This afternoon Alex said, “Angus, you need to stay in the closet for a little while. I’m going to have Bennett help me with something, and I know you don’t want him to see you.”
I was burning with curiosity, of course, but I did as she asked.
I heard her knock on Bennett’s door but could only catch some of their words…enough to know that she was asking, and then demanding, that he go to the attic with her.
A few minutes after that, they came back into the room. Between them they were carrying a great pink concoction of a dollhouse.
Bennett was looking pretty cranky. But when Alex said, “Thanks, Ben. I bet you can get a poem out of this,” he brightened up and said, “Great idea!”
Once he had left, I climbed down from the closet.
“What is that thing?” I asked.
“It’s for you! I thought it would be a more comfortable place for you to stay than the closet.”
“But it’s pink!”
“Well, it’s the right size, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s pink. I can’t live in a pink house. I’m a brownie, nae a fairy! Besides, it doesn’t have any front. You can look right in!”
“Well, you can look right out of the closet and see me!”
“As if I want to! And you know I’m not to be seen by the rest of your family.”
“I’ll hang a sheet over the front. That way you’ll have your privacy.”
“And how will you explain having the thing in your room to begin with?”
“I’ll tell Mom it’s for a secret art project. That will explain the sheet, too. Do you want it or not? I was just trying to be nice.”
The girl has an answer for everything. But I have to admit that it warmed my heart to have her thinking of me this way.
Undignified as it is, I will try living in the Pink Horror. At the least it will give me more space than the shoe box. And perhaps by keeping it prim and proper, I can set a good example for the slovenly Miss Alex.
We did turn the open side to the wall, which makes things better.
Even so, I still made her hang a sheet over it.