This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story,
Simon’s Journal Thirteen Days – The First Crusade
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 - 5

PART 2 – Thursday, March 05, 2004 – Treasures for the Taking

We made it to just across from Marshall Ave, which is my street, before we finally came to a stop. Putting distance between the old man’s house and us made me feel more at ease again. I also found it peculiar that I would get so frightened this time when yesterday the same house seemed to be the only place to find refuge.

“Looks like the plow truck came down Marshall after we crossed it.” I said to BJ as the two of us looked down at the now cleared and salted road that lay about three feet below us.

“Ah you’re kidding?” BJ playfully ribbed me, “What was your first clue?”

Since I had my arms wrapped firmly around him, I used the opportunity to give him the Heimlich.

“Houwa!” BJ groaned and leaned forward against the handlebars. After a moment to catch his breath he started laughing and said, “Simon you nearly made me puke!”

Playing the idiot I said, “What? I’m just holding on so that I don’t fell off and get lost in the snow.”

“Do that again and you can walk home!” BJ threatened but I knew he was only kidding.

“You know what?” I asked.

“What?” he answered still giggling.

“I don’t want to go back home now.” I said.

“Okay, where you want to go then?” he asked.

“Let’s go see if we can find a way into the park.” I said.

“Alright, hang on!” and after carefully maneuvering down one side, crossing the street and then back up the other bank of snow, BJ gunned the engine and we raced up my street. As we passed the house, dad was still working to get our driveway cleared. I saw he had Aunt Catharine's car cleared off and dug out but was still working on the front part of the drive way and hadn’t even come close to reaching the sidewalk yet. BJ slowed down a little and we both gave dad a one handed wave while still holding tight with our other, me to BJ, BJ to the snowmobile. Dad waived back as we passed him; whether he was smiling or not, I couldn’t tell because he had a scarf wrapped around his face so that only his nose and eyes were exposed.

We were back at the fallen tree moments later and it was only when we stopped that we realized that it had stopped snowing again.

“Hey, it stopped snowing again!” I said and BJ started to say something but I gave his stomach another tight squeeze, only not as hard as I had with the Heimlich. It was enough to make him laugh; knowing that I already knew what he was going to say.

He slowly moved the snowmobile from one end of the tree to the other, “Well I’ll never get this through.” BJ said patting the snowmobile with his hand.

“Yea, too bad you don’t have a pair of snow shoes too. We could go play mountain men or something.” I said and no sooner was the words out of my mouth then the thought hit me that dad might let us use his makeshift snowshoes.

After telling BJ my idea, the two of us sped back to my house where we found dad dumping more gas into the blower. Dad wasn’t wearing his snowshoes and after some convincing that neither of us was cold, he let us have them.

We then road back to BJ’s house, put the snowmobile back into the garage and were about to strap on the snow shoes when his mom made us come in for some hot cider to warm our insides. However, since we were all bundled up and didn’t want to have to take off all our stuff and put it back on again, she surrendered and let us drink it, while standing inside the garage with his dad.

Standing there in the garage, I kind of felt awkward; I felt like the big pink elephant in the room that no one was willing to admit was there. I’m sure it was my imagination in overdrive, but I felt like they both knew I was wearing a diaper but were trying not to let on. In reality, aside from the way I walked, I doubted anyone could notice as long as I kept on my coat. Therefore, I made it a point not to move around, but stand in one spot the entire time. In addition, to try to easy my anxieties, I tried to start some small talk. I looked around the garage and spotted Mr. Otteranski’s pool table that occupied one whole side of the garage.

“Mr. Otteranski, I thought you said no one was allowed to put stuff on the pool table?” I asked because there were boxes, an old computer monitor and a baby’s car seat setting on it; not to mention the half dozen or so wooden studs that I knew were probably left over from when Mr. Otteranski had remodeled their upstairs bathroom this past summer.

Mr. Otteranski gave me a funny grimace and as he looked over at the table BJ gave me an elbow right in the chest. Not hard and had he been thinking I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it but even so, since I was wearing my armor, coat and all them layers of clothes, I hardly felt it but it was enough to get the message to me that I should drop the subject.

BJ downed his cider quickly and then said, “I’ll be right back, got an idea!” and was gone before I could ask him what it was.

Consequently, I was left alone with Mr. Otteranski, which wasn’t such a big deal. I mean, I’ve been alone with one or both of BJ’s parents, many times before, but this time was different. Not just because I was wearing a diaper, but because as I stood there, still sipping at my cider, I felt the warm sensation that told me I’d just flooded my diaper and if that had not been bad enough, I felt my face flush hot as well.

Mr. Otteranski noticed my face turning read and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Huh?” I shot back nervously.

“You all right?” he continued to ask.

“Uh, yea fine!” I said too fast and again sipped at my mug. I was so glad Mr. Otteranski didn’t push the subject any farther and a few minutes later BJ returned with his school backpack strapped to his back.

“What’s in the pack?” I asked curiously.

“You’ll see!” he said picking up dad’s homemade snowshoes and started to strap them on to his boots.

Mr. Otteranski was nice enough to help me with mine and though I was nervous about letting him get that close to my diaper, I was sure if I refused his help, he’d for sure suspect something.

In no time, the two of us were ready for a winter adventure. I quickly finished the last of my cider as Mr. Otteranski stepped out into the open, pulled out another cigarette and lit it. He was careful, as he always was, not to let the smoke blow my way. He’d seen one of my bad asthma attacks before and knew that cigarette smoke could trigger an attack pretty darn fast.

After telling him where we were going he said, “You two keep out of trouble and if it starts snowing hard again, I want you both back here pronto!”

“Mr. Otteranski can you call my dad’s cell phone and let him know where I’m at?” I asked.

“Sure!” he said pulling his own cell phone from his coat pocket. “What’s the number again?”

“555-0690.” BJ said before I could even open my mouth.

“No, that’s my house number!” I said giving BJ a backhanded swat that made a satisfying thumping sound against his heavy winter coat.

BJ laughed, “Oh yea!”

“It’s 555-4993” I told Mr. Otteranski.

“All right, you boys be careful and remember what I said ‘cause you don’t want me to have to come get you!” he warned as we started hiking toward the park.

We both knew, all too well, what Mr. Otteranski was implying. In the early part of last summer, BJ and I had been out playing and lost track of time. We were late getting home by over three hours later then we were supposed to. Mr. Otteranski had not only given BJ two very hard swats on the back of his pants right there on the front porch for the whole world to see, he’d done the same to me. Let me tell you, I didn’t care for that any at all. Moreover, when I got home, Mr. Otteranski had already phoned my parents and they both threaten to whip me again and both BJ and I ended up being put on restriction for a week. I’m sure BJ has long since forgotten about that spanking, but I will never forget it as long as I live.

“Sure thing!” BJ said giving his dad a wave.

“Yes sir!” I said too while leading the way and trying my best to walk as normal as possible and not let BJ know I was wearing a now, wet diaper.

As we continued to walk, I got lost in my thoughts and it took BJ hitting me with a snowball on the back on the head to snap me out of it.

“Did you hear anything I said?” he asked sounding more then a little annoyed.

“Sorry Beej, I was just thinking about something!” I said reaching the halfway point to the park.

“Yea well I have been talking to you since we left my house!” BJ said.

I stopped and turned around expecting to see him mad but instead he was smiling.

“What?” I asked.

“You were thinking about Maaarrrrryyyy!” he accused.

“I was not! Well, I am now, thank you very much!” I said and pushed him.

However, my slight push had more of an impact then either of us expected. BJ tried to take a step backward but his left snowshoe acted more like an anchor and he started toppling over. Knowing how deep the snow was I tried to grab him so that he wouldn’t end up buried but didn’t realize that by putting more of my weight toward the front of my snowshoe would cause it to dig into the snow. Before either of us could do anything else we were both laying so deep in the snow that we couldn’t see each other though I could hear him suffering from a fit of laughter.

It was so quiet outside that BJ’s giggles seemed that much funnier and it made me laugh all the harder. By the time the two of us managed to get some control over our giggles, a good five-minute or more had passed.

From within his snowy grave BJ asked through his giggles, “Oh man that was funny! So, how we supposed to get out of here?”

However, I’d been up to more mischief and had made a snowball that I lobbed up into the air and it came right down into BJ’s whole almost as if I’d packed a guidance chip inside it.

“HEY! I’m covered with enough snow thank you very much!” BJ laughingly complained.

Somehow I managed to get myself turned over and my legs tucked under me so that I was able to at least get up to a short kneeling position and that allowed my head to only just come out of the hole my body had made in the snow.

“I’m nearly up!” I announced.

“I can’t even move!” BJ complained and then started giggling again.

“Stop laughing! I’m trying to get up and you are not helping!” I made another snowball and was able to send it down into BJ’s whole with more force then the first one had.

“Ahhhh!” BJ groaned, “Right in the jewels!”

“Really?” I asked.

“Na, missed by a mile!” he said and I could tell he was lying now. “You throw another snow ball and you’re going to die!”

“I been mostly dead before; it’s not all they make it out to be!” I joked stealing a line from some movie I couldn’t remember the title of then or now.

“I’m going to have to take off my snowshoes to be able to get out of here.” I said and after wiggling around a bit I added, “I think the snow’s deeper here then I thought it was!”

“Boy you’re three for three today Sherlock!” BJ laughed.

“Keep it up and I’ll leave you in there!” I threatened.

“Just remember that I wouldn’t be in here if it weren’t for someone pushing me!” BJ shouted back, still laughing.

“I wonder who that could have been.” I said while trying to get my snowshoes off.

I stopped and popped my head out of the whole again to look where he was and saw that he must have fallen to the left whereas I fell, sort of, to the right and forward. I also figured that I must have somehow turned myself as I fell, because I’d ended up on my back.

“You know what’s funny?” I asked.

“What?” BJ said sounding like someone was down in his hole with him and was tickling him.

“There is a perfect silhouette of our body in the snow, like happens to Wild E. Coyote when he falls off a cliff.” I said which sent me into another fit of giggles.

“Okay, okay! Stop! I have a question!” BJ yelled out of his whole.

“NO! I’m not out of my whole yet!” I said.

Through his laughter he said, “No not that, I was going to ask why we were walking over the snow when we could have been walking down the cleared road?”

“Because mountain men don’t have roads!” I said and threw another snowball down at him.

“Alright, enough of that and get me out of here!” BJ screamed which split through the cold late morning air.

“You need help there?” a man’s voice asked and I had to twist my head around like an own to be able to see who and where the voice was coming from.

There was a man standing in the street, clad in dirty and tattered overalls, a stocking cap, leather gloves and no coat. Behind him was a not old but defiantly not new pickup truck. I’d not even heard the truck coming thanks to our laughter.

“Yes please!” I said and added, “I almost got my snow shoes off by my friend is still stuck.” and I pointed downward toward the impression in the snow.

The man was trying not to laugh as he reached into the bed of his truck and pulled out a bundle of yellow and black rope. “You alright in there kid?” he called.

“Oh yea, just having a grand old time!” BJ sent back out of his snowy grave.

“Beej, be nice! The man is trying to help us!” I scolded him.

“Sorry!” BJ sent out next and the man had totally given up trying to hide his amusement at our predicament.

After taking several giant steps from the street and into the snow the man stopped and said, “I’m going to toss you the end of this rope so I can pull you out of there.

A minute or so later BJ was out and the man tossed me the rope next however, when I was nearly out of my whole I put my hand down on the snow and instead of being able to pull myself up I fell back into the snow head first. That was when I remembered that the houses on this side of this street all had driveways that went down to the garage and was about four feet lower then the yards.

From outside the snow I heard the unmistakable sound of BJ laughing his stupid head off!

“You okay kid?” the man called out.

“DO I LOOK ALRIGHT?" I shouted and tried to stop myself from laughing too.

“Simon! Be nice that man’s just trying to help!” BJ said mocking me with my own words.

Finally, after rescuing the two of us we found out that the man lived here and was just coming home from work where he’d got snowed in there last night. His name was Rudolph Nader and he thanked us for the laughs before we thanked him for saving us. It wouldn’t be until later that I’d realize that I already knew him, well more accurately, my dad knew him, I only knew of him.

BJ and I used our gloved hands to brush each other free of snow, mostly anyway and we kept busting into giggles every few seconds. When we were back on our hike, down on the road of course, the two of us got to laughing, hard-as-ever, as we talking about the entire ordeal.

“I didn’t have any idea you was so deep in the snow!” I said.

“I thought you were in as deep as I was! I couldn’t figure out how you were getting those snowballs to hit me every time!” BJ said, “And when you went in head first I thought I was going to pee my pants!”

BJ suddenly stopped and turned around, “Hey, you didn’t get hurt did ya? I mean your ribs?”

I looked down at the front of my coat and said with no small amount of surprise, “No, not at all!”

“Well that’s something then.” BJ said and started walking toward the park again.

We were making better time down on the street and had eventually made it to the fallen tree again. This time however, there was a police cruiser sitting in front of the house but no officer was in sight.

“Must be inside the house?” I said.

“Yea.” Was all BJ said in return.

“Hang on a second.” BJ said as he brushed the snow away from a spot on the tree so that he could lean against it to readjust one of his makeshift snowshoes. We then walked around the fallen tree, having to be careful not to fall in the hole left when the huge root system was ripped from the ground. We then squeezed between the tree branches and the metal pole that was once the gate into the park but now looked more like an oversized bent drinking straw.

I wasn’t surprised to see that the park looked completely frozen in time. There were no tracks—human, animal, or machine anywhere. It appeared that we were the first persons to enter the park today.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s in your pack?” I asked and had to talk a little louder then normal because we were walking about ten feet apart just in case one of us were to go down again, the other could then add in rescue. That had been BJ’s idea and I went along with it because it made perfect sense to me.

“Lunch!” BJ called back over his shoulder.

“Lunch?” I asked in surprise.

“Yea, mom made it for us real fast! Just sandwiches, cookies and stuff.” BJ added.

“That was good thinking!” I said after a few steps.

“You getting hungry yet?” he asked.

I stopped walking so that I could concentrate on my stomach for a moment.

“Well maybe a little, but I can wait a while.” I said and then added, “How about we go up to those trees, maybe the snow won’t be so deep there and we can find a clearing.”

“Yea sounds good!” BJ agreed and redirected his steps to head for the west end of the park.

We’d played near there before, mostly because the running and jogging track went by there but neither of us had ever gone exploring too deep into the trees. It wasn’t because we were scared or anything like that, it just never occurred to us to do so. There is tons of stuff to do at the sports park during the spring and summer so looking for stuff to do isn’t really needed.

Five minutes later, we reached the point in the park that we both stopped and BJ said, “I think the track is right under us now.”

I looked around and saw the top of one of the exercise signs sticking out of the snow about six inches.

“Snow must be deeper here!” I said still standing at a distance from BJ.

“Yea, so don’t fall!” BJ joked.

Right at the tree line, the snow tapered down to a foot or less deep. We quickly found what must have been a path through the trees and bushes as it was fairly easy to maneuver through.

“Beej?” I said.

“Yea?” he said stopping and turning.

“Let’s go up that way.” I said pointing up a hill within the small forest of trees.

“Okay.” BJ agreed and then asked, “You want to lead the way for a while?”

“Na, you’re doing great!” I said.

About half way up the hill I started to feel the pressure within me telling me that I was going to need to poop soon but I felt I could hold it for a while, least until we got back home. For the briefest of moments, the thought crossed my mind of what happened yesterday but I soon forgot about it as we continued our ascent. The hill turned out to be steeper and higher then either of us thought at first, but we eventually made it to the top and what we found there excited the adventure in us both.

“Whoa, look at that!” I exclaimed.

“Yea man!” BJ concurred.

We’d emerged from the woods into a clearing where the snow again was deep. In the center of the clearing was an old weathered barn that looked to have been there a hundred years or more.

We walked all the way around the barn several times as we explored the property in our snowshoes. I was curious, but there didn’t seem to be a way to get in the barn, as well as there didn’t seem to be any road or path that lead up to the barn. Deep snowdrifts blocked the doors on the lower level and also those on the end, facing west. On the south-side, facing a denser crop of trees that kept the barn hidden from the soccer fields down in the park below, icicles had formed a glittering curtain, adding a thick glaze to the drifts that blocked that doorway. On the end of the barn, closest to the area we’d emerged from, the huge double doors were snowed completely shut.

We both felt like we just had to get inside the barn and look around. Using my hands, I began to slowly dig the drift away from a smaller entrance to the right of the main doors and after a few more minutes exploring, BJ joined me in digging out the door. Once the snow was cleared, it was easy to enter because the little door swung inward.

The door opened into a room that was about ten-feet-wide and twelve-feet-long. Two small frost covered windows faced the north, each covered with spider webs and each loaded with last summer’s harvest of flies, moths and other unfortunate insects. Below the windows, there was a narrow workbench that would have been about waist high on a grown man. Nails driven into the wall around the windows served as hangers for a pair of pliers, a bent screwdriver, a hammer with black tape on its handle, and some small coils of wire. Some nails and screws and a few old hinges were scattered across the bench. Everything was rusty and covered in spider webs.

On the wall, opposite the bench, was a row of twelve wooden pegs spaced about six inches apart, almost too high for either of us to reach. From one of them, hung some long strips of leather.

“Part of an old harness.” I thought aloud noting the fact that they were dark and stiff from the sweat of horses. While looking at the leather strips, I had remembered what a room like this was called, “It’s a tack room. I read about it in a really good book last summer called, ‘Cowboy’s Don’t Cry’.” I said to BJ.

“Oh yea, you told me about that book.” He answered as we continued to explore.

Three rusty horseshoes were stacked on another peg. BJ stood on his tiptoes to lift one of them off. He examined it and then handed it to me before reaching up and taking one down for himself. It had a nice feel in my gloved hand, heavy and solid, and seeing Beej pocket his, I too slipped mine into my coat pocket.

However, the best thing we had found was in the corner of the room, next to the crude plank door that opened into the rest of the barn. At first we’d both thought it was a broom handle or a piece of pipe. I went over, picked it up and took it over to the widows for a better look.

“Hey! I have seen one of these before!” BJ said.

Someone had made a didgeridoo from a straight young tree. It was about an inch and a half wide at the top, and widened perfectly to about twice that width at the bottom. A bunch of painstakingly intricate lines and images had been painted on the outside. The top of it had been rounded over and carefully smoothes, and in the light I could see the whittled cuts left by a knife. Six inches below the top end, the end you’re supposed to blow into, there was just enough space for a hand to grasp hold—and a series of little ridges had been cut, ringing the tube. I pulled the glove off my right hand to see how the grip felt. It was just right.

“That’s just about the coolest thing.” BJ said.

“Yea man!” I said flipping it around and putting it up to my eye. “Ah yuck! It’s not so nice inside!”

“What? Let me see.” BJ said pulling the didgeridoo out of my fingers.

“Hey, don’t be so grabby!” I complained.

“Just need to push a long stick through it is all!” BJ said looking down into it and see that it was packed with spider webs and dead bugs.

“Yea, got a stick that long?” I said grabbing it back from him.

“Dunno, let’s look around for something.” BJ said.

Opening the inner door, we stepped out onto the main floor of the barn. A row of small square windowpanes above the wide doors on either end of the bar let in some light, and we could see fine.

Looking up, the first thing that caught my eye was a long rope. It hung fro the highest beam in the center of the barn, and a loop had been tied in the end that dangled a foot or so above the floor. BJ and I trotted over, but since my hands were still holding the didgeridoo, BJ jumped up, grabbed hold of the rope and pulled; testing to make sure it would hold his weight.

”Don’t get dead!” I said which was something we jokingly said to one another whenever one of us was about to do something monumentally stupid, dangerous or both.

“What? Me die? Never going to happen!” BJ said tugging on the rope again and giggling. “I don’t know about you, but I, for one, plan to live forever, maybe even longer!”

“Famous last words.” I said softly and taking another step backward.

“What was that?” BJ said.

“Oh nothing.” I said with a fake cough.

BJ tugged again and I for one didn’t really doubt its strength, since the rope was almost as thick as the climbing rope in our gym back at school, but I did doubt BJ’s ability to hang onto it. Running forward with the loop in one hand, BJ pulled the rope back as far as he could and let it go. It swung out, and when it came back, he was ready. He grabbed hold and ran with it shouting, “To infinity and beyond!” then at the very last second, leaped up and clamped his legs around the big knot above the loop. The momentum swept him forward in a long slow arc, and then back and forth like a pendulum. After a few more swings, he dismounted and we moved on.

“Man that was fun! You should have tired it!” BJ said.

“No way! I’d hurt myself for sure!” I said.

The haylofts were about fifteen feet off the floor on either side of the open central area. To me they looked like enormous shelves built out from the sidewalls. Craning my neck to see better, I thought aloud, “Wonder how you get up there?” immediately BJ said, “Right there!”

I looked to where his finger was pointing and saw that the floor of each loft was supported by a row of massive wooden posts that were spaced about every twenty feet, and on several of the posts, boards and crosspieces had been nailed to make simple box ladders.

Twenty seconds after this discovery we were up one of the ladders and walking cautiously in the north hayloft, tapping ahead of us with the didgeridoo to be sure the boards were safe. When I got to the wall at the west end of the barn, I turned around and looked back. The inside of the barn stretched out in front of me, almost like it was a diagram on a huge piece of paper. The angle support beams arched away from me, the roof sloped gracefully from the peak, the horizontal and vertical supports met at perfect intervals—it all looked so solid, so permanent.

In the corner, under the south hayloft, BJ found a small sleigh, and next to it, a stack of wooden carriage wheels. I found the trapdoors that the farmer had used for dropping hay down to the ground level for the cows and horses. We had also explored the maze of stalls and pens on the ground floor, noticing that the smell of the animals was definitely stronger down there.

Each place we explored we found new things and added them to our collection in the tack room. I found a rusty shovel with a carved wooden handle, which I used to jamb down inside the didgeridoo to clean it out. Apparently there was more then just spiders and bugs that used to call it home as what look to at one time been a mouse or rats nest came out of it too. BJ found a pitchfork with a missing tine, which he was pretending was a spear, but stopped when he came within about two feet of running me through with it. We also found a small hatchet, a wooden bucket, an assortment of bottles and jars, a short carved sickle, a coffee can full of square nails, an old-fashioned grinding wheel with a broken foot pedal, a length of iron chain, four long wrenches—one of which the end was broken off it. We continued searching and came up with a kerosene lantern, and the last thing was a foot-shaped anvil that BJ said was used to repair shoes or boots.

“Pretty nice little treasure?” BJ said.

“Yea!” I answered back as I tried to get the didgeridoo to make its music.

“You sound like a dieing elephant!” BJ kidded.

“Well let’s see you try?” I said trusting it at him.

“No way! I’m not putting that thing to my mouth! What if rats peed on it?” he said and just the thought made me want to puke.

BJ laughed, “You’re so stupid sometimes you know that?”

“You could have warned me!” I complained wiping my mouth feverishly on my sleeve.

“Na, then I could laugh at you now!” He said picking up the hatchet and trying to chop one of the posts of the barn.

“Don’t do that!” I complained.

“What?” BJ said.

“You’ll bring this place down on top of us!” I said.

“Will not!” BJ said but he didn’t chop any more.

“You ready to eat yet?” BJ asked.

“Past ready!” I said putting down the didgeridoo.

“Let’s go eat up in the hay lofts.” BJ said.

“Yea good idea!” I said.

“Race you up!” he said.

I waited until he was nearly to the top of one of the box ladders before shouting; “First one to the top has to kiss Missy Harpo on the lips!”

BJ froze suddenly as if I’d just shot him with a freeze ray. “Ah man that’s just disgusting! I wouldn’t kiss that bow-wow with your lips!”

I’d climbed up one of the other ladders attached to one of the other polls and was just about even with BJ when I said. “Alright then, last one to the top has to kiss her!” and I’d beat him only by a single second.

I was laughing as BJ stood there looking mean, “You’re a dirty cheat!” he said.

“Yea well least I don’t have to kiss Missy Harpo!” I said in a singsong voice.

“Take it back!” BJ said pulling off his backpack.

“BJ loves Missy! BJ loves Missy!” I said dancing in a circle.

“Take it back!” BJ said again reaching down into his pack.

I made kissing sounds in the air.

“Last chance! Take it back or else!” BJ said and in retrospect, I think it would have been wise for me to stop then but I didn’t.

Acting like BJ now I said, “Oh Missy I love you so much! I want to marry you and have hundreds of puppies!”

Before I knew what happened I was hit right in the middle of my face with a snowball.

“Uhhh! Where’d you get a snow ball up here?” I complained trying to wipe the snow from my eyes.

“I had it in my backpack ever since we went down in the snow. I was saving it!” BJ said standing there with a second snowball in his hand and his arm cocked and ready to fire off a second round. “Take it back!”

“Alright! I surrender! I take it back! I take it all back!” I said shielding my face just incase he decided to launch the icy missile just out of spite.

“That’s better!” He said lowering his arm and dropping the snowball over the end of the loft.

“You don’t have any more in there do you?” I said pointing to his pack.

He thrust his hand into his pack again, “You mean like this one!” He said standing up quickly and pretending to throw another one.

He’d achieved the reaction he’d hoped for by pretending to have another snowball. I’d ducked down and shielded as much of my head as I could but when the impact never came I said, “You’re a jerk!”

“Yea but I’m a jerk with food!” BJ added pulled a plastic bag filled with two sandwiches from his pack.

“Foooood!” he said holding it up as if asking the barn god’s to bless it.

I dropped to my knees and began to bow like a servant to a king, “Oh wonderful bringer of the food! Please show pity on this your humble servant for I have not had food nor water for many days and have journeyed far in search of thee!”

“You watch too much TV!” BJ said handing me a sandwich.

“Want an apple?” he asked.

”Na, what else you got in there?” I asked.

“Chips, uh, slightly crunched!” he said pulling out another clear plastic bag.

“Yea, that’s cool!” I said taking the chips and plopping myself down beside him.

BJ rested his sandwich on my left knee and reached back into his pack with both hands and as he was pulling them out again he said, “And two Yoo-Hoooooooooooooos!”

“Alright!” I said.

He picked back up his sandwich and handed me one of the can’s of Yoo-hoo. I balanced my sandwich on my right knee and sat the can in front of me as I opened the bag of chips and sat them on the floor between us.

“This is about the coolest place I thing we’ve ever found!” BJ said with a mouth full of food.

I cracked open my Yoo-hoo and said, “Ya I got to admit it’s the best!”

“Let’s keep this place just our secret!” BJ said.

“Good idea!” I said and sticking my right pinky into the air, I said, “Pinky swear!”

BJ rapped his pinky finger around mine and said, “Pinky swear!”

We continued eating and talking about the barn and the stuff we’d found. We both wanted to take all the stuff home but knew that our mom’s would never let us bring all that rusty stuff into our houses. Therefore, in the end we decided that after lunch we’d hide it all so that if anyone was to find the barn they wouldn’t find our treasure.

While we sat there eating I was reminded that my backside was about full and wanted to be emptied and from the feel of it this time, I didn’t have very long before I’d have to find someplace to go.

“You alright?” BJ asked.

“Yea fine why?” I asked.

“Cause you look like you got to poop or something.” He said and I felt my face filling with blood.

Head tilted back, hands dropping into his lap, BJ gave a very heavy sigh before placing his hands on the floor beneath him and lifting enough that he was able to turn himself to face me. He looked long and hard at me and though it made me uncomfortable I felt like I couldn’t say anything, like someone had reached down into my throat and ripped out my voice box. Leaning forward and whispering, which was dumb since we were very much alone, he began to speak, “I promised my mom and dad that I would never ever say anything to you about . . . uh . . . I mean I got to tell you . . .” he trailed off at the end almost like he was regretting saying that much.

Though I honestly didn’t want him to say another word because I already had a hunch what he was going to say, I heard myself ask in a slightly higher volume then I’d normally use, “What?”

It must have been my tone and my delivery because he recoiled, but only a little. Our eyes were locked together and my heart was beating in my throat making it hard to breath.

Finally, BJ couldn’t hold my gaze any longer and dropped his eyes to the floor. “’Member when I came to see you in the hospital?” he said so softly that even sitting so closely to him I hardly heard him. I didn’t answer and he didn’t look up from the floor.

I heard and saw his entire body sigh so softly and then he said it, “I seen the diapers that day on a cart and I figured the rest out.”

If I found talking hard a moment before, now it was completely impossible. I also couldn’t look at him anymore. I turned my head to my left and looked across to the other hayloft.

I was so embarrassed, all I could think of was jumping off that loft and if I survived the fall, then I’d run as fast as I could to anywhere; anywhere but here.

Now sounding as if he were trying to salvage our friendship, “My mom explained everything to me.” There was several seconds of complete silence as neither of us spoke or even breathed. “I know!” he said very definitely, “But I swear I will never tell anyone, ever!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his right hand extended out to me in a gesture of friendship and maybe an attempt to seal his vow but I wasn’t ready, wasn’t able to look at him yet. Inside of myself, I was feeling like I was going to die if I didn’t get out of the barn and away from BJ right away.

I placed my hands on my knees and lifted myself to my feet while trying my best not to mess myself yet again.

“I’m sorry Simon!” I heard BJ say and though I wasn’t looking at him I could tell that if he wasn’t crying, he was nearly on the verge of doing so.

I paused for less then a second before starting down the box ladder. I was just about to the floor when a contraction his me so hard that I couldn’t hold it any longer. It was going to come out whether I wanted it too or not. My feet hit the floor and I had just enough time to turn to run but that’s all the farther I made it before filling the back of my diaper once again.

Paralysis took hold of my body as the confused emotions of fear, embarrassment, horror and the warm sensation of my poop spreading across my backside and even forward to my boyhood parts all collided within my head at once. My hot tears stung as they rolled over my cold cheeks and dripped from my face. Above I could hear rustling and scraping followed by the sound of BJ climbing down the ladder. I heard his boots make a thumping sound when they hit the floor but then there was silence again except for the sound of my soft sobbing.

The voice in my head was screaming down to my feet, “Why don’t you run? You got to run NOW!” but they were firmly nailed to the floor.

Seconds seemed to turn into minutes before I finally felt BJ’s hand softy touch my left shoulder. His touch caused me to shutter and soft as a mouse he said, “Come on, I’ll walk you home!”

Those were the last words that we spoke to each other, until getting back to my house. As I lifted my right boot from the floor, I felt the mess within my diaper move, which further added to my shame. We were nearly back to the tack room, with BJ leading the way when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. BJ was just pulling open the door to the tack room when I noticed a small arched door over in a darken corner. “Did we look in there?” I wanted to ask but was unable to speak.

I dismissed the discovery and followed him into the tack room where he helped me to put on my snowshoes and then strapped on his own before we left the barn along with our pile of treasure behind.

The walk through the woods and across the park was done in complete silence. We didn’t pause or slow down, even when we passed kids playing in the snow, throwing snowballs, building snow forts, creating snowmen and just having fun.

When we reached the point where we’d entered the park, where the tree had fallen across the car and the park fence we found Rudolph Nader standing beside his truck again, his back to us and was trying to get something out of the bed of his truck.

As we were making out way around the tree he spotted us and said, “Hello again boys!” We both said hello back.

“Had enough of this weather already? Heading back home?” he asked.

“Uh, yea!” BJ said for me.

He lifted a large yellow case out of the bed of his truck and I recognized the shape to be a chainsaw.

“Are you going to cut up the tree?” I asked.

“Yep! Got to try and get dad’s car out from under it.” He said.

BJ and I both looked at the car which was still looking sad and now trapped even worse since the snow plow had piled a mess load of snow right behind the car that was a good five feet high.

“Oh, that was your dad’s car?” BJ asked.

“’Was’ is the right word to be sure!” Mr. Nader said.

Right about then the old man stuck his head out of his front door and shouted at the two of us which nearly gave me a heart attack and I think BJ about messed himself too.

“Oh, sorry boys! I didn’t mean to scare ya!” the old man said.

“Dad, you need to get inside, you don’t even have on shoes!” Mr. Nader said sounding tired and annoyed.

“You hush up Ruddy or I’ll hush you up!” the old man said waving a feeble fist at Mr. Nader.

I turned back to see Mr. Nader shaking his head and looking dejected.

“You the boys that were here on that snow-cycle thingy?” the old man asked.

“Uh, yes sir!” BJ answered.

“That’s what I thought! You boys want to earn a buck?” he asked.

BJ took a couple steps toward the man but I chose not to move from where I was standing given my predicament.

The old man fished in the pocket of his thin robe and pulled out a crumpled up wad of money, counted out several dollars and handed them to BJ, “I need half gallon of orange juice!”

“Oh yea, I can get that for you! But you don’t have to pay me for it, I don’t mind!” BJ said.

“Well of course I’m going to pay you!” the old man said looking offended that BJ would suggest anything else.

“My dad says it’s not right to take advantage of people when things like this happen!” BJ said pointing at the snow.

“That sounds very nice, but you’ll take it or you’ll get ‘for what’!” and he shook his fist in BJ’s face.

“Dad, don’t scare the boy!” Mr. Nader said.

“Ruddy, I thought I told you to hush up?” the old man said shaking his fist back at Mr. Nader again.

BJ smiled and said, “I’ll go back home and get the snowmobile. I should be back in about fifteen minutes?”

“That’s a good little boy!” the old man said patting BJ on top of his hat-covered head and then shaking his fist once more at Mr. Nader and then vanished back into the house.

I turned back to Mr. Nader, “Are you the Ruddy Nader that helped my dad, Mr. Leonard put the garage door opener up at my house?”

“I thought you looked familiar!” Mr. Nader said smiling wide, “You’re Simon Leonard’s boy!” he said.

“Yea that’s me!” I said smiling back.

“I’ve not seen your folks for a couple months. How they doing?” he asked.

“Real good! Well ‘sept we don’t have power at our house right now. Dad thinks the transformer blew up!” I said.

“Oh yes, I heard about that! I think I saw one of the Power Company’s trucks a few minutes ago. They might be replacing it now.” He said.

“Man I hope so!” I said.

“Tell your parents I said hello and not to be such strangers!” Mr. Nader said. “You two better head on out, I’m about to start making some racket!”

“Nice to see you again, I mean today!” I said.

“Yea thanks again for saving us earlier!” BJ said and he smiled, obviously remembering the ridiculousness of the whole ordeal.

“Yea thanks again!” I said and he smiled and started the chainsaw, which was very, very loud. He waved and we both waved back before continuing on to my house.

About half way home the crap in my diaper had gone from feeling so warm and oddly welcoming to just down-right cold and uncomfortable; not to mention the fact that it itched something horrible.

When we finally reached my street it was completely cleared, the snowplow had come through while I’d been gone. There was not one but two Power Company trucks parked, one with a big boom arm extended into the air with a bucket on the end of it and two men in it. We stopped and watched them for a minute or two and then BJ turned and without looking at me asked, “You get home from here alright now?”

I nodded and he added, “Tell you’re dad that I’ll bring the snow shoes back later.” To which I nodded again and started down the hill toward my house. I didn’t bother looking back to see if he was watching me or if he’d continued on to his own house. I didn’t much care at that point, I just wanted to get home, get cleaned up and changed and then crawl into the bottom of my closet and never come out again.

I was only a house away from my own when I noticed someone was sitting on my front porch. I also noticed that dad had finished clearing away the snow from our driveway as well as the sidewalk though there was a light dusting on them again since it kept snowing off and on. I reached the bottom of our driveway and still couldn’t figure out who was on our porch. Whoever it was had there back to me and was leaning against the porch railing with their head down like they were reading or playing a Gameboy or something like that.

Next Installment:

Chapter 5 – Part 3 – Thursday, March 04, 2004 – A Friend Indeed

** 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!  **