This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story, Thirteen Days before you begin this novel.

 

The following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely unintentional.
If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their awakening sexuality is offensive or illegal in your area, then might I suggest you go read War and Peace or something equally stimulating.

 

 

Simon's Journal

Volume II

 

 

Thirteen Nights – After the Crusade

 

 

Written by

Danny
Author of Thirteen Days

 

 



 

Chapter - 4

Part 1 – Wednesday, March 03, 2004 – He no nuts, he cwazy!

 

I don’t know what’s wrong with me this morning. I woke up about twenty minutes past nine this morning, went, and had some breakfast before Mom brought me to my room and changed me out of my wet diaper.  However, before she had even finished putting me into a dry diaper I fell back to sleep and slept until just before lunchtime. Heck, I’ve nearly slept my day away!

 

So now it’s a few minutes past noon, Mom’s making me a fried baloney and cheese sandwich for lunch and I’m sitting here at the kitchen table writing in my electronic journal that Aunt Catharine gave me for my birthday.  I had a lot to write about from yesterday, and I only just caught up on that.  I think after lunch I’m going to go check my email and see if I have anything new from anyone.  Maybe Lowell might have sent me the next chapter to his story too.  I really doubt he’s had the time to record it all and get it emailed to me, but I sure hope so.

 

Lunch was good.  I had a nice talk with Mom before she left again to go help Aunt Catharine.  As it turns out, she wasn’t mad about me wearing the Pamper’s diaper at all. Actually, she sort of teased me that I looked so darn cute in it and wished she’d have taken a picture of me before she changed me. I was so relieved that she wasn’t mad that I let her torment me.  Believe me, I was sure embarrassed.  She told me that the reason she got upset was that she doesn’t think that I should be letting just anyone see me naked. She said it just isn’t proper.

 

Dad’s back too.  He had to go to the office for about an hour this morning but now he’s back in his office, here at the house, and is working away. He did sit down and have lunch with Mom and me, though we were both nearly done with ours when he came dragging in the backdoor.  Dad has the sniffles today and I think he might be getting a cold so I’m going to keep my distance from him for a few days!

 

After seeing Mom off and retiring to my room, I sat down at my computer to check my email but decided I wasn’t in the mood.  I just don’t know what’s got into me today. I really don’t feel like doing much of anything. Maybe I have that cabin fever stuff that Mom’s always talking about in the winter months.  I started to wonder if Dad would let me get dressed and go outside for a while, so I decided to venture out and ask him.

 

Sure enough, I found Dad working away at his desk.  When I asked him if I could go outside for a while, he said I could as long as I . . . “Stay close to the house and don’t do anything that will hurt those ribs,” he had said.

 

He’s going to come in and change me into a dry diaper too before I get all my warm clothes and stuff on.  He just has to finish something first.  I think in the meantime, I’m going to get everything out and put it on my chair. I was doing just that when he came walking into my room.

 

“You know! I think playing outside is a good idea.  Maybe the wind will blow some of the stink off you!” he said as he entered my room.

 

“I don’t stink!” I protested and Dad only laughed.

 

“When you come back in, I think you better plan on taking a bath since you didn’t take one this morning.” He said as he helped me lay down on my bed.

 

Dad pulled off my sweat pants, exposing my very wet diaper.  “Humm, I thought your mother had said that you were supposed to tell us when you were wet so we could get you changed and out of the wet diaper?” he asked while pulling at one of the tapes.

 

“I didn’t even know I was wet!” I said in my own defense.  However, I’m not sure he believed me, but I swear I didn’t have any idea!

 

Dad had me out of my wet diaper and into a dry one in almost no time at all.  He also stuck around to help me get dressed, put my shoes on and tied them for me then helped me with my coat, hat, and gloves.  Of course, he had to be a comedian and pull my hat down over my eyes before putting it on me right.

 

Once outside, I felt like I was a little over dressed as the weather wasn’t as cold as it has been recently.  I walked up and down our front sidewalk a few times and then went and sat on our porch swing for a while.  I’d been outside maybe a total of twenty minutes, when a police cruiser went by and I seen that it was one of the officers I’d seen in Principle Freeman’s office that day when Mr. Freeman had Peter and his gang lined up, giving them the third degree.  I waved back as he drove on by.  I felt kind of good knowing that they were still keeping an eye on me and my home, even though Peter and the rest were long gone!

 

I started feeling bored again and decided I’d go walk to the top of our street. When I finally did get to the top, I still felt pretty darned good and was hardly winded so I figured, “Well I came this far, I might as well turn around and walk to the other end.”  And that’s just what I did.

 

I was passing the second to the last house on the right, near the bottom of the hill, when I spotted a rusted-out and primer-covered mini-van sitting in the driveway.  I remember thinking that it looked really out of place in our neighborhood, but since I didn’t know the people that lived in that house, I figured that maybe they had a teenaged son that was fixing it up or something.

 

Then I noticed this really rough looking man sitting in the driver’s seat, eating french fries.  I was polite and waved, mostly because we’d made eye contact, but I continued walking to the end of the street and didn’t give him a second thought.

 

Okay, in retrospect that would have been a good time for me to turn-tail and head back home, but did I do that?  Nooooo! I had to continue on my walk to the end of our street. When I was walking past the rusty van on my way back up our street, I heard the garage door across the street opening. A car pulled out fro and I watched as the lady in that car drove away, up our street.  When it was out of site, I heard someone behind me call my name.

 

“Simon?”

 

I spun around so fast I think I made my brain spin inside my skull. It was that same ruff looking man I’d seen sitting in the van, eating french fries, except now he was out of the van, looking right at me.  He was tall.  Very tall and thin.  I barely came up to the mid-point of his thighs and those arms of his; they looked like tree branches.  His hair was shaggy and oily, and he had a blob of ketchup on the corner of his mouth.  He was smiling, probably to make me feel less threatened, but honestly, to me it was like looking into the mouth of some sort of beast that still had a bit of blood on it’s lips from it’s last victim!  The sudden surprise at seeing the size of him, and allowing myself to wonder how he could know my name, caused me delays what I should have been doing, which was running.  Funny thing is, at first I couldn’t talk or move.

 

“Hello Simon!” He took a couple steps toward me.  Which for me would have been great leaps.

 

“Say something you idiot!” I thought to myself.

 

“You okay there?” he asked, still coming closer.  I could feel my heart pounding against my plastic body armor.  All I could think about was all those missing children on the news and that I was about to be one myself.

 

He wasn’t any more than three feet away from me when I saw his fingers flex as if about to stretch out and seize me.  I let out a scream that gouged through the late winter air like a scooper through a tub of ice cream.

 

I was a block away from the man even before I knew my feet were carrying me away as fast as I could run. The biggest problem was that I was running away from my home and everyone I knew, but I wasn’t thinking where I was going, but where I wasn’t at, and that was in the back of that van!

 

My chest hurt as it had when I’d ran the mile for my school, back before my ribs were all busted up by Peter.  While still running, I turned to see if he was following me. Complete and utter terror enveloped me within its dark embrace when I saw the van turning off my street and coming my way. I had no idea where I was running to.  I wasn’t thinking.  I was just running for all I was worth.  My lungs were on fire, my ribs hurt worst than ever before, but I couldn’t stop.  Thankfully, my legs felt strong, fueled with the high octane of fear. I didn’t look back again.  I just kept running; running past trees, past parked cars, and houses that all seemed to blur as I sped past them.  Thankfully, my brain didn’t have to keep telling my feet to keep running like it had in the race.  They already knew and were pounding the cold concrete sidewalk, making a very similar sound to when I’d run the mile, only this time faster and louder.  “Thump – Thump – Thump – Thump – Thump – Thump”.

I reached the end of the street I’d been running down.  I’d no idea which one it was and without stopping, I crossed to the other side and continued sprinting down another street.  While I was crossing the street, I managed to glance over my shoulder and saw the van was still speeding toward me. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly felt like I had rockets strapped to my shoes.  Though I was crying hard and screaming, I was still able to run harder and faster than I’d ever run in the race.

 

I turned another corner; saw the van was right behind me, and cut into someone’s yard.  I jumped over a chain link fence without even touching it and sprinted through their backyard.  I lost track of how many yards I cut through, and how many fences I’d hurdled.  I think it was the third, or maybe the fourth fence I leaped over, when it started to suddenly get cold and a fine misting rain began to fall.  This rain must have been either warmer or colder than the ground, because a fog began to rise; curling around my legs like snakes made of smoke each time I brought one of my feet down.  I continued running in the rain.  It wasn’t until I tried to jump the last fence that I stopped running.  Not by choice, but by the fence itself.  I’d come to a wooden fence that was higher than the chain link fences.  It was one of those wooden privacy fences.  As I reached the fence, I took a leaping step, grabbed hold of the top of its fence boards, and began to hoist myself over. With my damaged ribs there would have been only one way I could have gotten over the fence, had I not had speed and momentum on my side.

 

I threw my feet out to the left, swung them up over the fence, and was sure I’d cleared the tops of the boards.  I’m confident that if someone was looking out there window at that very second, they would have been astonished at my physical abilities and may even wonder if I might have some special ability to defy gravity itself.  However, if they continued watching, only one single second longer, they would see just how ungraceful I really was, and that gravity was very much against me!

 

As I started to push my body weight forward and prepare for my dismount, the hem of my pant leg somehow snagged on something.  Maybe on a nail, I don’t know.  However, I do know that with just that slight tugging action, it threw my entire dismount into complete chaos.  My right leg became a mid-air anchor and the pivot point for the rest of my body, causing my head to race toward the awaiting frozen earth.

 

I guess the only good thing I can say about the entire episode is that I didn’t make the crash landing I was anticipating.  Because my pant leg was caught on the far side of the fence, my body hung there, my head about an inch from the ground. My heart was still racing, blood was pooling in my head, my arms were thrashing about, trying to support my body, and free myself from this hanging trap I’d leapt into.  It seemed like I’d hung there for several minutes, but in reality it was probably more like several seconds.  I reached up and with my thumb and released the button to my pants.  That was all that was needed and I fell right out of my pants, landing on my head as the rest of my body crumbled on top of me.  Had it not been for my body armor, I’m sure I would have probably sent one or more of my broken ribs into my lungs, puncturing one or both them. I was laying face down and realized that the earth beneath me was not as frozen as I’d imagined it to be. Actually, it was quite muddy and the rain, though light, wasn’t helping matters at all.

 

I lifted my face slowly from the mud, thinking how stupid I was and how much the top of my head hurt. I brought my left arm to my face and wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my coat. When I opened my eyes again, I couldn’t figure out right away what I was looking at. I think it took me a good five or six seconds to realize I was looking at the front paws of a dog.

 

Without daring to so much as breathe, my eyes rose up past it’s legs, and past it’s chest to it’s neck.  There was a silver choker chain around it.  My eyes continued up to it’s yellow exposed teeth. A single low growl gurgled from the dogs throat and the next thing I knew I was up and running so hard that my knees were nearly coming up to my chest as they pumped like a machine. I reached the far end of the yard, leapt over the wooden fence again, this time clearing it easily.  However, my landing on the other side left a lot to be desired.  I came right down on two trashcans. With an ear-piercing cry, I yelled out as my ankle, the same one I’d injured before, hit the grown sideways and buckled under my weight. I fell to my hands and knees, unable to see because of the pain.  Something else happened while I was in midair. For a split second with a only my right hand in contact with the top of the fence, and the rest of my body seeming to be hung in the air, time stopped long enough for me to see that I didn’t have my shoes on anymore.

 

“Where the heck are my shoes?” I thought. “They must have come off when I fell out of my pants.”

 

Now remember, all that happened in only a split second. As my foot hit the ground and my ankle gave way, I honestly don’t remember what I said.  I know I was screaming and knowing my temper, I was probably cussing like a drunken sailor, but no one could have heard me over that dog’s barking on the other side of the fence.

 

After the run-in with that dog, the first thing I did in this yard was to quickly scan it to be sure I hadn’t jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the equally proverbial fire, but thankfully, I saw no animals.  With the racket I made crashing into the garbage cans, and the barking dog, as well as my own cries of pain, I expected whoever owned the house and the back yard I was in would have come to a window or opened their backdoor to see what was going on.  However, since no one did appear, I guessed that no one was home. Very shortly afterward, I would learn differently!

 

Unable to walk, I crawled on my hands and bare knees across the wet and very cold lawn while still sobbing. I reached the gate, reached up, flipped open the latch, and swung it open before I pulled myself through.  Using the gate and the corner of the house for support, I managed to get myself to my muddy, sock covered feet. There was no way I could run anymore and I had serious doubts about walking too. I looked down and my entire front was covered in mud.  The palms of my hands looked scraped, but it was my ankle that was hurting so bad that it was nearly blinding me.  My bare legs, where not covered in mud and grass, were turning blue from the cold.  I think that is when it hit me that I was, outside, in a diaper, with no pants on.

 

“I’m having a nightmare! That’s it! I’m dreaming! All of this is just a dream and I’m still at home, in my bed dreaming!” I said aloud, trying to convince myself that it was true.

 

“Okay, how do you wake yourself up when you’re having a nightmare?” I asked myself, “How do they do it on TV?” I asked and then answered myself in the same breath, “A PINCH!”

 

I reached up and pinched my cheeks with both hands as hard as I could, “Holy fudge!” I cried.  Except I didn’t say fudge.  “Okay that doesn’t prove anything! I’m still dreaming . . . this has got to be a dream!” I said.

 

Somehow, I was able to totter down the side of the house and stopped alongside a bush using its limbs to steady myself. I was at the end of a dead-end street; one that I’d never been on before, and I knew I was very much lost.  When I stopped moving, I felt the familiar pressure inside of me that told me that I needed to poop.  I knew that it was probably just my nerves, coupled with my fear, that were making my insides react in such a manner.  I clamped my butt cheeks together and tried not to think about it.

 

Then to my dismay and sheer horror, I saw the same rusty van turn slowly onto the street. It was far enough away that though I could see it, I figured the driver couldn’t see me. Suddenly something noticeably bizarre was growing within my mind. No longer was I scared of being captured, kidnapped or who knows what; my only fear now was having someone see me ‘outside’, wearing nothing but a diaper. Okay, so, I wasn’t just wearing a diaper; but in my panicked state, that’s exactly what my brain was telling me.

 

Quickly, I scanned each of the three houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. Every last one of them was dark inside.  Not even a porch light was on except for the house I was standing next to; the one who’s bush was partially hiding me from the view of the driver of the van.  Hanging over the front door was a single glowing yellow porch light.  The kind of front porch light you see on just about any home in any American suburb.  Moreover, for the first time, I realized just how plain the house looked too. It was painted white, though it was cracked and peeling in places. Though different, it was very much like every other house on the street or in our town. The bushes looked to have not been tended to for several years and had been allowed to grow wild.  The flowerbed was really more of a mound of black dirt with dead weeds laying all over it. Nothing remarkable or memorable about the house, right?  Well, I was about to learn different!  The saying, ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ comes to mind while I sit here writing all this now.

 

Hopping on one foot, I got around the bush, up onto the front porch, which thankfully was only a single step above ground level. My plan was to pound on the front door and scream for help. I reached the door and somehow it seemed out of place on this house.  It seemed bigger than a normal house’s front door too.  It was a solid wood door, stained dark with one of those old-fashioned iron doorknockers in the middle of it, with the name ‘Peterson’ on it.  I lifted my fist to pound on the door.  However, with just a single hit, it swung open.

 

Okay, even I know you do not go into someone’s house without being invited, and you definitely do not go into a stranger’s house under any circumstances.  Even if that homeowner invites you!  That is just common sense right?  Well, I didn’t bother to reason out the pros and cons.  When the door swung open, I threw my body inside and slammed the door closed again; praying the man in the van didn’t see me dive into the house.

 

I was still crying and breathing hard between my sobs. Moreover, my heart felt like it was about to explode inside my plastic armor at any second. Standing on one foot and holding the door closed with both hands, I panted and tried to get myself to stop sobbing like a baby. While attempting this, my brain started to function again.  The abrupt realization of where I was hit me.

 

I closed my eyes and in a sort of prayer, I mumbled; “Please let all this just be a bad dream!”

 

With my eyes still shut, I spun myself around, put my back to the door, and still muttering softly said, “Maybe he didn’t see me!  Maybe he’ll just turn around and go away! I’m safe here . . .” and as if I was willing him away, “I’m not here! You have to go look elsewhere! Far away! Just go far away!”

 

Ultimately, giving into the fact that I couldn’t keep my eyes closed forever, I opened first one, then the other.  To say I was astonished by what I saw would be an understatement. Every inch of wall, I mean every last inch of wall space was covered with row after row of books; books of every shape and size. There were even books stacked on tables.  Books were stacked from the floor to the ceiling as if they were pillars holding up the floor above them.

 

There were no lamps or light fixtures anywhere that I could see.  The only light in the room came from a roaring fire within the fireplace. I’d passed a window on my way to the front door.  Though it was raining, there still should have been light poring into the room, but from the inside, I saw that the window was covered with heavy, faded, green velvet curtains.  The hem of which, was frayed and tattered as if it had been chewed on by mice over many years.

 

Next to the fireplace were two empty, tired looking arm chairs with a single, round spindly table between them, and what looked to be an oddly shaped and equally empty fishbowl atop the table.  One of the chairs appeared to be missing one of its back legs, and a stack of books was being used in its absence.

 

My ankle beckoned my attention away from the room for only a single moment as a sharp pain shot up through my leg. I rubbed at my naked, mud covered, thigh to symbolically sooth my ankle.

 

Again, I began to peer around the room.  To my right was a darkened staircase that danced with the eerie glow of reds and oranges from the fire.  The staircase went up three steps to a landing, turned, and vanished up into darkness. On the landing was a tarnished brass bird’s perch sitting atop a stack of books. The perch appeared to be performing a precarious balancing act with a large, stuffed gray owl with glowing eyes and wings spread, making it look ferocious and threatening.

 

It was hard to take my eyes off the stuffed owl.  It looked so real.  Almost as if it had somehow been suddenly frozen in time and might come back to life at any second.  After a moment, I was able to break the spell it had over me and looked down to my left side where there was a small table that looked like it was under great strain with the mound of books that were pilled on top of it. My eyes landed on the title of one of the books. ‘An Explorer’s Handbook to the Universe and Beyond’ and beside it was, ‘A Beginners Guide to Dragon Breading.’  Yet another.  ‘Frozen Time – How to Live Forever and Still Be Happy’.

 

I swallowed hard and in an almost inaudible tone, hoping and praying no one would hear or respond, I said, “Hello?”

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move out from under one of the chairs. For a second, maybe two, I nearly panicked and thought about taking my chances with the man in the van, but I realized it was just an Old Persian cat.  It's fur looked as if it hadn't been brushed in years.

 

The cat slowly, as if not trusting me, and why should it, made it’s way to the middle of the room.  It stopped, sat down, and turning it’s head toward me until I could see the glow of its brown eyes, gave out a small low, “Reeeoow”.

 

From beyond the books, behind a dusty curtain, came a voice that made me think of rotting apples lying on the ground under an old apple tree beneath an October sky.  “Be still Vera, I know he’s there.”

 

A wrinkled hand pulled the curtain aside and out shuffled an old man; ‘Old?’ ancient was more like it! His withered brown skin reminded me of dehydrated mushrooms.  His shoulder length hair hung from his head in clumps of greasy, grey locks, almost like a once-shimmering veil that had long since needed thrown out, while the very top of his head was completely void of any hair at all.  Although he was taller than me by a couple feet at least, he probably weighed less.  Yet for some reason, maybe it was the eyes that gleamed like two protruding white pearls below his brisling brow, he seemed very, very, powerful.

 

Shuffling his feet across the wooden floor, he moved himself around a stack of books that didn’t quite reach the ceiling and came to stand directly in front of me.

 

Without looking directly at me, “Why are you here?” he asked.  His breath smelled of milk that had long since gone bad.

 

I quivered, “I was uh . . .”

 

The old man shook his head the way a dog might shake the water from its fir, only much slower.  “Young man, no one ever comes into my home!”  His breath made it seem that his words were being forced into me, “Get to the point!  What do you need?”

 

“Ho-honest s-s-sir I-I-I . . .” I was stuttering so bad that I could hardly understand myself, and I was sure the old man must think I’m some kind of thief or something.

 

He arched one eyebrow and squinted his other eye tightly shut. Sounding disappointed, he said, “Well you are here.”  Then raising his voice to an unassailable echelon, “Now what do you need?”

 

The manner of his voice made it crystal clear to me that I’d better ‘NEED’ something. I glanced around frantically, “I-I-I d-don’t s-s-s-see a-a-nything b-b-but books!”

 

The old man’s expression remained unchanged as he asked, “How much money do you have?”

 

“I-I-I . . .” I continued to stutter.

 

Coming even closer to me, and still not looking directly at me, he said, “Nothing is ever free!  Everything in life costs!”

 

Putting a single finger to his chin, he tapped it twice.  Speaking now as if he were talking to himself, he said, “Yes that’s it indeed!  Everything costs!”

 

He turned his head slightly so that his one opened eye was looking right into the middle of my two eyes, “But the question you must ask yourself is...” he took a short, shallow breath, “Are you willing to pay the price, no matter the cost?”

 

I knew I didn’t have even a stinking penny, but still I thrust my hands into the pockets of my coat and acted as if I was fishing around for some money.  Yet, to my surprise, I found a crumpled dollar bill.  Lunch money I had perhaps forgotten about.  On the other hand, maybe it was one of the bills from the robbery that I’d missed when I’d taken the rest out of my pocket to hide.

 

I suppose it doesn’t really matter where it came from. I held my hand out flat with the crumpled dollar wadded in the center of my palm, “J-J-Just th-th-th-this d-dollar b-but I d-d-don’t th-th-think.” I stuttered

 

Snatching it away from me, the old man snapped, “That will be fine!”

 

“Stand still!” he barked.  Grabbing my head, he pried open my eye.  The same one that only a few days ago had been gnarled and swollen thanks to a lucky blow by my brother.

 

It was like looking into the sun, the old man’s silvery-white eye seemed to peer all the way into my soul.  I was so scared, so exasperated, that my bladder released its contents into my diaper.  Maybe it was because of the old man’s close proximity that I knew it happened this time, but I was still helpless to stop it.  I felt my face, ears, and neck burning with embarrassment.  “Surely he knows?” I thought.

 

The old man suddenly released me and just stood there.  I was sure then that he knew.

 

“Quiet!” he yelled, though I had not uttered so much as a peep.

 

I stood as if carved from a slab of stone. The old man continued to stare at me for another minute, then closed his other eye and bent his head forward, almost as if he were listening for something.  After a moment, he opened his eyes and said, “Hmmm, wait here.”  Then he turned and disappeared back behind the curtain in which he’d emerged from only minutes before.

 

I felt as if my feet had been frozen to the floor.  When I looked down at them, I was horrified to find a puddle around my feet.  “What the?” I thought, “But I have on a diaper! How could I have peed on the floor?” I was screaming inside my own head.  I wanted to run and hide, but my fear was so immense that I couldn’t have moved; couldn’t have run away if I’d tried.

 

After what seemed like hours, the old man reappeared carrying what looked to be a small box wrapped in a shiny red silk scarf.  “Here!” he said, as if ordering me to take what he was carrying.  Extending the item to me, “Take this!  It’s what you came here to get!”

 

My fingers trembled as I held out my hands to accept the crimson package. The old man leaned even closer, staring directly into my eyes, and speaking in a low hiss that made me feel as if a cold wind was running down my spine.  He said, “For Setekh’s sake,” drawing out the word ‘sake’, “be careful!”

 

Then he dropped the box, still wrapped in the red silk scarf, into my waiting fingers.  It was heavier than I’d expected, and since I was still standing on one foot, I had to quickly draw it in close to my chest to keep from toppling over onto the old man.  He was now looking at the item he’d just given me and appeared to be sad.  Sad like a parent might be that is saying goodbye to a child they know they may never see again.

 

With his eyes momentarily off me, I looked around wildly and through a thin slit, where the heavy curtain that covered the front window met the wall, I could see that it had begun to get dark outside.

 

“Now get out of my house!” He snapped, “You’re dripping mud and water all over my floor!” the old man said, as he turned away and started toward the fireplace.

 

“Mud and water? Yes, it had been raining, it was just rain!” I could have cheered and inside I was.

 

“Take the side door.” He said gesturing to his left, “It will get you home, more quickly!” He began to laugh.

 

I spotted the small door under the staircase. “Why didn’t I notice it before?” I took a single step toward it before realizing that I still had a problem.  My pants were still hanging from the fence in the neighbor’s yard, and there was no way I was going to be able to get past that man-eating dog.  With my ankle there was no way I could ever hope to get over the wooden privacy fence again anyway.  Those two other times I’d had speed and momentum on my side, now I had neither.

 

I looked down at my stark naked legs.  My diaper seemed to glow like a beacon in the firelight.  “How could he not have noticed I wasn’t wearing pants and only had on a diaper? How?” I thought to myself.

 

The idea of having to go back outside with no pants and my diaper in full view of anyone and everyone just didn’t appeal to me at all. Still only speaking inside my head, I asked myself, “Now what am I going to do?”

 

I stood still for a moment, pondering the question.  Finally, gathering my courage I stepped toward the man who’d now settled himself in one of the tired-looking chairs.  His cat too, had jumped up, and was making itself comfortable on the old man’s lap while still keeping its eyes on me as if it knew the old man wasn’t watching me, so it had to.  I felt embarrassed to even have a cat see me in my diaper!

 

“Mind your own business!”  Is what I wanted to say to the cat, but I didn’t as I felt myself blushing.

 

I limped another chair toward the man, “Uh, S-sir?  I-I n-need t-to t-talk t-to you.”

 

With the flick of his wrist, as if trying to brush away an annoying insect, “Go away!”

 

Frustration caused my voice to rise several notes, making me sound even more childlike, “B-but I n-need your help!”

 

“Go away! I’ve helped you enough!” The old man turned his face away and that darn cat lifted his head and hissed at me.

 

“B-but I d-d-d-don’t have any p-p-pants!” I finally shouted.

 

Shouting back the old man said, “That’s hardly my fault!”

 

I felt myself getting ready to cry and struggled to keep control of my emotions, “W-well how w-will I g-g-g-g-get home?”

 

“Walk!” He was nearly worked up to a full rage, but was still not looking at me.

 

Throwing my hands into the air and then dropping them at my side I said, sounding very defeated, “I can’t do that!”

 

The old man finally turned his face back toward me.  Raising a finger, he said, “Young man, if you do not leave my house soon, I will show you how disobedient children were dealt with when I was a boy!”  The hair on the back of his cat began to stand on end as the man puffed himself up with anger.  “Now go!”

 

The man’s rage caused me to stagger backward several steps. Thoughts were flying around in my head like a swarm of bullets, “I’m nearly naked!  How can I go home?  On the other hand, how can I stay here?”  In the time that it took me to take a deep breath and let it out again, I thought it over and considered how much trouble I was in already.  “Dad had said to stay close to the house, didn’t he?”  I supposed that being half-naked when I got home wasn’t going to make that much difference.

 

However, when I reached the small door under the staircase I could not force myself to open it. The idea that had almost made sense thirty seconds ago, now seemed insane.  I tried to convince myself, “It was Wednesday afternoon, everyone should be in school or at work, and hardly anyone would be home at this time of day. Besides, the stripped-down fact was, there was nothing else I could do.  I had to make a run for it, so to speak.

 

At last, my hand obeyed my brain's orders. I reached out, opened the door, and slipped through.  Immediately, I felt that everyone in our town was looking at me.  Even the trees seemed to have eyes, yet the world was strangely silent.  I shivered at the feel of the cold March air against my bare legs and then I began to notice where I was.

 

“I-I kn-n-now w-w-where I-I am at!” I said aloud to no one but myself.

 

To my astonishment, I found myself in the alley.  The one that ran behind the Colonial Barber Shop and once I made my way to the other end of the alley, I would only be about six blocks away from home.

 

For a moment, the thought that I might still be dreaming came back to me, but I literally shook it out of my head and I looked up into the sky.  It had stopped raining . . . mostly, but I could still see nothing but dark gray overhead.  There were no stars and no moon.  “Is it night?” I asked aloud, and feeling the twinge in my bowels again I started walking for home.

 

While I was walking down the alley, I began to remove the red silk scarf from around the object the old man had given me and found that it wasn’t a box as I first thought, but a book.

 

That was when I noted, “Simon, you are such an idiot! You are surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of books . . . what else would a senile old man give you?”

 

As I was examining the book, I could see that it was indeed, very old.  It had a brown leather cover; the corners and edges of which were heavily worn.  There was nothing on the front or back cover, but on the spine of the book it looked like there was, at one time, lettering that had long since vanished.

 

I flipped open the book and could detect the faint but lingering smell of dead fish. “I thought old books were supposed to smell musty, not like rotting fish!”  I said.

 

The pages of the book were yellowed and brittle, and on the very first page was the title of the book,

 

Be Ye Crimp or Grommet

A Survivors Guide

 

 

However, there was no author’s name anywhere that I could find, and the title page looked to have been wrote by hand instead of printed as books are now.  I carefully flipped through the pages and found that the entire book had been written in the same manor. There were also many hand drawn pictures of ships, sailors, boats, and diagrams throughout the book, with words I’d never heard of before and couldn’t pronounce.

 

Looking back to the front of the book at the title, I said aloud, “What the heck are Crimps and Grommets?”

 

I had been walking down the alley, probing the book, and wondering what made that nutty old man think that I needed this particular book.  I was lost in the pages that talked about a group of sailors called a ‘Press Gang’ who would seek out and “recruit” for their ship, using violence and intimidation.  My thoughts were all over the place and I didn’t see a pothole that was right in my path until it was too late. I’d been limping along and just happened to step right into the pothole.  It was filled with icy-cold mud water that saturated my sock instantly and bit at my skin.

 

“Oh that’s just beautiful!” I scolded the pothole as I pulled my foot back out.

 

“Yeah, it’s official,” I looked up to the gray heavens and shouted, “THIS DAY SUCKS!

 

I shook my soaking wet, sock-covered foot, causing water to splash everywhere,  I don’t know why, but I carefully re-wrapped the book with the red silk scarf, slipped the book into the pocket of my coat, and snapped the flap closed; locking it safely inside.

 

So, with a cold foot, a soggy sock, my ankle throbbing, and covered in mud from head to toe, I made my way to the end of the alley.  However, when I reached the end of the alley, I suddenly felt exposed again.  At least in the alley I felt that I had some places I could hide should I see or hear someone coming. I flipped my hood up over my head to offer some safe feeling that I might not be recognized.

 

Once the fright of being out in the open had passed again, I started to enjoy my walk despite my physical state.  The chill in the air, and the sheer craziness of walking across town with my diaper right out there for everyone to see, made me wildly alert.  I felt opened to the world, delighted by every sight and sound my greedy senses could absorb.

 

By taking to the lesser-traveled streets, which meant I had to walk four extra blocks, I managed to remain unseen until I reached Enting Street. I was just passing a small, well maintained grey brick house when I saw a tired looking woman standing at a window, holding a can of Pepsi, and gazing out with her eyelids at half mast.  When she saw me, it looked as if someone had plugged in her curlers.  Her eyelids shot up, her jaw dropped down, and Pepsi flew in all directions.  I only caught a glimpse of her again as she strained to see who I was, but I was gone, trying not to let my laughter slow me down; though I really was moving at a racing snails pace.

 

The closer I got to my home, the brighter the sky seemed to get.  Like the gray mass overhead was thinning and allowing shafts of light to filter through.  Sure, it was cold and wet, and not one of Mother Natures better days.  Of course, having a wet sock and being covered in mud wasn’t helping to keep me warm or improve my opinion of her handy-work today.  Though I was enjoying the briskness, I was also feeling glad that I was nearly home again.

 

The closer to home I got, the stronger my belief was that I was going to have another run-in with that rusted-out, primer-painted mini-van.  I expected it to come flying around every street corner I approached.

 

I made the last turn that would take me to my street and came to a screeching halt. Where my street dumped out onto Marshall Ave, there must have been ten police cars blocking every possible direction with lights flashing away. There were also dozens of people standing around in front of houses, talking to one another, and probably gossiping about the whole affair.  I was wondering what was going on when I spotted it.  Right in the middle of all those squad cars, was the very same van that had been chasing after me.  Though I didn’t see the scruffy man anywhere, I guessed he was probably cuffed and stuffed into one of the cruisers.  I felt an inexplicable joy and freedom overcome me, and I wanted to run up and congratulate every one of those police officers for catching that pervert that had been driving the van.

 

However, instead of trying to get through that cluster of men in blue, I decided to go up Mike and Tater’s street, then cut over and come down my street to my house. Okay, I knew I was taking a big risk by going past Tater’s home, but it was better than getting near that pervert and his van again, even with all those cops around!

 

Though I made up my mind in what direction I was going to go, I decided to take a moment to rest before tackling the hill. I was standing and leaning against a large tree that looked to be sleeping. No leaves, no gentle swaying in the breeze as it most certainly would be in the spring and summer months. With my head tilted all the way back, I looked up at the damp bark and wondered what the tree would say if it could talk.  While admiring the majesty of such a quiet, yet living specimen, a single snowflake drifted down through the vacated branches and landed just above my right eye.  I wiped it away, glanced back to the police cars flashing their red and blue lights against all the houses, and noticed a small group of people off in the distance.  They were so far away that I could never have identified, them but I could tell that they looked out of place, and I’m not sure why I felt that way then or now.

 

There were quite a few housewives, and a couple of househusbands standing around gossiping and whatnot; but that group?  I squinted to try to count them, “Four? No five?” I said aloud.

 

“There are six! You’re missing the little guy by that tree!” a familiar voice said. I spun around fast.  Forgetting about my injured foot, I put my weight down on it.  Before I knew what happened, I was on my butt, looking up into the grinning face of Runt.

 

“RUNT!” I shouted.  He stuck a finger to his lips.

 

“Ya want to keep it down? I’m not exactly the most popular guy in this town right now!” he said, extending a hand and helping me up again.  I stood against, and held onto, the side of the tree while I lifted my sore foot up from the ground.

 

“What’s a matter with your foot? And where in the hell are your pants and shoes Spaz?” He bent down and was pulling at my sock to look at my ankle.

 

“That man over there,” I pointed to the primer painted van, “he was chasing after me and I got stuck on a fence and then chased by a dog.”

 

He moved my foot causing an overload of pain signals to race to my brain, “Ah dang Runt! That hurts!” I said, moving my foot away from him.

 

“It don’t look broke.” He said standing back up.

 

“No, I can put a little bit of weight on it.” I was giving him a dirty look for hurting me, though I know he didn’t mean too.

 

Runt leaned against the backside of the tree again so that he wasn’t as exposed to the eyes of the police, and for the first time, I noticed what he was wearing.

 

“What-you wearing?” I asked.

 

He smiled and tugged at the lapels of his grey coat, “What this?  Ah, it’s nut’n. Just clothes!”

 

“Yeah, but you look like you just stepped out of some civil war movie!”  I said.  He did, too.  All he was missing was one of those gray, funny-looking hats they also used to wear back then.

 

I could tell by his response that he was egging me on a bit, “What? Don’t you like it? I think it’s grand!” he said while petting it. He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

 

“I didn’t know you smoked.” I said, moving closer so that I too was leaning against the tree.  While he answered my question, my bowels again came to life and this time with greater urgency than the previous times.

 

“Use to, when I was your age.  Smoked a pack a day, but stopped when my Dad found out and bounced my head off the side of the garage for about ten minutes.”  He pulled one from the pack, stuck it in his mouth, and then offered me one.

 

“No thanks!” I said, not really paying a lot of attention to what he said, as I had to really concentrate on holding it in.

 

I noticed he was looking at me funny, and I didn’t want him to figure out what was bothering me, so I asked another question.  “Where you been hiding?”

 

“Here and there!” He lit his cigarette.  “Mostly been staying with some good friends.”  He drew in a deep breath of smoke.  “Yeah, that’s the stuff!” he said with an exhale.

 

He looked at the cops and all the flashing lights before saying, “Sorry about him.”

 

“Huh?” I grunted, as the pain of my bowels was getting worse.

 

Runt pointed over to the cop cars and the van, “That was old Tom. He was only supposed to keep an eye on you, but it’s not a great secret, at least to them that knew him, that he was a bit of an idiot.”  He took another hit on his cigarette. “Actually that’s being kind, he was a total ass, but he was big and strong and a hard worker.” Runt sucked on his cigarette again, “He never could follow directions.” he said, still looking toward the lights while I was staring right at him.

 

“Y-you k-knew him?” my rising fear was not well hidden.

 

“Ah Spaz! Don’t you worry ‘bout him. He’s dead now!” Runt said it so casually, you’d think he was talking about what color to paint a house and not about a man’s death.

 

“Dead?” I said, now looking toward the lights myself and biting into my bottom lip to try to draw my minds' attention away from the cramps inside my diaper.  I looked back to the peculiar group I had spotted before, but they were gone now.  With one last desperate attempt to clench my butt cheeks together, I finally lost the battle and couldn’t hold it in anymore.  With a gush, my bowels completely evacuated into my diaper.  Aside from the sound of my gasping, I don’t think I made any other sound that would make Runt think I just pooped my diaper.

 

Something funny though, I’d not realized how cold my butt was until I pooped in my diaper. I could feel the warmth spreading over my bottom, between my legs and even up on my lower back area.

 

“Yep!” he sucked hard on his cigarette before flicking it out into the street.  I prayed the smell didn’t escape my diaper.  I couldn’t look at him anymore. I was so scared he was going to find out what happened if he didn’t already know. I heard myself repeating over and over inside my head, “Please let me become invisible! Please let me become invisible!”

 

Runt continued, “Listen! There’s still some shi . . . uh sorry, some stuff going on.”

 

“Oh no, he knows!” my panic level went off the scale.

 

“Keep close to home and don’t go out by yourself anymore.” He said.  I continued looking at the flashing red and blue lights for a few seconds, and noticed that it was snowing now as I waited for Runt to say something else.  When he didn’t, I turned back to him and he was gone.

 

“Runt?” I called, but not too loudly.  I looked all around, but he’d simply vanished like a puff of smoke.

 

I leaned back against the tree, rested my head against it’s bark, closed my eyes and sighed.  “I am so dead!” I muttered to the tree. Then, looking up the hill toward Tater’s house, and feeling about as low as I could possibly feel, I pushed off from the tree and started across the street.

 

Now trying to walk up-hill was a lot harder than the flat streets I’d just left.  As I made my way up the hill on the far side of the street, I pulled the hood of my coat so that it hid even more of my face, in hope that if I was seen by anyone, namely Tater, they’d just think that I was one of a hundred other kids in the neighborhood.”

 

“Yeah, one of a hundred other kids in the neighborhood that was out on a cold, wet day for a walk, in a wet and poopy diaper.” a voice in my head said.

 

I kept my head down, eyes on the sidewalk, and tried to concentrate on walking without looking like I was limping too badly.  I was endeavoring to keep from doing anything that might attract attention to me.

 

For the most part, I was doing okay, progressing up the hill at a slow, but steady pace.  I didn’t remove my eyes from the sidewalk, didn’t attempt to glance at any of the houses, especially not Tater and Mike’s house!  However, it seemed that with each step I took, the harder it snowed.  It wasn’t a blizzard kind of snow, just a heavy, wet snow.  It was too late in the winter for another blizzard, or so I thought.

 

I’d reached the point where I was directly across the street from their house. I still don’t know why I looked, but I did.  Not a full-on staring as if I was trying to peer through the walls to see who was inside, but just a quick glance.  It looked dark and empty like no one was home.  Yet, in my minds-eye I could see everything inside, the kitchen, the living room, Mike’s room with all his models, Tater’s room with all those trophies, and the basement workout room where Tater and I had worked out together. I looked again, quickly scanning the front windows for any sign of life or light, but there was none.

 

“Why am I disappointed?” I whispered to myself as I wiped another snowflake from the end of my nose.

 

With a silent sigh, I gave a small shrug and continued walking up the hill, still glancing over my left shoulder every few steps, just to be sure the house didn’t suddenly pull itself from it’s foundation and come running up the hill after me.

 

“Simon! You’re being an idiot!” I heard a voice inside my head say.

 

After I had pasted three more houses, I stopped looking back and returned to watching the cracks of the sidewalk vanish beneath my feet. I also noticed that I was beginning to hobble more the farther I went up the hill. My legs and feet were long past cold and though my ankle hurt, it wasn’t screaming as it had been before. The sidewalk was beginning to turn white as the snow accumulated on it.

 

I stopped again, lifted my injured foot in the air and tried to rotate my foot. I don’t know why, I just did it. “Man that hurts!” I grumbled, still talking aloud to no one but myself.

 

“Why don’t you rest against that fire hydrant for a few minutes?” the voice in my head said to me.

 

“Good idea, thanks!” I spoke to the voice as if it were another person, but when I looked closer at the hydrant I saw it was glistening with the rain from earlier and snow was sticking to it as well.  Not wanting to get my backside wet, though it wouldn’t much matter since I had on a diaper, and the front of me was already wet and covered in mud, I decided not to sit on it.  I guess it was the principle of the thing.

 

So, I continued up to the hill until I reached my turnoff point. Making a left turn and crossing to the other side of the street, I stopped and looked down the hill one more time. I couldn’t really see their house from where I was standing, but I could see their front yard.  There was no change; I sighed, shrugged again, and started to take a step when I thought I heard something.

 

“What was that?” the voice in my head asked.

 

“How should I know, but I heard it too!” I answered the voice.

 

I turned around and listened but there was nothing, so I said to the voice, “I think we’re both hearing things.”

 

“That’s nothing; you’re also carrying on a conversation with yourself.” The voice in my head said.

 

I shook my head hard, “Come on Simon! Get a hold of yourself!” I gave my face a hard slap with my right hand and then another with my left hand. “Snap out of it!”

 

Almost as if the wind were talking to me now I heard, “Ssssimonnnnnn” It seemed to hang in the air as if it had come from a great distance.

 

Finally, I spotted someone all the way down at the bottom of the hill I’d just climbed. Whoever it was, they sure looked small, and not because they were so far away.  Whoever it was had something in their hand and was waving it high overhead, “A flag maybe?”  I thought.

 

“Why would they be waving a flag?” the voice in my head spoke up again.

 

“Oh shut up you!” I said giving my head a firm thump.

 

I heard the small person call my name again and was sure now that was who’d called before. It wasn’t until he was halfway up the hill before I realized it was Jasper Hawkins, Bull’s little brother, and it wasn’t a flag he was waving in the air . . . it was my pants!

 

Forgetting momentarily about my sore ankle, I took a half a step, but stopped when the pain shot all the way up my leg and into my side.  Since I couldn’t go to him, I waved.  A few seconds later he was in front of me, bent over, hands on knees, and gasping for air.  Without looking up, he stretched out his right arm to hand me my pants.

 

Gratefully, and not even thinking how he ended up with them in the first place, I took them and started putting them on.  I looked at my legs as I was pulling my pants up.  They were nearly ghostly white from the cold.  I’d just got my pants zipped up, when Jasper leaned back and put his hand on my chest for support.

 

Still breathing hard, he tried to speak, “Dang” gasp, “I been” gasp, “looking ev,” gasp “rywhere” gasp, “for you!” gasp-pant-gasp.  “I seen you” gasp, “go over our fence” gasp.

 

While he was talking, I notice that in his other hand, he was holding my shoes.  He saw me looking at them, “Oh here” gasp, “you go.”  He said, handing them to me.

 

“Your fence?” I said, looking around for a place to sit while I put my shoes on.

 

Jasper reached out and took one of my shoes back away from me, “Here, let me!” he panted as he knelt down in front of me.  “I was by the backdoor, letting our dog out to go potty when you fell over our fence.  I didn’t know it was you until you were running away again.”

 

He finished tying my shoe for me and reached up to take the other one, but he stopped and looked around, “Man, something stinks around here!”

 

I could have died at that instant. Jasper stood up, looked at the bottoms of both of his shoes to be sure he didn’t step in something. “Man that really sticks!” he said fanning his hand in front of his face. A plethora of emotions were swimming around inside of me. I felt humiliated for crapping myself, embarrassed that Jasper could smell it, and angry to learn that it was his dog that nearly killed me!

 

He reached for my other shoe again, but I didn’t let go of it as I timidly asked, “That was your dog?  Ah, your backyard?”

 

“Yeah!  But if I’d known you was going to be coming over our fence, I’d never have let her out!”  He said, still holding onto my shoe.

 

I was about to ask, “Why do you have a man-eating dog?” but he asked his question first, “Say, why did you come flying over our fence anyway?”

 

I let him have my other shoe.  He helped me get it on and tied it for me as well.  As he stood back up, I said. “Thanks!”

 

“That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!  Bull saw it too.  He fell over one of the dinning room chairs ‘cause he was laughing so hard.”  Jasper was smiling and trying very hard not to laugh right in my face.

 

I rubbed the top of my head, “Well, I didn’t think it was very funny!”

 

“Trust me, it was!” Jasper accidentally let a laugh escape and quickly said, “Sorry!” but he was looking like he was about to throw up if he didn’t let it all out soon.

 

“So why did you come over our fence like that?” he asked again.

 

With a very heavy sigh, I told him about the man in the rusty, primer-colored van, and how he’d chased me, trying to catch me.

 

“Oh, is that what all those police were doing?” he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

 

“Yeah!  I guess they caught him!” I said, but I didn’t tell him about Runt or that Runt had told me that the man was now dead.

 

“You think he’s the one that took all them kids on TV?” Jasper asked.

 

I wrapped my arms around myself. Funny, when I had no pants or shoes I didn’t feel as cold as I did now that I was fully dressed again. Maybe it was because I’d stopped moving and the cold was getting to me.

 

“You look pretty cold!” Jasper said.

 

“I am!” I answered back.

 

“I can’t believe you walked all the way here in the snow with no pants and shoes and wearing a diaper!” He giggled when he said the word diaper.

 

I felt myself blush which was good, because it helped to warm my face.

 

“Hey, I have a secret fort not too far from here, if you want to go there until you warm up!”  Jasper asked.

 

For several seconds I was tempted to go with him, but I figured I was already in enough trouble.  I'd better not make things worse for myself.  If I had gone with him, he was sure to find out that I was the one that smelled so bad because I had a load in my diaper.

 

“I better get home.  My Dad’s going to kill me the way it is!”  I said, pointing in the direction that I was about to go.

 

“Yeah, it’s snowing pretty hard anyway!  I should get back home too! Can I email you?” he asked, which I found somewhat odd.

 

“Ah, Yeah!  Maybe we can chat online later.  That is, if I don’t end up grounded from my computer again!”  I kicked at the snow on the sidewalk.

 

“Okay and I’m glad that man didn’t get you too!  Oh and sorry my dog scared you! She’s really nice normally! I think you just scared her!” Jasper said.

 

“I scared her?” I thought, but didn’t say it aloud.

 

“Okay, I’ll see you online!” Jasper said.  As he turned to go, he stopped again and said, “Man there must be a pile of dog poop right here somewhere!  Sure does stink!” and then took off running at full speed back down the hill.

 

I watched until he was out of sight, then turned and limped the rest of the way home, all the while dreading what Dad was going to say and do when he got his hands on me.  When I walked in the front door, I fully expected to be greeted with a flurry of yelling, but that’s not what happened at all.  I stepped in the front door to find the house was quiet. I was about to go limping across the living room, but one look down at myself, at the mud that was all over me, and I knew that Mom would kill me if I tracked mud all over the carpet.

 

I stood quiet for a second, trying to think how I could get to the back of the house without risking making a mess.  I thought about stripping myself down right there at the door, but two things stopped me.  The fact that I could only strip as far as my diaper because it was filled with poop, and secondly, even if I did strip to my diaper, my legs, feet, and diaper, were still covered in mud.  Resigned to needing help, I decided to announce my homecoming.

 

“Dad?”  I called out, but there was no response.

 

“Dad, I’m home!”  I called again and listened for any noise at all.

 

I could see the glow of light coming from around the corner where Dad’s home office, was so I knew he must be here.  Plus, he’d never leave me home alone.  Then the thought occurred to me that maybe he was down at the bottom of our hill, watching the police bag up that man that had chased me.  Maybe he thought the man had captured me after all.

 

Daaaad!!!” I screamed,  and he finally emerged from his office.

 

When he saw me, he got the oddest look on his face, as if he was seeing a ghost or something.

 

I was so relieved to see him walk around the corner, “Oh there you are! I thought you . . . ah weren’t here!” I switched what I was going to say at the last second.

 

Dad just continued to look at me with that odd expression.  He didn’t look mad or angry, more like he was surprised to see me.

 

“What?” I said not sure what his look meant.

 

Pointing toward the back of the house, he said, “I thought you already came in.”

 

I shook my head ever so slightly, but didn’t speak.

 

“But I thought you came in when it started snowing?” he said, still with that same expression.

 

I shook my head again and said, “I just now came in.”

 

“I thought you were in your closet. I was even in there talking to you!” he said, pointing toward my room again.

 

I pointed to the front door that was still standing open. “I came in, just now!”

 

He scratched his head, “Well I’ll be! I thought you were mad about something again and that’s why you didn’t answer me!” He smiled and started toward me.  “You were really outside all this time?” he asked.  I was so relieved that he wasn’t mad, but I was still a little afraid he was going to get mad!

 

Finally, noticing the mud he asked, “What happened to you?”

 

In the space of just a single second, the entire episode from the moment I stepped outside our front door to the point where I stepped back into our house all played out in my mind. I was about to tell him everything, about the tall man, the van, the dog, the old man with the cat and books, about seeing and talking to Runt, about Jasper bringing my pants and shoes, and everything else but for some reason, I didn’t. I only shrugged and said, “I fell down!”

 

“It looks like you fell down about twenty times!” he said, holding his hands out and acting as if he didn’t want to touch me.  “Wow, Simon! You are a mess! I’ve never understood how you can get so dirty.”

 

I looked down at myself again and noticed the stark contrast between my muddy coat and my clean pants. Dad noticed too.

 

“How’d you managed to get so muddy on top? Where you walking on your hands?” and he gave me a half smile.

 

Sometimes, when you don’t have a good excuse, the best thing to do is just keep your mouth shut.  So, that’s just what I did. I sealed my lips together and shrugged again.

 

“Well, lets get you out of those wet and muddy things, and into the tub before your mother comes home and sees you.”  Dad said, finally kneeling before me and helping me with my coat.

 

“Oh boy! Did you have another accident?” he said covering his nose and mouth.

 

I don’t know why, but I started to cry. I didn’t want too, it just started and I couldn’t stop.

 

“It’s okay Simon! You don’t have to cry. We’ll get you all cleaned up again.” Dad said, while taking off my coat.  He continued to strip me down and when he took off my pants, he said, “How’d you get your legs and diaper all muddy but not your pants?” Then he said, “No wait!  I don’t want to know!” I glanced up to see him to see he was still smiling.

 

Once he had me down to just my diaper, he picked me up, carried me to his bathroom, and deposited me into the bathtub.  He took off my diaper.  Boy, the smell was strong enough to take down a bull-elephant!  He turned on the water and left me to rinse while he took my diaper to the trash, and took my wet and muddy things to the laundry room.

 

When he returned, he helped me out of my body armor, which somehow I’d gotten mud into, way up underneath it.

 

“Had I known you were going to be playing in some mud hole I would have just clad you in a trash bag before sending you out to play!” Dad said, as he used his hand to remove the mud from my skin.

 

“Can you turn around and bend over for me so we can get your backside clean?” he asked and I obeyed. I used the wall to brace myself and bent over, allowing the water to run over my back and bottom.  The warm water felt so good as it flowed down through my crack. Dad reached in with the washcloth and scrubbed that area clean for me.

 

“Did you have your pants off out there?” he asked.  “Your knees are all scratched up!”  He noticed the palms of my hands.  “I guess you did fall down.” He said as they too where all skinned up.

 

“What did you do with your gloves?” he asked.

 

“My gloves?” I thought. I’d not even realized I’d lost them. In fact, I had forgot that I’d even been wearing them when I left the house. I tried to think when the last time I remembered having them on, was but I couldn’t think of when that was.

 

“I-I-I don’t know.” I answered truthfully.

 

He was carefully washing my chest and stomach and reached up to hold my right arm to help steady me.  He took hold right at my elbow, and a pain shot through my arm.

 

“Ouch!” I said and jerked my arm away from him.

 

“What? Did you hurt your elbow too?”  Dad asked, and then added, “I thought I heard someone telling you to take it easy before you went outside.”

 

“Actually you said not to do anything that hurt my ribs, and I didn’t hurt them at all.” I said without thinking.

 

“Yeah, but you managed to hurt the rest of your body!”  Dad said playfully spanking my bottom.

 

When Dad washed my hair it hurt a lot too, but I didn’t let on.  I could tell he wasn’t too happy that I’d come home so banged up and I was still expecting him to say something, or punish me somehow.  Also, I still kept wanting to tell him about everything that happened, but at the same time, I didn’t.  That doesn’t make sense, but that is how I was feeling.

 

When Dad was satisfied that I was once again squeaky clean, he helped me out of the tub and dried me off thoroughly before taking my armor and washing it out in the tub too.

 

While he was cleaning my armor, he left me standing beside him with the towel rapped around me like a cloak. Just to see that everything was still okay I tried to move my upper body a little and felt little twitches of pain, which I counted as a good thing.  Little twitches are better than stabbing pain!

 

Dad handed me my two pieces of armor and then picked me up and carried me to my bathroom where he had me sit on the toilet while he sprayed some liquid Band-Aid on my hands and knees.  Boy it stung like fire, but Dad didn’t have any sympathy for my whining.

 

“It burns! It burns!” I cried.

 

“That means it’s working.” Dad said.

 

A few seconds later, the burning subsided, and all pain faded away.  Dad was reaching around me to swoop me up in his arms again when the phone rang.

 

“Think you can get to your room without this?” he pointed to my armor.

 

“Dad!  I’m not paralyzed!” I complained.

 

“Just be careful! I’ll be right in.” He ran to get the phone and I made my way back to my room, sat down on the side of my bed, and waited for him to return.

 

 

Next Installment:

Chapter 4 – Part 2 – Wednesday, March 03, 2004 – The Riddle Stone

 

 

** For the latest news on how each installment is coming along as well as answers to questions asked by other readers and so much more, visit me at www.talkhard.5u.com.  As always, your thoughts matter to me very, very much, so please send any comments, questions, suggestions, or criticism to me at:  [email protected] and I promise that I will reply personally to everyone that takes the time to write to me!  **