IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Page 37

“Davey, there’s a pile of toilet paper in the bathroom!”

Brian looked over from his pillow. Davey bolted upright.

“I didn’t do it,” he said.

“Well who did?”

“…another little boy with my face.”

Jeff glared. “Well, tell him that if he does it again, another little boy with his face is going to get a spanking.”

Jeff closed the door.

Davey frowned. “That’s not very fair!” he called out.

***

Jeff walked back to the bathroom, and gathered the heaping pile of toilet paper in his arms. He was going to have to dispose of it in the garbage cans out back, and quietly, like a mobster with his cement shoes. All Jeff needed was for his mother to find it in the middle of the night. Boy, would he hear about that in the morning.

Waste not, want not. Jeff hadn’t imparted the correct values to his boys. Didn’t Davey know there were little kids in Africa who didn’t have any toilet paper to wipe with?

Actually, he doubted she’d say the last part, but why give her the chance?

He was out in the hallway, arms loaded with unspooled Angel Softness, when he heard the giggling again. It was down the stairs, on the first floor.

Jeff looked in the opposite direction, over at Davey and Brian’s room. The door was shut.

Again, he hadn’t heard anything open or close. How did that kid do it?

Jeff walked quietly over to the boys’ room, and wondered how he should go about it – stand there with the toilet paper in his arms, waiting for Davey to show up again? No, the kid might take forever to get back to bed. Better to go track him down, corner him, maybe make him take out the toilet paper himself.

Jeff opened the door. A sliver of hallway light fell on the bunk beds, and Jeff saw something he didn’t understand at first.

Both Brian and Davey were in bed.

A cold hand slowly closed around Jeff’s heart, and he had trouble drawing his next breath.

Someone was in the house.

The giggling, again. Ghostly and far away…

Jeff quietly closed the door, dropped the toilet paper, and ran for the stairs.

He got to the first floor and looked around wildly.

A giggle. Not that far away – it sounded like it was in the den –

Who was it? It sounded like a kid – a neighborhood kid? A thrill-seeker, someone here on a dare? Or a teenager? Someone robbing the presents under the tree?

Jeff looked around. A plastic reindeer sat on the foyer table. He grasped it by the head, brandished it like a club, and started for the den.

By the time he was in the room, the giggling was further away, back in the hall.

Jeff ran as fast as he could. As he got into the hallway, he had a clear view of the kitchen – and the open back door. The screen door slammed shut the second he looked, but Jeff couldn’t see anything but darkness beyond the wire mesh.

And outside, the giggling.

He ran through the kitchen, clicking the switch for the outside light on his way to the door.

When he burst through, the back yard was painted in long shadows thrown by the spotlights. He paused, breathing hard, and listened.

Nothing. Silent as a snowfall. No sounds anywhere, not even the wind in the trees.

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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.