Rat

I think I was eight, maybe younger...

Emily will have to give the details.

Anyway, when I was younger, around the eight-ish year of life, Emily and I thought it would be super awesome to stay up late (to us, that was, like, 9:30) and hide behind pieces of furniture in the living room (we were all sorts of rebellious thrill-seekers). 

We snuck downstairs in the dark, and secreted ourselves in our chosen spots.

(Side-note: It's amazing how much you need to pee when your adrenalin starts pumping. It happened a lot when we played hide-and-seek: "Oooo! I gotta find a good spot! Eeee, I gotta go pee! Gotta run to the bathroom and then run back to my spot! I hope I don't get caught! Gah, I just peed a little..." I don't think I played a game of hide-and-seek where that didn't happen.) 

Anyway, as I sat behind the chair in the living room, I felt like I was on top of the world. I had defied all authority, stayed up past my bedtime, connected with my co-conspirator, traversed the darkened hallways of our home, and successfully hid myself away. I stifled the nervous giggles that were attempting to bubble up and escape my grinning mouth, and looked around the furniture side to see Emily's darkened form peeking out from her hiding spot, a giant grin plastered on her face, too. 

I don't know what our next plans were. I'm not sure we had any. And if we had, they were all foiled by Mom waking up, turning on the table lamp next to the couch, and sitting down to read her scriptures. 

I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know the one...the one you would always get before you got into a lot of trouble, that you knew was waiting for you, and that you rightly deserved. (Incidentally, I would get this feeling, later as an adult, when I would arrive home past my curfew...it's kind of a rush, which would probably explain why I kept doing it.)

By some magical power, Mom discovered my hiding spot. At the time, it was like she could sense my fear, or smell my panic, or hear my bladder filling, and there was nothing I could do to stop my tell-tale heart beats from cluing her in to my position. What probably happened was I peeked out at her too many times, and she saw me, or I was breathing super loud like I was wont to do (due to my deviated septum...mouth breathing is a necessity for continued life).

"What are you doing?" came the stern trick-question. 

"Errr...." I began.

I knew that mom knew what I was doing. She knew that I knew that she knew what I was doing. To answer her with "I am hiding behind this chair in the dark for yet-to-be-determined reasons" wasn't going to fly. The correct answer would have been, "I'm on my way to bed right now, please don't eat me," but I was eight, and the only thing I could think of was that I didn't want to burn all by myself, or perhaps at all, and that the only chance of avoiding death was to divert Mom's attention to something, or someone, else....

So, all at once, I did the unthinkable.

I became a rat.

"EMILY IS HIDING BEHIND THE OTHER CHAIR!" 

So, Emily got in trouble. 

I was still in trouble, but it wasn't as bad since I was sharing the Wrath of Mom with her. 

As we trudged up the the dark stair well, Emily turned her stormy expression on me.

"I would have come and gotten you after Mom went back to bed," she said in a harsh whisper.

Oh.

Hadn't thought of that.

And I didn't care. 

I was all worn out from the adrenalin and the need to go to the bathroom. 

I would like to say, though, that if given the opportunity to hide behind furniture in the dark, I wouldn't rat Emily out. 

Of course, now that I've grown up and learned to have a little more fun, we'd probably get into a whole lot of trouble together.

It's probably good we're both tied down to families. Those Yet-To-Be-Determined plans would be all sorts of developed and fleshed out into massive blueprints of irresponsible fun and destruction. 

And would probably involve lots of paint and yarn. 

Yeah.

And mod podge.