Hide and Seek Gone Wrong

Growing up there were several different games I played with my brother and two sisters in our two-story, four-bedroom, three-bathroom colonial house. One of the games we played was hide and seek.

It was a Friday evening, the street lights were lit with glimmer and glow in cool dark streets of New York. My parents had decided to go out for a night on the town, leaving my oldest sister to watch the three of us. We were all watching the television when suddenly, out of blue, I suggested we play a game. My oldest sister first dismissed the idea, thinking we were wanting to play some board game. I turned towards her with a smile on my face, “how about hide and seek?” I asked. My sisters looked at each other and thought it was a great idea. Mother and father weren’t going to be home for awhile, which gave us plenty of time to play. But who would be it first, I wonder? Before I could even blurt anything out my oldest sister suggested she would be doing the seeking first and the rest of us would hide. I was excited, for it was the first time in several weeks that the four of us had done anything playful, exciting, or joyful together.

My sister turned around facing away from us and started counting “1…2…3…4…” and we were off. My brother and I tried to treck quietly up the old wooden staircase leading to the second floor without making it creek or crackle along the way. A shallow sound from my steps crept along the staircase as we climbed to the top. “15…16…17…” My sister continues to count as her voice drifts off further into the distance as we look for a place to hide. My second oldest sister decided to stay on the first floor and hide.

After several whispers between me and my brother, we decided to hide together in our parent’s bedroom closet. “She’ll never find us here” my brother stated. As we wait for her to seek us out, my brother remembered that we had beans for dinner and knew it doesn’t settle well with my stomach. He hears my stomach grumbling and groaning, “don’t you dare” he whispered. “I’m holding it in. I’m so nervous that she’s going to find us”, I said in a frantic whisper. My stomach continues to grumble, groaning, eager to relieve itself of the building gases.

Finally, we here the cricking and creaking the staircase of my sister’s footsteps as she walks up the staircase to the second floor. Room by room she looks, making different remarks as she looks, “I know you two are up here somewhere”… banging, clinking, and clanking of closet doors in another bedroom down the hall. “I’m going to find you sooner or later”… her footsteps slowly getting closer to my parent’s bedroom. I start to sweat, feeling my heartbeat rise. My brother kicks me by accident, frightening me, I release the ever building gases that have been building. “Did you just?”… The smell slowly drifts his way, “Oh my…!!! Get me out of here! I’m going to suffocate in here. It’s turning into a dutch oven in here!” He starts snickering, covering his face with his shirt, coughing from the smell. A few seconds go by, the sounds of my sister’s footsteps close-in, opening the closet doors, “I think you two are missing the point of hiding and seek here…Holy…O.K…Who farted?”… “Oh, thank god! Move it!... Move it!... Move it!... Must…Have…Fresh…Air”. My brother climbs over me, plowing through my sister, freeing himself of the horrific smells of the deep dark closet. He sits on the bed taking deep breaths, glancing over at me, “next time we have beans for dinner, I’m not hiding with you again”.

After my brother finished taking a few deep breaths of fresh clean air, we all went downstairs and had a good laugh about why I shouldn’t eat beans, and play; hide and seek.