A short one for the Lil' Steele files

I had been begging my father to buy me a bb gun for ages, and after dropping hints for nearly a month I got one for my 8th birthday. The handle was made of brown plastic moulded to look like wood, and you loaded its black aluminum barrel with small copper bbs. It was no official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle (a la A Christmas Story), but it was mine. After shooting beer cans got old, I set my plastic scope on the squirrels that liked to run across the power lines in our front yard.
Fortunately I was an awful shot and no squirrels were harmed in making of this Lil' Steele story, so I returned to shooting stationary objects around the yard. As I was firing at an old willow tree plagued by fire ants, I began to feel a small pain in the center of my stomach. It felt as though someone was pinching, or flicking me. I ignored the pain and continued my attack on the fire ants. Gradually the pain grew, until I lifted up my shirt and saw small bruises the size of pin heads all over my abdomen. The bbs had been ricocheting off the tree and back at me.

Yep, I was a child prodigy alright...