Secrets

Secrets

“What’s in there?” Ted asked, as the boys passed a door at the bottom of the house. Ted and Jack were new friends having not been in the same classroom until third grade.

This was Ted’s first time at Jack’s, so Jack was giving him a tour.

“We aren’t allowed in there.” Jack said, and kept on walking. Ted, stopped.

“What do you mean? What’s in there?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, “us kids were told we weren’t allowed in there, so we never went in.”

“Don’t you wonder what’s in there?”

“I never thought about it. We lived here all my life; it was just normal.”

“Well, I haven’t lived here, and it seems kind of sneaky to me…”

“Sneaky?”

“Yeah, maybe an animal lives in there and they don’t want you to get bit. Or, maybe they hide things in there! Like Christmas presents at Christmas! You never asked why you guys can’t go in there?”

“No, I never thought about it.”

“Let’s peek! If we just peek, that’s not actually going in you know…”

Jack jumped onboard! The door handle was rusty and stuck, so they got Jack’s dad’s tools and finally got it open. The two boys slowly pulled the door open wide enough to see inside.

They immediately got squirted by two skunks!!! Screaming they ran into the house, only to be pushed back out and stripped down to their undies. Then Jack’s mom squirted them with the hose, then drove Ted home for a bath.

The parents had long ago forgotten they never told their kids about the skunks! Back then, their kids were too young to understand.

Jack and Ted remained best friends well beyond school years. Both of them told the skunk story, hundreds of times, during their long and happy lives.