Northern_Lights_2021

21 The new house is big and old. The wallpaper is blue, even though Mom knows I like red better. I asked if she would paint my room, but she says you can’t paint houses that aren’t yours. What does she mean, houses that aren’t yours? We live here, so it’s our house. I think she’s confused, so I show her it’s alright by splashing some of her red nail polish on the wall. She spanks me hard and sends me out to the backyard. The backyard isn’t like the ones on TV with a swing set and a dog. Our backyard is dry and gray, with trees that are just branches. Mom says they’ll be real trees with leaves in the summer, but I don’t think she’s right. I find my GI Joe and my fire truck in the box on the porch. Mom says those toys are old, so they can be outside toys. I take my truck and hold Joe onto the back of it so he’s driving. I roll the truck and Joe up and down the branch trees. I get a big wave of energy and chuck the fire truck and Joe far, so they fly. It was cool for a second, but now my truck and Joe are tangled up in a bush. I go on a rescue mission and cut through the branches like a jungle man, only I don’t have a big knife, so the branches hit back into my face. I find Joe right away. He’s stuck in the mud. I shake him off and stick him in my pocket for later. I see the fire truck in the far branches and crawl to get there. That’s when I see the place. The place is a little hole in the ground. Mom says be careful for gopher holes, but I know it’s not that. Gopher holes aren’t big enough for boys like me to fit. I put Joe in his truck and wiggle into the place like the soldiers do. It gets dark and I wish GI Joe was with me. But I’m brave, so I keep squiggling until there’s a big open place.The big open place is dark until I turn my bat powers on by blinking hard. Now the big open place is a room, a fancy old room. But it’s also a pool—a long hallway pool with pretty rock patterns on the wall and when you reach the end, you can go either way. I don’t want to go right. It’s full of boulders on the ground, like the roof fell down. I’m brave, but not that brave. I go left and it gets darker so I can’t see again. My legs are wet and the mud is squishy, but I gotta see what’s at the end. I put my arms out in front of me to see for me. They don’t see too good, because I whack straight into a table or something. It’s hard like rocks. I go around the table with one hand on top of it so it doesn’t hit me again. I bump hard into something else. I grab it with my hands and it’s bars like in a jail. This must have been a jail, because nowhere else has bars. I’m tired of my pants being wet, so I crawl on top of the rock table and sit down. It’s bigger than I thought it was and I’m able to sit my whole self on top. I want to see how big it is, so I wave my hands around. Squish. I hit something soft and soggy. I put my hand back there to make sure. Yup. Soft and squishy, like a sponge. I wonder why someone would put a big sponge in a jail, but then I remember the episode of SpongeBob with DoodleBob the bad sponge and it makes sense. But Mom says SpongeBob is only on the TV. I ask him if he’s a sponge. The sponge doesn’t say anything. I remember that DoodleBob can’t talk, so I shut up real fast. I give the sponge one last squish and go through the water back outside. Mom isn’t happy that my clothes are soggy, but I tell her about the sponge and the place. She says I’m making stories and I must have been in the Koi pond. She says not to do that because the fish are dead and dead things should be left alone. I feel sad because the fish must get lonely all by themselves. The Place Danielle Notz