the liar, the witch, and the wardrobe

I was five and naive with a wild imagination, as any girl in my lower school did, given the fact that we had no playground, only the rocks and the trees to play with. I caught you with a gum wrapper, which in our mother's eyes was sinful. If you ate gum, you'd turn into a lifelong smoker like herself. Things sometimes seemed to work backwards for her. I told you I'd tell, but you said you had a secret that would make sense of your sin. So, unknowingly I forever fell in the trap of believing. 

"Our brother's Adam and Eric live in the attic. Mom and dad hide them away, because they're ashamed of them," you said with a smirk that somehow slipped past me. 

 

"What? So the gum was...for them?!"

"Oh, it's all they'll eat! They've never lived with humans, so they don't know kids can't just eat gum and candy all day."

"So shouldn't we give them regular people food?"

"No! No! I mean...they won't eat it, they wouldn't know what it was. You should get them some, and I can give it to them. I know them, they trust me."

"Well, okay."

Three girls and no boys, no Charles Harvey Palmer IV that our dad had been hoping for. Just like there was never a gun safe behind that scary portrait of a distant relative in our dining room that'd be staring straight at you no matter where you were in the room. I walked the creaking steps to the attic, and inside an old wardobe, found the brotherless wrappers. 

Sorry for trying to get back at you by stabbing you in the arm with a pencil, even though mom said I'd go to jail if I did it. I guess I've learned that sometimes, she lies too.

....or she's just wrong, a lot.

So, the truth as to why I lie--I'm not always the naive five year old that gets caught belieiving. Sometimes, it's you!