Image Credit; Istiaque Hossain @ Pexels
Lily was eight, and the oldest child in her family. She wore one of her prettiest dresses, because today her aunt and her new husband, Candice and James, were coming for a visit. Lily lived in the country, and visitors were rare. Today would be a fun day!
Candice and James arrived, and Lily could tell her mother approved of her new brother-in-law. James was loud and funny, but anyone with eyes could tell he adored Candice, and that is what Lily’s mother probably liked about him the best. They ate a simple but delicious meal together, and Lily helped clear the table. Then Lily’s father told her to go out to the barn and feed the animals before it got any later.
Lily hated that she always had to feed their “animals”, five barn cats and two dogs. Everyone enjoyed the pets, but the burden of feeding them twice a day always fell to just her. The curse of being the oldest was that most responsibilities were your alone. Lily really had to use the bathroom, but she decided to just run outside to the barn and be quick in her duties. She ran outside and found the water bowls. Turning on the hose to fill them up, and overwhelming urge to pee came over her. Darn! She was going to have to use the bathroom first before she could finish her chore.
She ran back into the house, but the bathroom was occupied. Her uncle James spotted her, and began to ask her questions about her favorite books. Since his was a subject she loved, she nearly forgot about her urgent need to pee and launched into a conversation with him. Lily’s father saw her and drew his eyebrows together, creating that unhappy look that Lily hated to see. It meant she was in trouble.
“Lily, I told you to feed the animals fifteen minutes ago. Get out there and do it right this minute!” her father said, and Lily jumped to obey.
She ran outside, and noticed it was getting dark now. The old door that led into a room in the barn looked ominous, gray and spooky. It had no door handle, just boards you grabbed to push or pull the door. Lily gritted her teeth against her fear and her full bladder and pushed the door open. The room was dark, but she located the cat and dog food and quickly filled up the bowls. I’m almost done, she thought, don’t pee, don’t pee, don’t pee. She threw the bowls down and the cats and dogs quickly dug into their dinner. She was ready now to run back into the house and pray the bathroom was open! She was holding her crotch to try to buy herself a few more seconds. Just then, something caught her eye. The large head and flickering tongue of a snake was sliding out from under the door, coming right toward her! It scared the girl so badly, that she screamed, her bladder let loose and she found herself soaked with pee and running to the house.
What to do? She couldn’t tell her mother that she had wet herself like a baby – plus they had company – how humiliating! She got lucky, for no one noticed her as she ran into her bedroom, took off the dress and stuffed it under her bed, and quickly put on fresh underwear and another dress. The bathroom was open, so she freshened up and even peed some more, brushed her hair and came back out to join the others. Her uncle noticed the different dress right away.
“Hey,” James said, “is this a fashion show? Why did you change your dress?” Her mother gave her a curious look, too.
Lily mumbled, “Just felt like it,” and, thankfully, someone changed the subject and the evening went on uneventfully.
Lily told her mother about what happened the next day. Her mother just didn’t understand why she would go out to do her chores when she needed to pee so badly. Lily tried to explain it was the look her dad gave her, that stern look that she feared. Her mother told her father that Lily saw a snake living in the barn, but didn’t tell him the whole story, and Lily was grateful for that. Her father got the snake, which was very good, because Lily wasn’t going out to the barn again until the snake was gone or dead. After that, she could never look at the gray door without expecting something awful to come out of it, something awful coming for her.
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A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 