Casualty of War

This is the sixth round story in my ongoing fiction competition. I've now dropped to ninth out of 23. Three more rounds after this one. The idea for this story is loosely based on a story a friend told me that could have happened to her when she was a kid, had not a friendly neighbor intervened. I was going to approach it one way, but my daughter encouraged me to go another way. All reviews are welcome. I have to submit this by 6 p.m. Saturday. Thanks very much for the early input. I edited this on the 21st and still welcome feedback before sending the final. By the way, "sand in my shorts" was the prompt for this. Despite being surrounded by sand and surf in Ocean City, a snow story is what came to mind. Go figure.

• Page 1 - Casualty of War"This is the sixth round sto..."