PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

He opens the door slowly peeking in side to side. “Ok, it’s clear.” Motioning behind him, Bobby urges the others forward. “Hurry.”

Tallie enters carrying a small weathered box as Ryan pushes aside Bobby wearing an old green hat which looks like it has seen a war or two.

Bobby runs to the window inching up the plywood which reveals the stark sunlight beyond. Rushing back over to the door, placing his finger in the doorknob hole he pulls it shut. “So this is my secret fun place.”

Tallie sits on the floor looking up at Bobby, “If it’s so secret then why are we acting so sneaky?”

Ryan laughs, “Yeah, seriously?”

Bobby narrows his eyes, “Well ok, it’s MY secret fun place now… or until someone else comes along and finds it.”

“Whatever… you’re a load.” Ryan smirks.

Tallie laughs.

Bobby pulls out a blanket from his backpack like the ones you get at a truck stop on Route 66, and crumples it under his body as he flops down on the floor. You can tell he’s been here enough to be comfortable, but not so comfortable that he doesn’t keep his eye on the door as he settles in. Ryan reaches into his pocket and empties his hand in the middle of the triangle: a small pocket knife and a short length of string spill forth while Tallie holds on tightly to her weathered little box.

“So, show us whatcha got, Tallie.” says Ryan.

“Yeah, show us,” Barks Bobby.

Slightly laughing Tallie exclaims, “No way! We still haven’t seen what you brought Bobby. Think you can get away without bringing something to the triangle?”

Bobby reaches into his backpack, a canvas sack his father used back in grade school from the '80s. It was faded red with a white racing stripe ribbed in green all the way from the fraying bottom to the zipper. “You’re gonna get a kick out of this.” He pulls out a hollow animal horn covered with dirt, and bellowing cobwebs as the breeze hits it.

Tallie screams, “Oh gross!”

Bobby reaches up and covers her mouth. “Shhhh! It’s not gross… its fantastic.” He slowly removes his hand from her mouth.

Ryan grabs for it jarring it from Bobby’s grip. A small brown spider gets jostled out and falls to the floor.

Immediately Tallie bounds upward with a shrill cry. “Oh my god, kill it! Kill it!”

Bobby covers her mouth again, “Shhh! People are gonna hear us!”

Ryan grabs the spider and throws it out the open window hole. “Ok it’s gone.”

Tallie exclaims, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you!?”

Bobby shifts back down to his blanket, “Um yeah I purposefully put a spider in this old horn so it would scare the crap out of you. Yeah…”

Ryan interrupts, “Ok come on, come on. Forget it. Let’s continue. Jeez.”

Tallie slowly lowers back to the scratched hardwood floor as she nervously looks around expecting the 8 legged-fright to waltz right in the door. Still clutching her structurally compromised box, she runs her fingers over the taped ends. “Well what do you think we can do with that?” she motions to the objects splayed on the floor.

“We can do whatever we want with it,” whispers Bobby, “but what did you bring to add to it?”

Tallie looks down at the box and slowly looks back up at the boys, “You get the rest ready first and I’ll show you.”

Ryan reaches over for the box as Tallie pulls it away. “No, not yet. Get the horn ready first, Ryan.”

“Oh fine…” Ryan grabs the horn, opens the knife and pushes down the blade on the blunt point of the animal remains. “Holy…” he grunts.

Bobby pulls back on his arm a bit, “Don’t break it!”

They all hear a little pop as the unsharpened end flies off hitting the opposite wall, falling to the floor.

Ryan quickly grabs the string, blows the cobwebs through the horn and slides the string through the newly opened hole. He ties a knot on the inside and pulls the string through holding the horn dangling from the string in front of them all.

“Ok, now you,” Ryan says motioning to the box.

Tallie looks back and forth at each of the boys. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Bobby sneers, “Let’s do this…”

Each lean in slowly over the small box as Tallie begins to open it.

Suddenly, the plywood falls down and the room goes black.

Clink, clink, clank!

Looking in, a small boy exclaims, “Ok, it’s clear… hurry!”