finish. He snaked his right hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of bills.

"Okay, okay," he said. "I got this. Book money. Take it. Just don't shoot."

Then my eyes bugged out. This was getting serious all of a sudden.

"You don't understand-" I began.

He tossed the money on the pavement near my feet.

I glanced down as the bills scattered. I looked up.

He was already backing away from me.

I had just stuck someone up at gunpoint!

An old woman got out of a nearby car. She saw my water pistol. She saw the money on the ground. She saw the dark-haired kid moving away. She screamed and fell back into her car. And leaned on her horn. People on the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot stopped and stared. Then they saw the gun. And they screamed.

The dark-haired kid turned and ran.

"No!" I shouted. I bent down and scooped the bills into my left hand. I still held the pistol in my right hand. "No! Come back!"

I started to chase him. Money waving in one hand. Pistol waving in the other.

He didn't stop.

Neither did I.

He had a fifty-yard head start. And he was fast.

But so was I. At school back in Wawa, kids had called me greyhound because a big dog had once chased me across the playground. I'd been so scared that it didn't come close to catching me. I didn't think it was a big deal that people said I was the fastest kid in town. It's like a goldfish being proud that it's the biggest fish in the bowl.

"Come back!" I shouted again, my legs pounding on the pavement. I wore jeans and a T-shirt, but I had on a pair of Nike cross-trainers, so my feet didn't hurt. And it felt great to push myself hard. "Stop!"

We ran down a street with small shops on each side. Dozens of people slowly walked along, carrying shopping bags. The kid in front of me banged into a couple of them, sending them spinning in different directions. Each time it happened, he turned back to see me still chasing him. That would send him banging into other people. By the time they realized what was happening, I was right there to bang into them again. Even though I called out apologies as I sped past, I still heard angry yells and screams behind me.

My guess was they were responding to the gun in my hand. I figured that out by the time I cleared the last of the poeple on the sidewalk. I also realized it probably wasn't helping me convince the kid that my intentions were friendly.

Finally, I threw the water pistol into the street and just concentrated on trying to catch the kid.

Ahead, the sidewalk was clear and shaded by palm trees. Now there were houses on both sides of the road. The kid in front of me didn't slow down. I was impressed at how fast he could run.

My breath started to come faster. My heart sounded like a heavy drum banging in my ears.

"Your money!" I shouted. "I just want to give you your money!"

I should have heard the warning siren. But I was running too hard. And concentrating too much on catching the kid.

I didn't see the police car until it swerved onto the sidewalk in front of me. Tires screamed as it skidded to a stop.

I was moving to fast to stop, but the front end of the car blocked the sidewalk.

I smashed into its fender and flipped sideways. Rolling on the grass beside the sidewalk, I saw a big house and lots of wide bushes. I smaked into the bottgom of one of those bushes and lay there, gasping.

A split second later, the police car door slammed.

I heard a thump of boots. I saw the boots on the ground in front of my eyes. Brown boots, as if that mattered at this point.

"Hands on your head!" a deep voice said. "If I see a weapon, I'll shoot first and ask questions second."

I did as he said. I would not be able to answer questions dead.

Handcuffs clicked around my right wrist first.

Funny, I thought. The Chamber of Commerce brochures didn't say anything about stuff like this.