I was sitting in the living room alone. My parents had taken Ruth to the grocery store, and the boys were no where to be found, which was a usual occurrence when my parents went to the grocery store. My feet hung over the top of the couch, and my head hung off the seat, turning the room upside down. I was wearing the blue dress Ruth had gotten me for my birthday a few months ago. Before she had left for the grocery store, she had used me as her own personal life size doll. She styled my hair with ribbons and bobby pins, and painted my face with red lipstick and blue eye shadow. She told me I looked like a princess, but after looking in the mirror, I begged to differ.
The window was creating a breeze that forced me to hold down my dress, so it wouldn’t fly over my head. I was thinking about how my parents always took Ruth to the store to help with the grocery shopping, but they never took me. I was old enough now, why wouldn’t they take me as well? I could see Ruth walking up and down the laminate halls picking out the family cereal for the week. I narrowed my eyes, trying to block out the unfair image.
The boys were across the street at the park, most likely vandalizing something. I sat up to try to find them, when I noticed a pair of teenagers in front of the house. A boy and a girl. The looked to be about high school age, the girl had on a short greens skirt, with a button up white top. The boy wore a green polo with a black tie. The must have been from the catholic school in town. The girl clung to the boys arm as she stared up at the house, looking frightened. He seemed to enjoy this, he squeezed her tighter and pointed to the upstairs windows, most likely telling a story similar to my brothers. I decided to have a bit of fun, because, as my mother told me, there were no such things as ghosts and no one was murdered in the house.
I sprinted up to my bedroom, pulled a pile of blankets out of my closet, and threw them over my head. Taking a deep breath, I pounded with all my might on the window, and let out a blood curdling scream like one never heard before. The girls face turned to horror, and she took off across the park leaving her male companion behind, staring terrified at the window I stood behind. I started to laugh hysterically, and even fell on the ground below the window to save my energy for more laughing. My eyes were watering I was laughing so hard, when I heard John and Ben open the front door downstairs.
“Did you see her? Guess what I did?” I laughed as I trotted down the stairs to greet my brothers. But, they weren’t there. The front door was open, but my brothers weren’t in the doorway.
“Where are you?” I said as I walked to the piano room. “Come on guys, don’t scare me. I really want to tell you what just happened. You will think its really funny!” I coaxed. There was no answer. “John?” I walked to the front door to see where my brothers had hidden, and that’s when I saw them. They were across the street, waiting for a car to pass to cross.
I didn’t tell them about the girl. Instead I went downstairs to my hiding hole. I piled the blankets on the cement floor to make it a bit more comfortable for myself when we played another game of hide and seek. I sat in the hole for a little over an hour, reading a book I had brought with me to keep me company.
* * *
That night my parents went out on their second date for the week. Ruth had gone to a friends house. Without permission. Ben was at the park with John. Without permission. And I was stuck sitting on the couch. Alone. Again.
The doorbell rang
I sat up straight. I wasn’t supposed to answer the door when no one else was home, I slid to my knees and crawled my way to the window seal. I slowly inched my head to the window, until just my eyes and forehead were able to see what was outside. Two men stood outside the door, talking between themselves. They were both wearing jeans, with black work boots. The larger of the men had a jean jacket, while the smaller had a black zip up coat. I couldn’t see their faces, they were blocked my the low-hanging rain gutter. The large man knocked again, louder this time. It startled me, even though I saw his hand move towards the door before the knock. I slowly backed away from the window, and made my way to the kitchen. An even more fierce knock came from the front room, it startled me all the more. As I turned towards the basement, I could feel my hands start to shake in search for the light switch, it was taking an irregularly long amount of time to find.
A large crash came from the front room, and I sprinted down the flight of stairs, giving up on the light switch. I knew exactly where I was headed, and it didn’t take me more than fifteen seconds to reach it. I peeled back the thin dry wall piece from the wall, climbed behind it, and placed the dry wall back in the right place all in record time. My dress was caught in one of the cracks, I pulled at it. It must have been caught on something outside the haven of my hiding place. I continued tugging at it, refusing to open up the wall until upstairs was completely silent, and I could hear my fathers voice calling for me. The noise upstairs was extremely loud, whoever it was was making no attempt at being subtle, I could hear the kitchen table being moved around, all the cabinets were being opened and closed, furniture was being moved, loud stomping. It sounded like a herd of elephants had wandered into the house, and were kindly making their way out through the brick walls.
The bricks against my back were cool, but had no affect on the sweat that was beginning to flow from every pore on my skin. I would have given anything to be at the park with my brothers, rather than being stuck in my basement while the house was being ransacked by burglars. And where were John and Ben? They told me they were going to be at the park across the street, they must have seen the men come into the house. I was going to give them a good smack across the back of the head when I saw them. The banging around upstairs seemed to quiet down, and now I could only hear their footsteps walking across the linoleum floor, back and forth. Muffled voices floated down the air vent. It was definitely two men’s voices, they were arguing about something, probably the lack of valuables in our house.
The voices grew louder. And louder. And soon I realized the voices weren’t coming from the vent it was coming from the entrance to my hole. The men were at the top of stairs, debating whether or not the valuables could be hidden in the basement. Their footsteps descended down the wooden stairs, and the light came on. The light was seeping through the square shaped black entrance to the hidden hole. I backed up, curling my knees into my chest, and resting my chin on them. There was no way they could find this hole no one in my family could ever find me, how would two ignorant burglars? They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and were rummaging through closets, and boxes underneath the staircase. The small cracks surrounding the entrance to my hiding place allowed me to see their movements.
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