Sibling Stories

Across the street from us, lived a Mexican couple named Noe and Sylvia. They had no children, were super-nice, and had a built-in pool that they let us use whenever we wanted. They could have been murderers, but hey! they let us use their pool, and when it's one-hundred frickin' degrees outside, I'd swim WHILE they were trying to stab me. It was all good. They both worked for the U.S. Postal Service. No idea what they actually did, but they worked at the post office.

One day, Noe and Sylvia vanished. It took us a while to realize they were gone, since it was Winter, and really, if we weren't using their pool, then there was no reason to go over there. One day, the three of us just realized that we hadn't seen them in forever. We trekked across the street and knocked on the door--no one answered. We walked to the side of the house and opened the gate into the backyard--it was overgrown with tall weeds. The pool had become a cesspit of frothy, green, bubbles, and black algae. You couldn't even see the steps in the shallow end. All the blinds on the back windows were closed, so we couldn't even peek inside. So, being young and quick-witted, we quickly came to the conclusion that Noe had murdered Sylvia and dumped her body in the pool, where it had been rotting for months. We also liked to scare ourselves silly--did I mention that?

As soon as my parents were home from work, we spun our sinister tale of murder, deception, and nasty-pool-algae. Rightfully, the parents were concerned, so they decided to go check it out for themselves. I must explain, that they weren't concerned that we were telling the truth about a body in the pool, since we had no factual evidence, but they were concerned that the house was in such a state that it definitely pointed to the owners not being in attendance. My parents ordered us to stay home while they checked it out. SURE. The whole family ended up over there, because, hey, if a rotted corpse began to crawl out of the pool and attack my parents, we had to be there to save them. Or at least push them in the pool so the corpse couldn't get us. Either way.

Mom and Dad found that the bottom, bedroom window was unlocked. They opened it, and we all climbed in... What we saw, once our eyes adjusted to the darkness, was surprising. Everything was still in it's place. Nothing had been moved, nothing was missing. The only odd thing about the place was that it contained a horrible, musty odor. The odor of being closed-up with no air circulation for months. We looked around the house. The air was moist and thick--but totally untouched. We looked in the closet of the master bedroom: All the clothes were still there. All Sylvia's jewelry was still there. Her purses were there. I opened one, and it contained $50. Strange, right? Weird. We never saw, nor heard from them again. It was like they vanished off the face of the Earth, or at least went back to Mexico.

Since the house was empty, and my parents told us not to ever go over there again, we obeyed them completely. Instead of going over there, we used a huge sling-shot to shoot potatoes into their ac unit--which, once they hit the vents, turned into fries; and to shoot oranges into their siding. You know...normal kid stuff.