Down Sand Mountain by Steve Watkins Page B

At first I twisted away but it actually felt kind of good, so after a while I quit trying to move away. He did the feather for a long time after that, across my forehead, down the side of my face, over my ear, across my mouth. He did it around my neck, too, really slow. Then my mouth again, which felt funny the more he did it. Then down my arm, then my other arm, to my hands, which were sitting in my lap. Across my knuckles, up my arm, around my neck, across my mouth, over my ears, down my arms again. The song had stopped and the needle was just going round and round on the last groove on the record. He needed to stop it but maybe he didn’t notice, and I didn’t say anything because of the game. The feather ran over my legs some, my arms, everything. And then disappeared. I hardly noticed when it did, except that I felt his hands on my arms instead, not squeezing, just holding my arms for a minute moving up and down, then one of his hands was on my shirt kind of rubbing on my belly. I held my breath when he did that, just for a second, or maybe longer than a second, I’m not sure. It sure was dark.
    Then I finally said something. I said, “Five minutes is over; now untie me,” and I rolled away from where I thought he was and didn’t feel his hand anymore.
    “Untie me,” I said again. “I won. It’s five minutes. Untie me.” I began to get panicky under the blindfold and with my hands tied, and didn’t know how I had made it that long because of the claustrophobia. “Untie me!” I yelled. “You better untie me!” I could hear Darwin breathing a little ways away.
    I started yanking really hard on the ropes and got one of my hands free and right away pulled off the blindfold. Darwin helped me get the other knots out.
    Then it was his turn.
    I knew some knots from Scouts and used every one I could think of when I tied him up: the sheepshank, the half hitch, the square knot, plus a few I probably made up. I kept tying until I ran out of rope. Then the blindfold — I pulled that tight until he said “Ow,” then I pulled it even tighter. He said it was about to make his eyeballs pop, and I said he wasn’t allowed to talk for five minutes, remember?
    He hadn’t said much after he let me go, and I hadn’t said much, either. I pushed him down to a sitting position on the rug, turned off the light, turned it back on again so I could find my shoes, which he had tossed under his disgusting bed, which hadn’t been made up and which had sheets that were yellow, not that that was their real color. I would have thought a guy that wore Ban-Lon on a Saturday would have a much neater room, but I guess not.
    I still felt pretty funny about the game but didn’t know what to say about any of it, so once I found my shoes, I licked my finger really good and stuck it in Darwin’s ear. “The new name of this game is Wet Willie,” I said, then I tiptoed over to the door, turned off the light, threw a book against the wall to distract him, and made my getaway.
    I didn’t get too far, though, because Darla and her mom walked in the front door about the time I got to the bottom of the stairs. They were both wearing big riding boots and matching pink pants and T-shirts. Darla’s hair was still perfect, like Shirley Temple. Her mom’s hair was red and piled up on top of her head like Jackie Kennedy, only her face was harder.
    “Call the police, sugar,” Mrs. Turkel said. “It’s a midget burglar.” She laughed at her own joke and winked at me. “You must be one of Darwin’s little friends. What’s your name? And where is he, anyway? And where’s my papa? He’s not still asleep, is he? That man would spend his entire life in bed if you let him, I swear. Well, it’s time to get him up. Darla, sugar, I’m going to get Papa up. You hold on to this boy and go count the silverware. Check his pockets. Ha-ha. You are the cutest little thing, I swear.”
    She went on like that with the “Where’s Papa?” and the “I