Chapter Five Skeletons in the Closet

“Mary…follow me! You have to follow me! For God’s sake, follow me!” screamed Carol, as she ran out of the room.

Mary sighed loudly, threw her book down and followed Carol out the door.

The cat, perched on the bookcase, jumped down and headed for the book in a panther like crawl. It stopped just short of it‘s prey; Eyes narrowed, body rigid, claws at the ready as it waited for the book to jump again.

A little stray duckling that had wandered away from the pack walked up to the cat, quacked loudly and sent the cat in a skidding run across the room, up the wall, and out the window. The little duckling bent down, scratched it’s head with one of it’s tiny webbed feet, then climbed onto the book and waited for it to jump again.

Carol, in the meantime, traced a path out of the library, through the foyer, through the kitchen, through the dining room, through the great room, through a hall, back to the foyer, up the stairs, down a long hallway, down another long hallway and into a bedroom where she collapsed on the bed.

Mary had followed her the entire way. Why? She didn’t know. She had expected to see a slimy, monstrous, man-eating beast at the end of the trail. There wasn’t anything here but a big pile of jump ropes and a discarded hool-a-hoop.

She asked Carol in a calm but resolute voice - the way one talks to a toddler that has too much food in it‘s mouth - “Carol, what did you want to show me?”

“Wait, just let me catch my breath,” and with that she leapt up and ran out of the room. Mary sat there shaking her head.

Carol continued on her journey as she ran back down the hallway, back down the other hallway, down the staircase, through the foyer, through the great room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, through the foyer again, out the front door, across the front lawn, across the side lawn, across the back of the house, across the other side of the house, up a long, long, ladder that led to the second floor, and through the window next to the attic stairs. There stood Mary waiting for her with her arms folded.

Carol looked at Mary, looked back out the window and down the ladder, looked at Mary again…

“Wow, you’re good.”

“You have no idea,” Mary stated flatly.

A loud Quack erupted from somewhere deep in the attic followed by a low moan. A welcoming sound to Mary. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ she thought. The sound had all the earmarks of a dragon having it’s mid-afternoon snack.

“This is great!“ exclaimed Mary.

“What’s great? I don’t see great! There isn’t anything great! Nothing at all! No, there’s no great here!“ Carol hysterically rattled off.

“Think of it, all we have to do is close and barricade the door to the attic and we’ll have captured the dragon,” Mary stated with a gleam on her face. “But first we’ve got the get a good look at the creature.”

“Who’s we? I don’t see a we! No we at all! No, there’s no we here!“ Carol continued in her hysterics.

Mary slowly mounted the steps followed closely by Carol. Not that it was Carol’s decision, but by the fact that Mary had a firm grip on her collar and was dragging her up the stairs.

“Don’t worry,” Mary said in a hushed tone. “We have the greatest weapon of all.”

Carol scanned Mary, looked in front of her, looked behind her, patted down her own dress, and just to make sure, patted herself on the head.

“Weapon!?”

Mary looked at her with a smug grin, “The element of surprise.”

“Oh,” said Carol. She had to think for a minute. She wasn’t quite sure what an element was or what an element of surprise looked like. She knew one thing: it had to be very tiny. She just hoped that it was some kind of new fangled and very powerful bomb.

They slowly proceeded toward the attic door when they heard another loud quack. “That Dragon sure is taking it’s time. Probably toying with its prey. Enjoying the moment.”

“Enjoying the moment? Toying with it’s prey? I don’t like that sound of that. Maybe I should wait down… djkensl”

Mary tightened her grip on Carol’s color.

When they reached the door, Mary turned to Carol and asked, “Are you ready?”

“No,” Carol squeaked out.

Mary jumped into the room screaming at the top of her lungs, “AAARRRRR GGGG! AAAAARRRRRRRGGG! AAARRRGGGG!”

Carol jumped in with a less enthusiastic version, “arg.”

The duck looked unimpressed. It stood on the leg of an upturned chair that sat on a very large pile of toys, an assortment of various sized boxes, beach balls, a skeleton, old newspapers, games and a long abandoned picnic basket that rested in front of the closet. The closet was now empty having spilled all of it’s contents.

Carol walked over and picked up a small oddly shaped toy and calmly said, “I’ve been looking for this.”

Mary looked at her with an immensely unpleasant look, “I thought you said there was a dragon in here.”

“Nu-uh, I never said their was a dragon in here,” Carol innocently replied.

“I thought this was the dragon’s lair, with dragon’s lair bits and decompossing corpses. I cannot tell you how incredibly disappointed I am,“ Mary said as she sat down on the floor in a slump.

“Oh, yeah,” Carol piped up. “Corpses… Corpse. There was something I was supposed to tell you.” She stood there a moment, her face crunched up in thought, counting on her fingers. “Oh, yeah. Olivia is dead.”

“Dead!” shouted Mary as she jumped up.

“Dead. You know… as in a corpse,” replied Carol.

Kay bolted into the room and yelled, “Corpse! Corpse! There’s a corpse? Where‘s a corpse?”

“There,” and she pointed down towards the bottom edge of the pile.

A small pale hand stuck out limply. It clenched a piece of notebook paper with the words ‘get the skeleton from the closet’ printed on it in purple ink.

Another low moan echoed from the bottom of the pile. Kay yipped. Carol jumped. Mary started to unload the pile of junk starting with the duck.

The duck objected to being dislodged from it’s very prominent loft. She was wearing a pink ruffled bonnet and matching tutu. She looked quite stylish or so she thought. One thing was for certain: she was determined to stay her ground for as long as she deemed necessary. She glared at Mary with what was best described as a step-one-step-closer-and-you’re-duck-food look.

Undaunted, Mary picked up the duck. The duck squirmed in Mary’s hands and made a horrible squawking noise, as Mary walked to the top of the attic stairs and unceremoniously plopped her down. Feathers flew everywhere as the duck sailed to the bottom of the steps and awkwardly landed. The duck regained her composure, wiggled her backend in an insulting way and waddled off down the hall.

Mary, Carol, and Kay spent a good long time clearing the pile away. It was complicated by the fact that Carol and Kay would occasionally stop to examine a toy or a game. Even Mary was distracted by the newspapers.

When it was all clear, they found Olivia laid out on her stomach on the floor with the notebook paper clenched tightly in one hand and the skeleton clenched tightly in the other.

“The skeleton broke my fall,” she said in a dazed tone.

They all rushed to her to check her for damage. Carol pulled her legs. Kay pulled her arms. Mary was smart enough to turn her over. She checked her face and the rest of her head. Mary snapped her fingers in front of Olivia’s eyes several times. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, but that’s what doctors do on television.

“This would have been a good day to get adopted,” Olivia moaned.

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