Mary’s Secret
Mary was sure her mom and dad were asleep. It was late at night, long after they would expect her to be well into her dreams. She smiled to herself, knowing that her secret was hers alone. Her parents would never know what went on inside her bedroom, just down the hall from theirs.
Mary had friends, two of them, and she could count on their arrival soon after the cuckoo in the living room sang its heart out at the stroke of midnight.
There it was. Mary could hear the tapping sound on the hallway wall, signaling the arrival of the first of her friends, Sheila.
Quickly following the tapping, Mary heard the sound of her best friend in the whole world, Susan. Susan’s special signal was a creaking noise. Susan was very smart. She knew exactly where to stand in the hallway to make the wood in the floor creak.
Mary tiptoed to the door, opened it, checked to make sure the coast was clear, and waved them inside. She then stepped back into the hallway and listened intently. Her parents had not awakened.
Mary welcomed her friends, and soon all three were sitting on the bed, chatting and laughing as quietly as their excitement permitted. Once, early on, when they had just met and had been a little too noisy, Mary’s dad had come to check on her. Fortunately, the long hallway had given her friends plenty of time to hide under the bed and for Mary to pretend to be asleep. That was the closest they had come to getting caught.
Both friends proceeded to tell about their day. Sheila went first. She complained that during homeroom, Jimmy Fisher pulled her hair from the seat behind. Sheila said that, aside from Jimmy, school was fun, and she liked it, particularly her teacher. Sheila was the most serious-minded of the three. Sure, she could laugh with the others, but she was never the one to tell a joke. She tended to look on the sadder side of things.
Susan was the fun one, giggling and telling funny stories all the time. Mary loved to laugh, which was why Susan was her favorite.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Susan mischievously asked her two companions. Mary loved the naughtiness in Susan’s eyes and the giggle she could scarcely contain.
“Because the chicken had heard so many chicken jokes before that she didn’t know any better, that’s why!”
Well, most of the time, Susan was funny, Mary thought.
The girls talked and talked, until they heard the cuckoo sing its song just once. Mary’s friends knew it was getting late and that they should be leaving. It was good seeing Mary and having great fun, but they all knew that she had to sleep.
As quickly and quietly as they had come, Sheila and Susan slipped into the hallway and were gone. Mary waved good-bye as they turned the corner. She jumped into bed, thought about her friends some more, and began to drift toward sleep.
* * *
What Mary didn’t see was her father opening the door and checking on his daughter. John knew about Mary’s friends. Fortunately, his daughter was too young to understand modern technology; he had been eavesdropping on their chatter with a child’s monitor. Except for once, he had never gone beyond the monitoring stage, never letting on and never interrupting her during her conversations.
John didn’t understand why Mary’s friends showed up only after midnight. The psychologist he and his wife had consulted said Mary’s conversations were normal for a six-year-old and nothing to worry about. Returning to his bedroom, John knew where to avoid stepping so as not to wake Mary. He wondered to himself, though, why the floor sometimes creaked on its own. John paid no attention to the normal tapping noise inside the heating duct. He reassured his wife that all was well.
* * *
It was true that Mary did not see her father, but she did hear him. Mary’s hearing was quite keen. She knew her father was concerned. Why else would he repeatedly come down to check on her after her friends left?
Mary realized that her father probably assumed she knew nothing about the room monitor. But Sheila had figured that one out. So, the three of them had been playing along, but with one important exception. To make sure her father didn’t suspect anything, Mary repeated aloud everything Sheila and Susan said almost as soon as they said it. In that way, her father would think Mary was talking to herself. How silly, she thought. But to protect her friends, Mary felt she had no choice.
Mary was nearly in dreamland when she once again heard the tap and the creak. They’re back!
Balancing on her toes as she crept toward the door, Mary let the two in again. Every once in a while, her friends would come twice in one night. The streetlight outside provided enough light to use only hand signals now. Mary and her friends knew how to play the game.
All three crammed into Mary’s bed to go to sleep. It was a tight fit at first and somewhat uncomfortable. But as they snuggled and fell asleep, they grew cozy together and became as one. All was right in Mary’s world.