innocent until proven the middle child.

We were sitting on the sidewalk outside the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. We had dastardly intentions. We had just been told that Josh couldn't come in the museum with his pocket knife. After he griped a bit, reminding me more and more of my father as he did so, we decided to stash his knife in the bushes, then retrieve it later after visiting the museum. So we were killing five minutes, watching people go by before we tried to go back in.

A family with three little boys was passing by, the older one walking alongside his parents as the two littler ones followed behind. The littlest, who was maybe four years old, started walking on the raised cement border of a landscaped area like it was a balance beam. He slipped and came crashing down on the cement. Immediately, he started wailing.

"I didn't do it!" the middle brother immediately shouted. Uh, kid, it's not a good idea to declare your innocence before you've been accused.

The dad examined the skinned knee and picked up the crying boy. It didn't look like a serious injury; he seemed more tired than hurt. No doubt he'd been trotting around behind his parents all day. He quieted down to a whimper as he laid his head down on his father's shoulders. I sometimes wish that I was still small enough to be carried that way. As the family was walking on by, the dad turned to the middle son and sternly said, "Nice work."

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"Were you guys chasing each other again?" The argument faded out of hearing as they continued down the sidewalk away from us. I wanted to protest, run up shouting, "Excuse me, sir, I saw the whole thing!" But it was none of my business. And it wasn't the dad's fault, really. He, like all parents, was just going on the information he had and doing the best he could with it.

I wondered why the middle son had tried to defend himself so quickly. It did seem like an admission of guilt, but then again, I was five feet away and watching them, and I hadn't seen anything. Maybe he just got blamed for stuff a lot and he could see how this situation was going to turn against him. I thought of many eloquent defenses he could have said to his dad, if only he weren't six years old. Is that what it's like to be a middle child? No wonder my sister didn't like me. She was probably always getting blamed for something every time I was a klutz.

And I gotta tell you, I'm pretty klutzy.