The Giggles...

fiction

Is there a more useless command than telling someone to stop giggling? There just seems to be something about that phrase, that combination of syllables that has the opposite effect of what you want. Just saying the word giggle seems to cause the giggles.

But still...

"Stop giggling!" she hissed at them. "If you don't stop giggling he will find you. It doesn't matter how far back into the closet you go, or how many dresses you pull around yourself, or even if you think you're being clever by hiding your feet in the dress shoes, if you giggle you lose the game."

They looked up at her with impossibly big eyes and nodded that they understood. And then broke out into helpless giggles all over again.

She would rather have been hiding by herself. She was a champion at this game. Once she had hidden under a dining room table. One without a tablecloth. Just under the table, pulled up against a table leg. And nobody saw her. Hiding by yourself was so much easier. But they had followed her into the closet and now if they were found, she was found too. She had shoved them into the darkest corner and pulled everything around them as well as she could. They just needed to stop giggling.

When they had first run after her into the closet she thought about tucking them in the back and then finding a new place to hide by herself. But she realized they would follow her wherever she went. They thought that was part of the fun. Not just the hiding, but the hiding with someone. Having someone to giggle with when the seeker would look right at them and still not see them.

Which was the problem. As soon as they giggled, that dress in the corner was no longer a hiding place. Dresses might do a lot of things, but they don't giggle. Okay, technically, dresses only did one thing, but that one thing wasn't giggling.

And anyway by the time she got them well hidden she could hear him coming down the hallway and there was no time left to hide somewhere new. Maybe if there hadn't been so much stuff crammed under the bed she could have slid in there, but the last time the room needed to be cleaned that's where all the junk went. Clean enough. As long as you didn't look too hard.

Which maybe he was a lousy seeker. Sometimes the seeker is. They are over confident. Sure of what they are seeing and never considering that they were being fooled. "I looked in the closet, there was nothing there." She wasn't a giggler, but she had smiled often at that one. Nothing there but the champion hider of them all, you mean.

But that was all about to be ruined if these two didn't stop giggling.

She whispered as quietly as she could, "Do you want to be found? If you keep giggling he will hear you and that will be that."

They shook their heads solemnly but she could see them clenching their lips to try to hold back the giggle even now.

"Stop giggling!" She knew she shouldn't say it, but it was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"Do you hear it? Listen! There is something in the closet, I'm not being a baby! There is something there!"

He had to admit it did sound like there was a noise coming from the closet. He wasn't sure what it was but there was something truly unpleasant about it. The little hairs on his arm were standing straight up as he opened the door and flipped on the light. There! Did that coat move? No. There was no way that happened. He looked quickly and flipped the light back off.

"See? Daddy looked, there is nothing there." Not that he was going to look again, once was enough.

"Can I sleep in your room tonight? Please...."

"Okay, honey, but just tonight." He would have said no, but all he wanted to do was get out of that room right now. He knew he was being stupid but his heart was racing. He just needed to calm down. Little kid's fears are contagious.

They giggled again.

"Let's go! Grab your stuffy and you can sleep with me and Mommy tonight!"

She heard him slam the door shut and practically run down the hall. Maybe there was more than one way to play this game.

She smiled as they giggled again.