SCAREDY-CAT
Amber was upstairs in the bathtub when she heard the doorbell ring. She had been in the tub for almost a half hour, playing with various toys. Her skin was wrinkled and pruiny.

Earlier, she had been riding her bike around the storm cellar. It’s near her driveway and Amber had been riding circles around it for hours until mom called her for dinner. From upstairs, she could hear her dad answer the door. He was speaking to someone, a woman. Then she heard her mom’s voice too. This was Friday of last week, around 7:30 p.m. Today on the school bus, she told her best friend about it.
“It was Ryan’s mom,” says Amber.
“What did she want?” asks her friend.
“She was looking for Ryan. He didn’t come home after school.”
Amber’s parents knocked on the bathroom door that night and asked if she knew anything about her missing neighbor. She didn’t.
“Well, what did your parents say?” asks Amber’s friend.
“They didn’t know where he was, but my dad went to help look,” says Amber. “Mom stayed home and called people.”
Last Thursday at recess, Amber’s teacher put her and her Ryan in charge of returning the jump-roaps and kickballs to the closet. It wasn’t the first time she was given the duty and she hoped not the last. It made her feel important to have a job to do.
The school kept many things in this closet including a skeleton for the science classes. This skeleton gave Amber the creeps. It made her feel better that Ryan would be with her. But unfortunately for Amber, she overestimated the maturity of a young boy.
While returning the jump-roaps to the end of the closet, everything went black. Ryan had closed the door to the closet while Amber was inside. She franticly ran to the door but he had locked it from the other side. “Ryan!” she screamed, “open the door.” The closet had one pull-chain light that had died out months earlier. Amber could hear his laughter trail off as he ran back to class. Terrified, Amber
tried tell herself that there was nothing to fear. But for a young girl, being in the dark was reason enough to be afraid, especially when the darkness contains the remains of a person.
Almost 20 minutes went by before light shone into the closet again. When the door opened, It was Amber’s teacher and Ryan, who was held tightly by the arm.
“Are you okay Amber?” the teacher asked. Amber said nothing. Her cheeks were red and her brown eyes, glassy. “Ryan has something he wants to say.”
Amber couldn’t look Ryan in the face; she didn’t want to.
“Sorry,” he said.
As the three of them went back to class, with Amber walking slowly in the rear, Ryan turned to her and whispered, “Scaredy-cat.”

Today after school, Amber rides her bike around the storm cellar again. Making circle after circle. Again. And though the banging sounds have finally stopped, Amber continues to make her rounds. With each revolution she repeats to herself: “Scaredy-cat. Scaredy-cat. Scaredy-cat.”

- jason byron nelson ©2006