Whaddya Do With This?

For several weeks and on a few occasions, I have been observing a little girl in our neighborhood who has seen to make herself available to our front yard and, well....just help herself.

She's not doing anything that I can see that's destructive or suspicious, insofar as a fourth or fifth-grader can do. She's just.....hanging out. She doesn't say anything or engage in any other kind of behavior other than really loiter, I guess.

Jason saw her sitting in our driveway while we were away one time recently. She was drawing with that outdoor concrete chalk. The next time I noticed her, Jason and I were in the front yard, observing my mulberry tree. We both looked and saw her sitting in the yard, kind of straddling the curb and scooping back into the road piles of my freshly mown grass that I taken care to take OFF of the road. She was completely oblivious to us until she got up and started nonchalantly walking down the road. I thought for sure she glanced back at us and cut a wry smile as she strolled down the road as if her job was done.

So today, I am coming home from the weight room and I notice her walking on the sidewalk past my driveway as I am pulling in. I park in the drive and she proceeds to walk into our yard and plant herself under our plum tree as if on an leisurely stroll in the park. She did not even look at me as if to "ask" if it were normal comportment to just hang out in a stranger's yard. I made it a point to look at her to see if I could make eye contact, but no go.

I didn't sense any imminent threat so I went on in. She sat there for about the next ten minutes, just long enough for Jason and Andrea to walk by. Jason knew who she was and they tried to say "hello." All she could muster was a bland stare at them, devoid of any vocalizations. I figured as much.

I did get this picture of her just to make sure she wasn't a ghost. Well, not really for that reason, but this little mystery girl has piqued my interest here and, although, such behavior might be the norm in more urban environments, it's not so much in suburbia. And I don't know what it is about our place that keeps drawing her here, but I have not ever seen her doing this in anyone else's yard. Just ours.

I'll keep you posted to see if I make contact with her.