Flossie's Revenge

by Lubrican

Chapters : Foreword | 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20 | 21-22
23-24 | 25-26 | 27-28 | 29-30 | 31-32 | 33-34 | 35-36 | 37-38 | 39-40 | 41-42 | 43-44

Chapter 5

On the fateful day, the Wilson children - Nathan included, even though he was having grave reservations about the whole plan - rode away from home and met Luthor on the front porch of the General Store. He had two fishing poles with him, as cover. It was all he could get together, but while people would expect Nathan to have one if he was in company with Luthor, walking someplace, they might not think it odd that the girls didn't have poles.

The store was closed, of course, it being Sunday, and no one was around. Feeling like a spy of some kind, Luthor got off the porch when he saw them coming, and wandered off between the store and the barber shop, which was next door. Anyone who noticed them would have seen that it was obvious the three were following him, but thankfully, there was no one around to notice. He handed the extra pole to Nathan, just in case. Nathan understood instantly, and grinned. Then he couldn't figure out how to carry the pole and ride his bike at the same time, and ended up having to give it back to Luthor.

Luthor set what would, for the Wilson children, have been a punishing pace, if they'd been on foot. He trotted, and even though they were on bikes, he got ahead of them about twenty yards or so and stayed there, looking over his shoulder occasionally until they were well outside of town.

"Hey!" called out Hilda Mae. She put on a burst of speed when he stopped and turned around.

"Why are you running?" she asked, breathlessly, while her sister and brother caught up. "And why are you staying up there ahead of us?"

"I didn't think we were supposed to be together," said Luthor, looking confused.

"Well, we are, so slow down," groused Bernadette.

Still, while they stayed together from that point on, Luthor was too excited to slow down. To be honest, it wasn't that he wanted to get to the mansion quickly. He was convinced that they'd turn around and leave as soon as they saw it. But the whole idea of doing something secret had him on pins and needles. He didn't have many adventures in his life, and he was making the most of this one.

They saw the trees surrounding the place first, and Luthor led them into the tiny forest. They had to dismount then, and push their bikes. Their first view of the house was shocking, but not in the way Luthor had thought it would be. Some of the roof had fallen in. There was no glass in any of the windows. Creepers covered the ground and a whole tree was growing out of the part of the roof that was missing. One round column had fallen, and lay covered by vegetation. The corner of the house it had been on sagged downward at a tilt that made it obvious one couldn't stand easily on the second story floor inside ... if it was even still there.

"Damn!" said Nathan.

"You sure are cussing a lot lately," pointed out his younger sister.

"Well look at it," said Nathan crossly.

"It's so romantic," sighed Bernadette. "Just imagine what it used to look like."

They forged on ahead, getting to within twenty yards of the place before other teens started popping out of nooks and crannies all over the place.

"We weren't sure it was you," said Johnnie Sue, dusting off her buttocks.

"Who else would we be?" asked Nathan, staring up at the falling-down house. "I can see why nobody comes here."

"We told you it was old," said Moses, uncharacteristically speaking.

Jesse was there, but was standing off to one side, looking at the rest of the group nervously. When he heard Moses speak, though, he edged closer to the group. There was a rattling scrape from inside the house, only yards away, and everybody jumped away from the house, turning to face it.

"What was that?" asked Bernadette, her voice hushed.

"Just a branch in the wind, probably," said Curtis Lee. "Can you believe there's a whole tree growing inside?"

"So it wasn't a ghost?" asked Hilda Mae, sounding disappointed.

"There isn't any such thing," said Moses. "Everybody knows that."

"There might be," said Hilda Mae stubbornly. "Nobody knows for sure."

"You want there to be a ghost?" asked Jesse, speaking for the first time.

"Well ... no ... I suppose not," she answered. "But it would be exciting. Ooooo I wonder if there's any treasure. There has to be treasure!" she squealed.

Nobody moved for a few minutes, while they all looked at the rotting structure.

"Well ... are we going in there ... or not?" asked Johnnie Sue.

"I don't think we should," said Nathan, looking dubious.

"Come on," wheedled Johnnie Sue. "You're not chicken ... are you?"

"It don't look safe," said Nathan heatedly.

"It doesn't look safe," corrected Johnnie Sue, grinning.

"That's what I said," said Nathan, recognizing the bait, but not rising to it.

"Okay, then, we'll just go inside the front door, like I did," said Johnnie Sue, moving forward.

Peer pressure is strong. Not even Nathan was left behind when it became clear to him that the rest were going to go inside. One might have thought they'd stay in a tight little group, but, once inside the front door, they spread out like a S.W.A.T. team, moving away from each other to kick at this pile of dirt, or peer into that dim corner.

What they saw was like some kind of war zone. The entry room took up the middle third of the length of the house. The ceiling, or what was left of it, was two stories up. Originally, there would have been three sides to the room, with the kitchen, dining room and parlor downstairs, along with, perhaps, quarters for a butler. Above those, upstairs, would have been the bedrooms, their doors accessed by a balcony that went all the way around the three walls. Now, however, there were only two and a half walls left, the one to their right having burned and caved in at the corner. That was where the tree was growing. On the side across from that, two of the original supports for the upstairs balcony had been removed for some reason. The part of the balcony there had sagged until it was at a thirty or forty degree slope, and looked like some weird kind of slide. The railing at that part was broken too, and hanging outward, as if someone had been standing on the balcony when it sagged, and was thrown through the railing.

The flooring was mostly rotted away in the part of the house that was open to the elements, and pieces of the roof, upper room and its ceiling still lay in a jumbled heap around the trunk of the tree. Luthor went as far as he could on solid flooring and looked up at it.

"Hickory" he announced. "Must be at least forty years old."

"How would something like this get inside a house?" came Bernadette's voice. All the others turned to see her hefting a rock that probably weighed ten pounds. That was a puzzle none of them had an answer for.

A breeze shifted a branch of the hickory tree, and it scraped against the wall again. Everyone turned to look at it. They relaxed when they confirmed that no ghost was responsible for the sound. Elsewhere in the house there were creaks and a sound that was almost like a sigh, which ratcheted up their tension.

"It's just the wind," said Curtis Lee. He had moved to where there had been a staircase that led up to the second floor. It was obvious there had been a staircase, and that it had been curved.

"How could a whole set of stairs just vanish?" he asked no one in particular, looking around.

There was no answer for that either, but it brought to mind their mission.

"How are we going to get to the attic?" complained Bernadette.

"We don't even know there is an attic," said Nathan.

There ensued an animated discussion about the engineering that would be required to get someone up to the second floor landing, and then how that person could help the others up. The conversation was abruptly terminated when Moses walked into view on the second floor.

"There's another staircase," he called down softly. "Off the kitchen, I think."

Nobody had seen him wander off, so it took a minute to locate the kitchen. It was a wreck too, with cabinet doors missing, and dirt covering the floor. Mixed in the pile were dry, white, scattered bones.

"What was that," asked Hilda Mae fearfully.

Luthor got down and picked up several bones, making both the Wilson girls shudder.

"I'd say coon," said Luthor, looking around. "It either died in here, or something brought it in here to eat it."

"Eeeewwww" squealed Bernadette and Hilda Mae in tandem.

"Oh," said Luthor, feeling proud suddenly, "that ain't nuthin'. I seen bones all over the place around here. Once I saw ..."

"Found it!" called out Johnnie Sue from an obvious doorway in one corner of the kitchen. She disappeared and they heard her footfalls as she climbed the stairs. "Careful," she called back. "Some of the stairs are missing."

It was dark in the close-walled servant's staircase, and some of the treads were, indeed, missing. There were ominous creaks and groans as too many people, grouped too closely, climbed up stairs that were too old. All that did was make them group together even more closely. Maybe because of the groaning structure around them, no one noticed that black bodies brushed against white bodies in ways that, if done intentionally, and under other circumstances, would have caused an uproar.

Still, it was instinctive to spread out once they reached the open second floor balcony that had surrounded three sides of the entryway. That balcony ended abruptly in the corner of the house that had no roof. Elsewhere, though, it led to openings that suddenly looked like gaping mouths.

It only took them fifteen minutes to arrive at the conclusion that there was nothing of real interest in the house. All they found were empty rooms, full of plaster that had fallen from walls and ceilings. They could see through the gaps in the lath that remained on those ceilings and it was plain there was no attic.

There was plainly no treasure either. The disappointment was almost palpable as they gathered once again on the landing.

"There has to be something," moaned Bernadette, her hopes dashed.

"There's a really cool doorknob over there," said Moses, trying to be helpful. He pointed across to one corner of the balcony, where a single door still hung on its hinges. It was beyond the sagging section of floor, and no one had thought it was safe to try to cross it just to see if anything was in that one room.

"A doorknob?" snorted Nathan, who was thinking that he could have practiced driving this afternoon, instead of coming to this broken down wreck.

"Well, it's crystal ... or something," said Moses defensively. "I've never seen anything like that before. It is an antique and all. Maybe it's valuable."

"How would we get it off?" asked Johnnie Sue. "We didn't bring any tools."

"I've got this," said Luthor, holding up his hatchet. "We could just hack it out of the door."

"That's vandalism!" said Hilda Mae, her voice outraged.

"Oh, come on," said Luthor, wanting to hack something. "Nobody lives here and nobody would care anyway. You've seen the place. If you wait another week it will probably fall off all by itself!"

Luthor edged toward the sagging portion of the balcony. As he put his foot down there was a groan and a cracking sound. He backed up immediately.

"Maybe you're right," he said to Hilda Mae.

"What a chicken," snorted Nathan. If he was going to miss driving practice, at least he was going to have something to show for it. And maybe the doorknob was worth something as an antique. "Give me that thing." he said, reaching for the hatchet.

Luthor gave the tool to the older boy and backed up.

"Nathan..." Bernadette's voice was heavy with warning.

"I'm gonna get me that doorknob," said Nathan, and started off toward his goal. "Besides, maybe nobody else has ever been able to get to that room either. Maybe it's still got stuff in it."

That appealed to the disappointed treasure hunters, and they watched him go.

He hugged the wall, his back pressed against it, and stepped sideways onto the sloping floor. There was another groan and creak, and one of his feet slipped on the dust, sliding toward the broken railing. He edged back off the damaged part and surveyed it.

"Just forget it Nathan," said Bernadette. "It's too dangerous."

Nathan backed up. "I'm gonna GET me that doorknob," he growled. Then he rushed forward, accompanied by the screams of all the girls present. We'll call the sounds the boys made shouts, instead of screams, but all were in the highest registers those voices would produce. His intent was to vault over the sagging six feet of balcony, and land on the other side. It wasn't actually all that bad of a plan. He was a fairly tall boy, with long legs, and the six foot jump wasn't unreasonable.

What was unreasonable was expecting the floor on the other side to hold his weight as he crashed down onto the edge. That and the fact that he only made it five feet, instead of six. His feet landed where the balcony began to tip, and his weight drove both feet through the rotten boards. When the dust settled, half of Nathan Wilson was above the floor, and the other half was below it.

The crash and sound of breaking wood resulted in more screams, but they cut off as if hands had been put over their mouths as each youngster peered to see what had become of Nathan. There was a scraping sound as the hatchet, which Nathan had dropped during his descent through the floor slid down the slope. It almost stopped at the edge, but then gained momentum and flipped over, to land with a rattle on the floor below.

Nathan? screamed Bernadette.

"I think I'm stuck," came his reply. He tried to twist his body around to look behind him, and there was more crackling of breaking wood sounds, along with a pained "Oww" from Nathan.

"Don't move!" shouted Bernadette. "Are you okay?"

"You don't have to shout," came his disgusted reply. "I'm just stuck, that's all."

"What are we gonna do?" asked Moses, his mouth right by Hilda Mae's ear. During the incident they had all migrated together, into a huddle somehow.

"We have to get him out of there," said Bernadette. "If he falls through he'll die! I just know it!"

"Calm down," said Curtis Lee. "We'll get him out. Just calm down."

He yelled over to Nathan.

"We're going to get you out, but don't move around too much or you might fall on through."

"There's a board poking my stomach and it really hurts," called out Nathan. "And I feel something wet on my side. I don't know if it's blood or not, but that don't feel good neither."

He tried to push himself up with his arms. There was another creak and a loud snap, as of some large piece of wood cracking. When he couldn't push himself out, he sagged back down, this time going in even deeper. He felt a burning sensation on his side and howled.

I think there's a nail digging into my side or something. You have to help me!" he yelled.

"I told you don't move, boy! yelled Curtis Lee, getting angry.

Well do something," pleaded Nathan. "I might bleed to death here!" he moaned.

There was a hurried conference. Everyone agreed that no one could jump the gap. All that would do was put more weight on the sagging area. Moses still had his rope, coiled and across one shoulder and under his other arm, bandoleer style. Their first attempt was to climb up into the rafters and lower the rope to Nathan so he could pull himself up and out of the hole.

That went fairly well, considering how nervous the kids were, and how much noise Nathan kept making about bleeding to death. Johnnie Sue climbed up onto Curtis Lee's back while he knelt on all fours, and then climbed his back to his shoulders as he stood up. Once she was there, she pulled at the lath, which came away in her hands in dry, crackling pieces. Then, once she had a hole big enough to pull herself up through, she did that, standing on the rafters once she was up.

"Don't you fall through too!" called up Hilda Mae anxiously.

They passed her up the rope and then ducked back as she walked from one rafter to another. There was a loud crack, and a piece of the ceiling sagged as there were more screams.

"I'm okay," came Johnnie Sue's muffled voice as she stepped quickly onto another rafter.

They went back out of the room, to watch as pieces of loose plaster and wood began raining down on Nathan.

"If she falls through there it will kill them both," said Jesse, his voice hushed.

When Johnnie Sue smashed her fist through the lath above Nathan, they all jumped and shouted, but only her hand appeared. She lowered the rope through the hole, until it was in front of Nathan. He grabbed at it convulsively and pulled.

Stop! shouted Johnnie Sue, panic in her voice. I have to tie it off first!

Nathan complained some more while she did that, and then called down to him to try his weight on the rope. He pulled, but it did no good. He quit almost as soon as he started.

"I can't pull myself up," he cried. "I'm stuck too hard, and it's ripping my side out!"

Now they were worried. Seriously worried.

It was Moses who saved the day. He had been thinking about how Johnnie Sue had broken through the ceiling to get up onto the rafters. He looked at the wall, which was similarly covered with thin cedar strips.

"Go get me Luthor's hatchet," he said absently to Jesse. "I got an idea."

Jesse ran for the back stairway, and appeared on the main floor under Nathan.

"I bet Curtis Lee could reach his feet if he jumped hard!" he called up.

"Just bring me the hatchet!" yelled Moses.

He was fending off questions by the others, not sure that what he planned would work, but trying to think about that instead of talking to them. When Jesse ran onto the balcony with the hatchet, Moses took it and went into the nearest room. He attacked the wall, knocking chips of plaster and wood everywhere, and raising dust so that he could hardly see. He sneezed as he heard incredulous voices asking what in the world he was doing. He had to move to one side, but found a hollow space and flailed at it with the hatchet. It only took him minutes to step through the wall, and into the room next to it. Then he calmly walked across the room and opened the door, walking out on the other side of the sagging balcony, where he could approach Nathan on relatively solid flooring.

"What in tarnation is going on down there?" yelled Johnnie Sue.

Stay there, yelled Moses up to her. Can you let more rope down?

Johnnie Sue started to argue with him, but he shouted her down. She finally agreed that she could extend the rope another three feet and still have enough to tie it off, but still wanted to know why.

Just do that!" he yelled.

He got down on his hands and knees and crawled carefully toward Nathan, who was looking at him miserably, with streaks down his dusty cheeks where tears had made them clean.

"Help me," pleaded Nathan.

"I'm going to, but you got to be strong, okay?" said Moses, his voice slipping into that tone that his mother used when he was hurt.

"Help me," moaned Nathan again.

"Okay, here's what you got to do, Nathan," said Moses, crawling closer. The rope in front of Nathan went slack, and another three feet coiled in front of him. "Can you get that rope through the floor, right there in front of you where there's a hole?"

Nathan looked down at the triangular shaped hole that he could see through right in front of his stomach. The board that was digging into his stomach painfully was on one side of that hole.

"Yes," he gasped. "But what good is that going to do?"

"You have to hold onto that rope real tight," said Moses gently. "You got to be strong. You got to hold yourself up while I hack the floor away around you. Then you can let yourself down on the rope."

Nathan's face was anguished.

"I can't do it," he moaned.

"Yes you can!" hissed Moses.

"I'm too heavy," whined Nathan. "I can't pull that hard."

"Just put the rope through the hole!" insisted Moses.

Nathan fumbled with the end of the rope and it dropped down, hitting his toe.

"Now, hold on tight," warned Moses.

"I can't do it!" yelled Nathan, panic in his voice.

"You know what?" asked Moses in a perfectly calm voice. "You aren't a cracker. You're too weak to be a cracker. You're one of them white niggers ... aren't you?"

Nathan's face froze, his eyes wide. Then his face twisted with hatred. He grabbed the rope and pulled, causing the wood around his waist to move and creak.

"You fucking nigger I'll kill you when I get out of here!" he screamed.

"Hold on tight!" screamed Moses back at him, and he raised the hatchet.

From the other side of the gap, it looked like Moses was attacking Nathan with the hatchet. Based on what they'd heard, all the teens believed that was exactly what was happening. But as they drew breath for frantic screams, they heard the hatchet strike wood. Chips and dust flew everywhere as he flailed.

The only thing in Moses' mind was that he had to hit the floor, and not Nathan Wilson. Nathan didn't make it any easier, because he flailed too, and Moses had to slide the hatchet in sideways to avoid Nathan's frenzied movements. Then a large section of wood gave way and suddenly Nathan was falling. The last thing Moses saw of him was his hands, gripping the rope tightly as it slid rapidly through them, and the tail of his shirt, caught on a nail at the edge of the hole. There was a ripping sound and then another scream.

Now Nathan's agonized scream was for the heat in his hands as the hemp rope burned them. Still, he held on tightly, because in his mind the drop was two stories. He looked up to see his hands reach the end of the rope and watched helplessly as it slid through. Expecting to fall another story, he was taken completely by surprise when his loose-limbed feet hit the floor after only two or three more inches. The surprise was so great he simply crumbled and flopped into a heap.

There was general pandemonium as everyone stampeded for the back stairway, to get down to Nathan. Not a few of them thought he was probably dead, his sisters included. What they found, though, was a moaning young man, alternately trying to feel his body and not touch anything with his burning hands.

He's bleeding!" yelped Hilda Mae, seeing blood on the side of her brother's shirt and terrified that he would turn his head and show her gaping wounds from where the hatchet had scored his face.

Bernadette, oddly, had that special quality of being able to operate calmly in an emergency. She would break down in tears later, but for now she simply knelt and examined her brother. She, too, checked his face and shoulders first, and then pulled at his torn shirt to expose his side. There was an inch long puncture, that was bleeding freely. Away from that was a long, thin scrape that went to the hair under his arm.

"Oh for pity's sakes!" she gasped, relief flooding her chest. "It's just a scratch"

"No it's not!" moaned Nathan. "I'm gonna die!"

"You are not," said his sister, her voice trembling. "Can you stand up?"

"I don't know," said Nathan, her voice convincing him that death might be further away than he thought. He sat up first, and wiggled his legs. Hands helped him, and he stood shakily up, looking around. He looked up, to see Moses grinning down at him, his head hanging out over the balcony between two broken uprights in the rail.

"I told you I'd get you down," said Moses.

Shifting from foot to foot, still unable to believe he wasn't seriously hurt, Nathan realized that if he hadn't been so mad at the boy for saying what he did, he never would have had the strength to hold onto that rope, and would have dropped like a stone. And, with the pain gone from his stomach and lessened in his side, he felt a lot better. He looked down at his naked stomach, but the skin was only dented and scratched, not broken. He looked back up.

"Damned if you didn't, Moses." he said.

It was the first time he had addressed one of the black students by his name.

Chapter 6

Johnnie Sue made a bunch of noise about how she had been abandoned up in the ceiling, but they could all tell her heart wasn't in it. Moses, since he was still up there, went to the hole in the ceiling and she let herself down to stand on his shoulders, jumping on down to the floor from there. Both ran for the staircase.

When they ran into the entry room from the kitchen, Moses was almost tackled by Hilda Mae, who threw her arms around him in a tight grip.

"I thought you killed him, but you saved his life!" she cried.

Moses tried pushing her away from him, automatically in terror that a white girl was pressed against his body. His hands pushed at her waist, but her grip was too strong. She was sobbing into his shoulder. Mixed in with the shock of her hugging him, was amazement at how slim her waist felt, and how hard the flesh was under her shirt. He had expected a girl to feel soft, but her skin was firm. Something else felt soft too, pressed against his chest, and it made his knees go weak.

"It's okay," he said, hesitantly. "He's okay."

She changed her hug to a grip on his biceps and shoved him back so forcefully that his head snapped forward before he could straighten it back up.

"He's okay because of you," she said, her eyes shining.

"Hilda Mae Wilson! What in the world has gotten into you?" came the strident voice of her sister. "You let go of that boy right this instant!"

Her usage of the word "boy" was not misunderstood by any of them present to mean "young man".

Hilda Mae turned her head, her hands still clamped firmly on Moses' biceps.

"This boy just saved my brother's life, and I don't give a damn if he's a ... Negro!"

"What do you think Daddy would say if he saw you right now?" asked Bernadette, clearly flustered.

"I know what he'd say, but he isn't going to ever find out about this, because if he did he'd know we were here, and if he knew that I'd have to admit that it was you that brought us here and almost got Nathan killed!" shouted Hilda Mae.

She turned back around to Moses, who was staring at her, the whites of his eyes bright in his face. She leaned forward until her face was only inches from his.

"I'm not going to kiss you Moses, but I want you to know I feel like it. That's how much I want to thank you for helping Nathan."

Then she pushed him away and let him go. The young man stood frozen, his mouth open. Then as he realized he was holding his breath, he let it out in an explosive exhale and stumbled backwards away from Hilda Mae. He bumped into a wall and she laughed.

"You're supposed to say I'm welcome," she giggled.

"I'm welcome," said the boy instantly, and Hilda almost doubled over laughing.

She turned around to find all the others staring at her.

"What are all of you looking at?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Nathan was staring at her, much like Moses had been staring at her, but he didn't say anything.

Suddenly, almost as if it was to change the subject, the discussion turned to how Nathan was going to get back home and get his shirt changed without his parents finding out what happened to him. He was in some pain, but it was manageable, now that the pressure was gone. His shirt, however, was hopelessly torn, and bloody to boot.

Johnnie Sue stuck her hand up in the air, like she was at school. When everyone looked at her she blushed and dropped her hand.

"I was just thinking," she said, still discomfited by what she had done, "Just the other day, Mamma gave me a whipping because I tore one of my shirts on some barb wire while I was climbing through the fence. Maybe you could say that's how you tore your shirt."

The merits of that were discussed at length, the group being about evenly divided between those who thought no one in their right mind would believe a shirt could be completely destroyed by a fence, and those who insisted that the scrape along his side looked just like a fence had grabbed him.

They were still talking about it as they left, when Moses suddenly stopped. They all turned around to look at him. He looked at Luthor and said "Give me the hatchet." Luthor, looking puzzled, handed it over. "Be right back," said Moses, and he bounded back into the house. The rest drifted back toward the front door, but suddenly the overhanging balcony, with its missing supports, looked more unstable somehow than it had before and they stopped. Sounds of banging and crunching came from the house, and Johnnie Sue started for the front door. "I'm cuu-ming" came faintly from the house and she stopped. Seconds later Moses came tearing out of the house, the hatchet in one hand, and something else dangling from the other. He shoved the hatchet at Luthor and pulled up in front of Nathan.

"Here," he said, holding out the other object. It was the doorknob, still attached to the metal body of the locking mechanism by a square metal shaft. There was another doorknob on the other side, this one made of some kind of veined blue stone. The lock was fitted to take a skeleton key.

Nathan accepted the gift, a look of wonder in his eyes.

"Since you got hurt and all," said Moses in unneeded explanation.

"Thank you," Nathan said quietly.

In the end, Nathan had the barbed wire story well rehearsed as he tried to sneak into the back door of the house while Bernadette and Hilda Mae went in first to distract their parents. They needn't have bothered. Both adults were engaged in watching television, and paid no attention to any of their children. Nathan stuffed the shirt under his mattress and put on a new one. The door knobs were bulky, and the only place he could think of to hide them was in the top of his closet, under some extra pants. Then he went out into the living room as though nothing had happened.

The only response the Wilson children got from their parents concerning their outing was from Harvey. When, during the commercials that ran at the beginning of the Ed Sullivan Show, he noticed his children, he informed them that if they were so rude as to miss supper, then they could just go without.

None of them complained. Their parents didn't notice that either.

It wasn't until the next evening, when Johnnie Sue, Luthor and Jesse got back together for the first time since the trip to the mansion, that Johnnie Sue was able to tell them her secret.

Once they had gotten the Wilson children back to town, all the others had split to the four winds to run home. All had missed supper which, on a Sunday, wasn't all that unusual, but all were nervous about the events of the day. Johnnie Sue was worried that the nail might give Nathan lockjaw. Curtis Lee insisted that, before the nail had been exposed enough to break Nathan's skin, it had been embedded in wood, and was therefore not dangerous in that way. In all the talk about that, she had forgotten that she had seen something while she was in the ceiling of the mansion that she intended to tell them all.

So, when the friends got together, this time with Moses invited, she was anxious to tell them about it.

"I saw something in the mansion!" she said excitedly as Moses and Jesse walked up to complete the group.

She expected them to be excited with her, but they just looked at her. Then she realized that her words had not conveyed anything in particular.

"Up in the rafters," she added, not actually telling them anything more. They still just looked at her expectantly.

Finally she calmed down enough to speak plainly.

"While I was up there I saw a wall, way back in one corner of the house. I think there is an attic up there. It can't be very big, but it was definitely a wall. I meant to say something, but in all the excitement I forgot."

She got a lot less enthusiasm than she expected. In fact, she got almost none. Jesse smiled, but that was it.

"Aren't you excited?" she asked, temper creeping into her voice.

"I don't think there's anything exciting about that place," said Luthor firmly.

"Oh, come ON," yipped Johnnie Sue, stamping her foot. "Who knows what might be up there?"

"Nothing is up there, Johnnie Sue," said Luthor patiently. "You saw that place. There's nothing left."

"We won't know that until we actually look," she said stubbornly.

"You actually want to go back there?" asked her friend, looking amazed. "You're starting to sound like that Hilda Mae!"

"She hugged me!" blurted out Moses.

To be truthful, all of them realized the import of that hug, but as for Johnnie Sue, all she could think about was that Moses' comment was distracting them from what SHE wanted to talk about. She went to him and hugged him herself, squeezing him gently and then letting him go before he could react.

"There ... I hugged you too. Now, can we talk about the attic?"

Moses was round eyed. He had gone to bed the night before, thoughts of the feel of Hilda Mae's waist and breasts uppermost in his mind. He had gotten hard thinking about that. He couldn't do anything about it, because his younger brother was in the bed with him. Sleep had come with difficulty. Now he had felt another pair of those soft breasts being crushed into his chest. He found himself staring at them, pushing out Johnnie Sue's shirt.

Johnnie Sue was looking at Moses when she made her not-so-veiled suggestion that they should be talking about the attic. When he didn't answer, she noticed where his eyes were staring, and looked down. As she realized what he was looking at, a wave of heat started, just above those breasts, and crept upwards to stain her cheeks red.

"You're looking at my titties!" she gasped.

Moses' eyes jerked up, and a look of horror came over his face. He covered his eyes with his hands.

"I'm sorry!" he yelped. "I couldn't help it!" He moaned and went from peeking through his fingers to closing them tightly.

Luthor laughed, breaking the tension. Johnnie Sue glared at him and he doubled over, laughing even harder.

"What are YOU cackling about?" she shouted.

She looked at Jesse, who was looking up at the trees above them.

"Well?!" she shouted impatiently.

Luthor got his breath and grinned. "Of course he's looking at your titties. All of us look at your titties!" He started laughing again.

Johnnie Sue tackled him with a growl, taking both of them to the ground. She rolled with him until she was on top of him, sitting on his stomach. Luthor kept laughing as she pummeled him with her fists, and did nothing but try to ward off her blows. Finally she grabbed both of his wrists and put her weight on them, leaning over to put her face right in front of his.

"You take that back!" she demanded.

Instead, Luthor dropped his eyes to her chest, and stared at it pointedly. Johnnie Sue was almost incoherent as she realized her shirt was hanging open at the collar loosely. It was one of her father's old ones, and she liked it because it was loose and comfortable. But, sitting like she now was, it gaped open and her breasts, unfettered because she hated bras, hung in plain view as she looked down the open collar ... just like Luthor was looking down the open collar.

She sat back up and raised her butt six or seven inches off of Luthor's stomach. Then she dropped with every ounce of weight she could bring to bear. Luthor's breath exploded from his lungs and she bounced again, taking great joy in the look of panic that came into his eyes as he couldn't draw a breath. She put her hands on his chest and raised herself for another drop. His hands scrabbled at her arms.

"Just because I have 'em, doesn't mean you get to stare at 'em," she said, and dropped again.

Luthor was wheezing weakly now, his face turning blue, and she stood up suddenly, one foot on either side of him, looking down.

"You hear?" she snarled.

He nodded and rolled to curl up, just trying to get air into his lungs. She whirled to find Moses and Jesse staring at her, their mouths open.

"And you two mind where your eyes wander too ... got that?"

"Yessum" gasped Moses automatically.

Jesse, though, knew her better ... had known her better for a lot longer ... and he was able to make a grin come to his face.

"You goin' to sit on me like that too?" he asked.

"I'll neuter you like my pappa neuters a pig!" said Johnnie Sue, her voice heavy with scorn.

"Awww, come on Johnnie Sue," pleaded Jesse, still smiling. "We didn't mean nuthin'. You ARE a girl, after all." Unconsciously, though, he cupped his hands over his groin.

It was seeing her friend protecting his ... manhood ... that caused the mood to lighten for Johnnie Sue. He looked funny, cupping his privates like that, and she suddenly laughed.

"Look at you!" She pointed to his hands. Luthor was still just trying to breathe, but both Jesse and Moses looked where she was pointing. "You actually think I'd hurt you!"

Jesse jerked his hands away from his crotch, and his already dark skin got a shade darker.

Johnnie Sue laughed some more. "What a bunch of sissy boys you are! Scared of a pore old little girl!" She thought that was hilarious, but was the only one laughing. She stopped as the uncomfortable mood made itself plain.

Luthor sat up, finally able to breathe normally.

"You didn't have to do that," he complained.

"You were looking at my titties!" she exclaimed. "What's the big deal anyway?" she snorted. "So I got titties. Every girl has titties. Why are they so fascinating to boys?"

"If you think I'm going to talk about your damn titties when you just done that to me, you must be crazy!" panted Luthor, getting up and dusting off his clothes.

Johnnie Sue felt this new and sudden, but obvious, rift in their friendship in a way that was painful. Her feelings were conflicted. She had been mad that her friends would look at her ... that way. It was like a trust had been abused. And now it looked like all this was going to cause problems between best friends. That made her mad too. She couldn't help it that the damn things grew on her chest. And lately they had grown so much that her mother was starting to insist that she wear a bra. She only had one, and it was way too small now. It was like her life was being taken away from her somehow, and she was helpless to do anything about it.

"Answer my question!" she demanded, frustrated so much that she almost danced. "You stared at them. You owe me an answer!"

"Moses stared at them too," grumbled Luthor. "Ask him."

Johnnie Sue whirled to confront Moses, who was edging backwards.

"Don't you go anywhere Moses Finshaw!" she snapped. "You started this! You answer my question!"

"You hugged me!" babbled Moses, scared so much he started looking gray.

Johnnie Sue realized how frightened he was, and held up her hands. This was getting worse and worse, instead of better.

"Okay," she said calmly. "I'm not going to be mad. But I want to know ... please?"

"You're already mad," said Luthor grumpily.

Johnnie Sue threw up her hands in frustration. Then she took a breath to calm herself.

"Please?" she asked.

"You really want to know?" asked Luthor, looking at her suspiciously.

"Yes, I really want to know." she said.

Luthor looked at Moses and Jesse, both of whom were standing mutely, still obviously scared.

"Okay, I'm not real clear exactly what it is you want to know," said Luthor. "Could you ask the question again?"

Johnnie Sue looked at him with a frown, but decided he was still addled by her bouncing on his stomach.

"Why are boys so interested in titties?" she asked evenly.

"I can't believe we're talking about this," said Luthor. He saw Johnnie Sue drawing another deep breath and cut her off before she could yell at him again. "Okay, okay." She subsided and waited for him to speak. He looked at Moses and Jesse again, and then back at the girl.

"They're pretty," he said uncertainly.

"Pretty?" Johnnie Sue said, looking down at her chest.

"Well ... sure," said Luthor.

She turned to Moses, the question in her eyes. He still didn't say anything.

"You can tell me, Moses," she said, her voice sounding strange.

Moses' eyes went in a quick circle. "You promise you won't tell anybody?" he asked.

"I promise," said Johnnie Sue, crossing her heart instinctively. She didn't think about the fact that her finger was making that motion across the very breasts they were talking about.

"Soft," he said.

"Soft?" she repeated.

"They feel soft," he explained.

"But you didn't feel them," she said, confused, looking at his hands.

"Against me," he added, touching his own chest. He held his arms out like he was hugging someone.

"That's it?" she asked, sounding surprised. "They're pretty and they feel soft?" She looked back at Luthor, who still looked tense. "You really think they're pretty?"

He swallowed. "Well sure," he said. "I mean I only saw them this once ... but they're pretty."

"You've seen them lots of times," she insisted. "We've been skinny-dipping down at the creek a million times."

"That was a long time ago," said Luthor. "You didn't have them the last time, when we went skinny dipping."

Johnnie Sue thought about that. Her chest had seemed to just explode over the last winter and spring. And, now that she thought about it, none of them had seen each other for years. Her mother had insisted that she wear a swim suit when she started bleeding, and when she started wearing one the boys had just kept their shorts on too.

"That makes me feel weird," she said.

"We won't look any more," offered Luthor. "I mean if that would make you feel better."

"How can I feel better?" she complained. "If you think they're pretty you're going to look at them. You can't stop yourself from looking at them. What do I get to look at? This isn't fair!"

"Boys don't have titties," said Luthor. "We can't help that either."

Johnnie Sue frowned, but that slowly turned to something almost like a smile.

"No, but you DO have something else I could look at."

Luthor stared at her. She turned her head to look at Moses and Jesse. They were staring at her too.

"I can't show you that!" said Luthor, his own hands going to cover his crotch.

Johnnie Sue felt power returning to her and loved it. She pointed at his hands.

"Look at that, Moses. Luthor's afraid of me too!"

"I'm not afraid of you!" he argued. "I'm just not going to show you my ... I'm just not going to show it to you!"

"Why not?" she asked airily. "You saw my titties. Why can't I see your root?"

"Root?" said Luthor.

"That's what my Mamma calls it," said Johnnie Sue.

"Well, whatever you call it, you can't see it." he said stubbornly. "My pa would whip me raw if I showed you my dick."

"Well your pa would whip you raw if I told him you looked at my titties too ... now wouldn't he? But your pa is never going to know about this anyway ... as long as I get to see something." She looked smug.

"What about them?" Luthor gulped, thinking she would back off.

"They stared at my titties too," she said simply. She turned to look at Jesse and Moses, who looked scared again. She misunderstood the fact that they were aware they were black, and she was white. "Look, I'm not going to castrate anybody, okay? I just want to see something so we're even."

"I cain't show you my thing," squeaked Moses. "Lightnin' would strike me down iff'n I did!" His speech patterns degraded a little from the fright.

"All three of you stared at my titties," she said stubbornly.

"I didn't!" yelped Jesse.

She turned to face him, and his eyes automatically dropped to the bulges under discussion.

"You just did. So there! You have to show me yours too!"

"But Luthor saw them nekkid," whined Moses, trying to find some way out of this fiasco.

Johnnie Sue fumed. This was just so unfair! Her hands went to her shirt and she lifted it, facing Moses and Jesse, pulling it above her round, jutting breasts. Both boys stared at her pale pink nipples, perched on round handfuls of lily white flesh.

"THERE!" she shouted. "Now YOU'VE seen them naked too! Now you get those pants down around your ankles before I do something about it!" She jerked her shirt back down and put her hands on her hips.

"I can't believe you done that!" gasped Jesse.

"Drop 'em!" insisted Johnnie Sue.

When still nobody moved, she stamped her foot.

"If I don't get to see somethin' Really soon I'm gonna strip naked and dance around right in front of all of you!" she shouted.

Odd as it may seem to you, the modern reader, that galvanized the boys. All three of them jerked their hands to their waists and three pairs of pants dropped to show three pairs of white jockey shorts.

Johnnie Sue stood, frozen. Part of her mind hadn't really believed they would actually do what she demanded. Her threats had all been bluff, and she thought they knew it. She had to make them though. The frustration of the situation was driving her crazy. Now, it appeared as though they might perform as commanded.

"The underdrawers too," she said, trying to make her voice sound steely.

Slowly, almost like in a dream that was in slow motion, the three boys thumbs went into the waistband of their shorts, and that white cloth slid slowly down. Johnny Sue didn't know where to look first.

"Get together!" she blurted.

All three boys looked like they were being taken hostage by men with guns.

Moses and Jesse hobbled over to stand beside Luthor. Johnnie Sue wanted to laugh, because the three boys standing there in shirts, with their legs bare and pants puddled at their feet looked ridiculous. But she instinctively knew better than to show any kind of mirth. She went and squatted in front of them, staring.

Moses' penis stuck straight out. She noted that almost mechanically, not thinking about it for now. Luthor's looked completely different, and not only because of the pink color. There was a well-defined knob at the tip of his, larger in diameter than the rest of what hung there limply. Both of the others, though, had a sheath of skin covering the tip. Johnnie Sue thought about her dog, Charger, who she had seen breeding bitches around the house many times. His was pink, and resided inside a sheath. But it was pointy at the tip, and these were round and blunt. Jesse's was the smallest, only a couple of inches long, and looking almost forlorn hanging there.

"They're so different," she said, awe in her voice.

"Well of course," said Luthor hesitantly.

"No, not that," said Johnnie Sue. "I mean now they're shaped and stuff. Moses' is hard. How come yours isn't?" she asked.

"It gets hard sometimes," said Luthor defensively, feeling like he had been maligned.

"Why not now?" she asked.

"It started to get hard when I looked down your shirt," he said, still trying to prove he was a man.

"When you looked at my titties it got hard?" she asked.

"It started to," he said. "Then you almost killed me and it stopped."

She looked up at Moses. "And is yours hard because I showed you my titties?" she asked.

He nodded, wide eyed. He couldn't have said anything if he'd have been offered a hundred dollars.

She looked over at Jesse. "What about yours?" she asked.

"I'm skeered," he moaned.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she chided. "Maybe you don't think my titties are pretty." she said, sounding mildly disappointed.

"Sure they are," he gasped. "They're the prettiest things I ever seen!"

"So how come yours isn't hard?" she insisted.

"I don't know," he moaned.

"Maybe if you saw them again." she said, standing up. Her fingers went to the buttons of her shirt and worked them quickly. She pulled the shirt open and stood, feeling foolish, in front of the boys. Their eyes were glued to her breasts, and for some reason, instead of making her mad this time, it made her feel better. Her eyes went downwards, and this time all three of them were hard. Jesse's had lengthened amazingly, and was now even longer than Moses' or Luthor's, even though he was a year younger. She was fascinated. She also noticed that the sheath over both of the black ones had pulled back a little, and a shiny tip was pushing out.

"Look!" she pointed at Moses', because he was standing next to Luthor. "Yours is all knobby," she said to Luthor. "His isn't."

Moses, perhaps in some effort to show that they were the same, even though that seemed stupid, reached down and skinned his foreskin back, exposing his own knob. Johnnie Sue gasped.

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, incredulous.

"No," said Moses, letting go. He was so hard that the skin stayed back, creeping forward only very slowly.

"Do yours!" she said to Jesse.

Following orders, Jesse pulled on his own prick, exposing the tip.

"Wow," said Johnnie Sue softly. "Yours is bigger than theirs."

"I don't know why," he whined.

"It's okay," she assured him. Then she looked confused and glanced at Luthor, whose eyes were still on her gaping shirt. "Isn't it?" she asked.

Luthor's eyes came back up to meet hers and he blushed.

"I guess so," he said. His eyes darted back to her chest.

"You really do like looking at them," she said, sounding surprised somehow.

"I sure do," sighed Luthor.

"So what happens when they get hard like that?" she asked curiously. She knew what Charger did, but she didn't think these boys did that.

"Ummmm" said Luthor, his eyes suddenly guarded.

"Nothin'," yelped Jesse. His mother had caught him stroking his hard penis one time and thrashed him, saying that was heathen behavior.

Johnnie Sue heard the lie in his voice, and that just fueled her curiosity. "Come on," she said, her voice wheedling. "I don't have one, so how am I supposed to know."

"We can't talk about that," gasped Luthor. He'd been around enough boys to know that most did what he did when it got hard like that. It wasn't hard for him to believe that Moses and Jesse did it too, and include them in his statement.

"Why not?" she asked honestly.

"Cause it ain't proper!" he said urgently.

"I know what Charger does when his gets hard like that," said Johnnie Sue. "You don't find you some dog and stick in her ... so what do you do?"

Johnnie Sue! yelped Luthor.

"Well?" she insisted. "What do you do? You can't just put it back in your pants. It would stick out a mile!"

"Damn, Johnnie Sue!" yelled Luthor.

"Don't you curse at me Luthor Cripps!" she shot back, jerking around to face him full on. It made her breasts wobble and Luthor felt his knees go weak.

"We rub it!" he shouted, feeling like he was going to explode. "There! Are you happy now? We rub it!"

Jesse's hand went to cover his mouth, even though he hadn't said a word, and his other hand tried to cover his bobbing penis.

"Well why didn't you just say so?" complained Johnnie Sue. She didn't think rubbing anything could be so horrible. "What's so bad about rubbing something? And why does that help anyway? You already said it doesn't hurt."

"It just makes it feel better," whined Luthor. "I can not believe we're talking about this!" he went on.

"Well okay, then," said Johnnie Sue, disgusted now. She had expected to find out some kind of secret information, but if all they did was rub the things that wasn't very interesting. She buttoned up her shirt.

"What are you doing?" asked Luthor, his voice choked.

"I'm covering up my titties," she said, matter-of-factly. "We're done."

"What do you mean we're done?!" begged Luthor. "What about us?"

Johnnie Sue looked confused for a minute, and then realized they were all still standing there, all still stiff.

"Well rub them or something," she said, uninterested now. "I want to go look in that attic."

None of the boys, though, were willing to masturbate in front of each other, much less Johnnie Sue, so instead of doing that they just pulled up their pants, folding things as comfortably as possible. Johnnie Sue watched.

"Gee, I guess they don't stick out as much as I thought. Are you sure that doesn't hurt, bending them around like that?"

"Damn, Johnnie Sue," groaned Luthor.

"I told you not to curse at me, Luthor," came her calm reply.

Johnnie Sue, not realizing she could actually have seen something very interesting, had she goaded the boys, tried to bully them into going with her look into the attic of the mansion. All three boys set their heels hard, though. It was too late that evening. Harvest was about to start, and they needed their rest to be ready for long, hard days of labor. And, it didn't look good for the next few weekends either. During harvest, if the weather cooperated, Sunday didn't mean nearly as much as it did the rest of the year.

Johnnie Sue would have to work too, though this year her mother had told her she'd be working in the kitchen, and taking meals out to the fields, instead of chopping cotton herself. She was relieved about that, in one sense, because chopping cotton was hard work. Then again, it would mean she was only with women, which, up to this point in her life, had seemed almost a punishment. As she trudged home, disappointed, she thought about the new power she suddenly had over the boys. Maybe she could learn something from the women about how to extend that power.

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