Who's Afraid-Not Me

Word Count: 299





As a child, I spent a great deal of my time, split between my grandparent’s and my great-aunt’s.  I loved to sleep over.

My Grandma and Grandpa lived in a double shotgun house—a pretty common style in older neighborhoods.  Each side of these houses mirror the other, and there are very little hallways—each room opening into the other.  The exception, at least in their house, was a hallway connecting the bedrooms and passed the bath.

When I was very young, my grandmother would sleep in the back bedroom in the bed with me.  But I had an independent streak—even then, and it wasn’t long before I had convinced them that I was perfectly able to sleep alone.  And, to be honest, by lying on the edge of my bed, I could just see my Grandma lying in her side of the bed.  So I wasn’t afraid there.

Garnie’s was different.  Her house was perfectly square.  The three bedrooms and bath all opened from a large square hallway—for lack a better term.  Garnie slept in the larger of the two back bedrooms.  The smaller bedroom had two walls of windows, and was used as a den.

The third bedroom was in front of the bathroom.  I loved this room.  It had a high, four poster bed, and a kidney shaped dressing table with a silk skirt.  There was a dresser and mirror, a little slipper rocker and a marble topped table next to the bed.  But there was a lot of dark between this room and Garnie’s, but I was a stubborn child. 

My ‘sleeping’ in that bedroom secretly meant I stayed awake, reading ‘til dawn.  Because every creak of a board, or branch rub against a window terrified me.  I wonder if Garnie even suspected.