The Boy in the Attic

There is a running joke in our house about an imaginary boy who lives in our attic. He gets blamed for all kinds of things around here...missing socks, lost keys, big messes, eaten cookies, weird noises...you get the idea. The joke has been reserved for just the older crowd so as not to cause any undue sleepless nights for the younger ones, but once a Dellinger kid is old enough to recognize the boy in the attic for the harmless joke that he is, that kid is included in the jokes. Now, I can't take credit for the notion of the boy in the attic. He is something I have lived with for many years thanks to Archie Bunker.

In all honesty, as lighthearted as we try to keep The Boy in the Attic's Tales of Mischief and Mayhem, I will confess something here if we can promise that this stays just between us. Sometimes that little booger freaks me the heck out. There have been times when I have been home alone and suddenly, I smell cigarette smoke coming from upstairs (we are a non-smoking family...well, George is pretty hot but what I mean to say is that no one in this house smokes cigarettes). Every now and again, I hear unexplained noises and random items go missing...like a shirt I know I washed and hung in my closet will suddenly disappear but once I start seriously looking for the shirt and asking around about it, it suddenly reappears tucked away where I know I already looked for said item a hundred times. It's times like these that I think about this:

Seriously, what could possibly be scarier than Gary Busey secretly taking up residence in your attic?! As long as I am being completely honest with you, I will admit that there have been a couple of occasions that I have made George take a quick peek in our attic certain that he would not only find all kinds of our missing items stashed up there along with granola bar wrappers and empty water bottles, but that he would also discover some person sitting up there petting Bobby Brady's dog, Tiger. I know, I know...I have seen too many scary movies and my imagination sometimes gets the better of me. It's one of the downfalls of being a writer...sometimes we briefly lose touch with reality because in our minds we can make the story plausible. 

All this to say, that yesterday while Vivie and I were cleaning her bedroom (which is located upstairs), she began to tell me about her missing Strawberry Shortcake doll. It's no surprise that she can't find something in her room as it has been in a state of perpetual mess all summer. Then she went on to explain that she left it on her shelf, went downstairs to get a drink, and when she came back, the doll was gone. As I was throwing out logical explanations for the doll's disappearance, she quickly interrupted me (now mind you, she is not privy to the boy in the attic shenanigans as she is only 4) and she said, "You know what I think? I think there is someone up there (pointing to the air vent in her ceiling) and he comes down and takes our stuff!" What I wanted to say in that moment was, "Shhh. Sweetie, he can hear us," but what I really said was, "Well, that would be impossible for someone to be up there without us knowing. There isn't anyone up there. I'm sure we will find your doll when we finish cleaning your room." I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe me. 

Last night as I was trying to sleep, I started thinking about all the times when Vivie didn't want to be upstairs alone because she was hearing strange sounds or she would say she thought somebody was watching her. Yeah, kids will scare the poop out of you if you let them. I guess I better hunt down that Strawberry Shortcake doll today so George can get a good night's rest.