The Poking Stick

He found it in the basement, the thing that made him forget his brother and the poking stick.

The thing was about the size of a squirrel, greenish brown, with large eyes the color of natural honey. It was bald, except for a ridge of coarse looking hair that ran down its spine, and had tiny hands that looked human, with their five small fingers.

Roddy crouched down to get a better look. He didn’t want it to feel crowded and threatened where it was hiding in the corner between boxes of his mom’s old cookbooks and his dads old Playboys.

The creature craned its head up toward him. He could hear its snuffling sniff. It lifted one small, rodent-like hand up and out toward him. Roddy was just beginning to reach back towards it when something hard and sharp stabbed him in the back, reminding him what he had been dong in the basement to begin with.

His brother, Nelson, was in a particularly evil mood today. Having gotten in trouble for failing all of his classes, he had gotten his poking stick from its hiding spot and had been tormenting Roddy ever since.

“Stop Nelson!” Roddy said, but his brother only continued poking him.

He lowered his head and raised his shoulders, trying to protect his tender neck from the sharp point of the stick and the torment stopped suddenly.

“What is THAT thing,” Nelson bellowed, shoving Roddy to the side and leaning over the creature, which was trying to make itself smaller.

“Just a frog.”

“That ain’t a frog.” Nelson leaned closer. The creature started to shiver.

“Looks like one of those sheep eating monsters. One of those chupacabras or something.”

“Its not a chupacabra.” Roddy said.

“Well, it sure ain’t a frog!” Nelson said again, poking Roddy’s arm with his poking stick.

Roddy brushed away the prodding point of the stick, looking at his brother with angry eyes. Nelson only grinned at him.

“Well what IS it, if you’re so damn smart.”

“I think it’s a gremlin. One of those things Grandpa told us about. Grandpa said he had gremlins all over his house, that they followed him home from the war. And when I came down here it came out of those things that Dad brought home from Grandpa’s after the funeral.”

Nelson only considered that one for half a second before screaming, “Its an alien!!!!”

Then he raised the poking stick, and poked the creature with it.

The first gentle poke caused it to blink its eyes. The second poke, a little harder, made it mewl. It sounded like a baby animal.

“Don’t do that.” Roddy said.

“Why? You jealous?”

Nelson poked Roddy twice, hard and quickly, causing him to scoot backwards. He bumped into his Mom’s recipe boxes, and a thin dust rose around his head, causing him to sneeze.

Nelson resumed poking the gremlin. Roddy heard the creature mewl again and, between Nelson’s laughter and his own sneezes, thought he heard the thing growl.

He tried to tell Nelson to stop, but couldn’t talk for sneezing.

His eyes were mostly closed, but he saw the creature rise up on two legs, saw its coarse back hair stand up straight and sharp like a porcupine’s quills. He didn’t see it get the stick away from Nelson, or how Nelson ended up on the ground, backed into a corner of his own, but by then the sneezes had stopped.

The creature had the stick, and was poking Nelson. A jab here and there. Nelson had wrapped his arms around his head and buried his face. Where the skin of his arms was exposed, Roddy could see small pinpoints of blood.

He said, “Stop it.” But the creature didn’t stop, so he screamed, “STOP IT!”

It stopped, and it turned to face him.

Nelson made his escape back up the stairs, crying.

Somehow, Roddy knew, the brat would get him in trouble for this.

Roddy’s back was in the corner, the gremlin between him and the stairs which were his only way to escape, but he wasn’t afraid. He and the gremlin had common enemies.

“Give me the stick!”

Looking ashamed, the gremlin shuffled forward and handed the stick to Roddy before dropping back down to all fours. It looked innocent again.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” He scolded, as he heard footsteps on the stairs. “Now shoo.”

The gremlin was gone, hidden away, by the time his mother reached him. Her face red and angry she shouted at him, “Roderick, how DARE you hurt your little brother that way. He’s bleeding, Roderick. Do you know what that means?”

She snatched the stick away and threw it into a corner, and slapped him hard across the face.

A small greenish brown hand reach out and sweep up the poking stick.

Naughty little gremlin, he thought, but secretly, he smiled. Their time to be the bullies would come soon enough.