Night had begun to fall.  Scott suspected it was around 8 o’clock.  Janie was running later than she’d said, but that was all right with Scott.  She had left enough slack in the lace-chains that bound him to the tree that he could at least rest his arms and legs by kneeling down in the small pile of leaves resting in the hole in the side of the old tree.

                Besides, it had given him time to think. 

                There was no way around it.  His life for the past six years had been nothing short of a living hell with short flashes of calm before the next storm.  His girlfriend Ella.  Sharing a joke with his brother Kyle.  Hanging out with his friends at a party.  These were the things that let him keep his sanity.

                These were the things he came back to every time he found himself ground powerfully underfoot by his mother’s aggressive toes.  The things he had to come back to in order to keep mind somehow intact whenever his sister’s soft, creamy sole would bury him underneath it like a toy.  The only things that allowed him to maintain some shred of dignity, or some last piece of hope that things would be all right again, no matter the foul stench, the crushing weight, or the utter brain-detonating humiliation that would so easily have driven countless others to the nuthouse were they in his situation.

                Why did he remain?  How had he not been driven mad several years before?  How had it been possible?

                Was it the promise of escape?  His odd encounter with Janie this day had been grotesque and terrifying in its own way, but also, somehow, liberating.  Not in the sense that he had been forced to more or less cheat on Ella against his will with someone wildly underage, but because he was vulnerable, capable of being broken, and in the hands of a girl who only wanted to feel wanted.  Sure, she had taken it much too far and clearly was harboring some emotional damage and vagrancy of love, but she had held Scott in her hand and looked at him not as an insect.  Not as a plastic figurine.  Not as a living toe ring.

                As a boy with the capacity to love.

                Scott shivered, feeling a slight summer chill beginning to settle in more fully over his exposed body.  He knelt down in the leaves, hoping to be brought some comfort there, but found none.

                He knew that this life offered to him by Janie couldn’t be real.  She was thirteen, confused, and beside herself with a sudden crush she’d developed on a boy she didn’t actually have to listen to because she could overpower him.  It was a twisted and wrong relationship that Scott knew he had to forget about.

                Breathing in and out, calmingly, Scott focused on the sounds around him.  An ant the size of a baby chihuahua skittering along the bark of the tree outside.  Leaves swept around in the light breeze.  Stones tumbling down a muddy slope.

                It wasn’t the fake fantasy romance that Janie had envisioned for them that enticed Scott.  It was the idea of what it offered.  The essence of freedom.  No fear or doubt, just peaceful being.  The ability to exist and not have to worry that any wrong step on his part would result in literally being stepped on for the better part of the day under a massive, unforgiving ceiling of foot flesh that cared not for his feelings or worries, but only ground him harder into the sole of the shoe and twisted his neck so tightly between the toes he thought he might suffocate.

                That was what he really wanted.  He wanted it so badly he almost couldn’t breathe.

                “Scott!” called out the voice of Maggie from what sounded like just a few yards away, the crunch of leaves under her boot awakening Scott from his philosophical trance.  “SCOTT!”

                For a moment, as Scott opened his mouth to answer, he hesitated.  Could he really be happier in the hands of a semi-crazed girl with a lovesickness bad enough to leave her bedridden?  Experiencing those unbelievable kisses every day and feeling confident he mattered as a person to someone?  Could he?  It might.  Might it?

                “MAGGIE!” called out Scott, resealing his fate in a painful microsecond he already half-regretted.  “I’M OVER HERE!  IN THE TREE!”

                A rustle of leaves and the sound of Maggie’s hand brushing over the peeling bark of the tree, followed by the blinding beam of a flashlight pouring into the tree hovel gave Scott to know the decision was made.  It was over.

                Maggie gazed in, her crystalline blue eyes practically swirling with pent up rage in the dim glow of the flashlight beam.  Shaking her head, allowing her golden braided ponytails to bounce cutely over her shoulders, she opened her mouth slowly, exhaling.  “Why, you low down, scummy little piece of poop,” she said with an overdone grimace.

                “Maggie, I swear to God, it was…” Scott squeaked, panicked.

                “Yada, yada, yada, you don’t have to get all weepy on me, little brother, I know about it.  Relax,” Maggie smirked, dropping the façade of terror.

                “How?” Scott asked dryly.

                “Who do you think?  Gabby.  Duh,” Maggie groaned as she wrapped her soft, warm fingers around her tiny brother’s chilled body and set about undoing the knots as best she could.

                “Oh.  Yeah.”

                “Janie’s not real good about picking hiding spots.  Also, news flash: not leaving you alone in the bag anymore.”

                “Okay,” Scott said softly, his heart sinking.

                Maggie shrugged like it was nothing.  “Yeah, sorry ‘boutcha, but I can’t have you running off again and you… God, how did she tie these knots… and you getting a new girlfriend.”

                Scott blushed ten shades of red as his sister undid the final knot she was capable of getting before plucking him from the tree with the mud-caked laces still twisted at awkward angles around him like a half unwrapped mummy, cradling him in her palm.

                “Don’t worry, bro, I won’t tell Ella about her.  Maybe.  You know, if you buy me something.”

                “Maggie, you already got your new phone a few days ago, I don’t think that…”

                “Shut up.  You’re getting me something.  Maybe that new pair of shoes I saw at the mall the other day.  You could even help me pick them out, you know.  Might be able to pick out some ones that would be more comfortable for you the next time I…”

                “Maggie, you’re…”

                “Don’t even start with me, little mister.  You’re in enough trouble as it is,” Maggie scolded in the best motherly impression she could do, waggling her finger, as she made her way back toward the cabin.

                “I thought you said you understood.”

                Frowning and realizing her own break in logic, Maggie scoffed but said nothing else.  “Yeah, well, okay, fine.  I do.  I’m not gonna punish you tonight, I guess.  But I don’t have to listen to your crap anyway.  You’re still mine for two more days, remember?  Two more days of fun.  And tomorrow is the big scrimmage day.  All the squads facing off.  Three whole games, sixty minutes each.  How’s that sound?”

                Scott was silent.  He had nothing more to say.

                “Don’t worry, though, I’ll keep it interesting.  Tomorrow morning we’ll put you inside my sock under my toes so you can feel every time I kick a goal.  Then, after I shower, we’ll switch you to the middle, outside the sock, so you can feel the ground bumping underneath.  That’ll be fun, won’t it?” Maggie remarked devilishly, obviously waiting to get a rise out of Scott.  “I’m so glad we’re brother and sister.  I think, most of the time, we get along better than most siblings.  Especially the times when I can wear your stupid little naked body wherever I want…”

                “Maggie, I’m just… I’m just done for the night.  I don’t care anymore.”

                With a bratty huff, Maggie held her chin higher and continued walking.  “Well, fine.  I hope you saved a little energy thought.”

                “But… you said you weren’t going to…”

                “Oh, this isn’t a punishment, bro.  I owe someone a favor,” Maggie said with a grin.

                “What?”

                “Well…” Maggie said slyly, pushing open the back door to the cabin.  “To get Gabby to tell me what had happened to you, I kinda had to make a deal with her.”

                “A deal?”

                The cruel goddess of a little sister nodded.  “Yep.  She told me who took you, and in return…”

                “Guess where you’re sleeping tonight, little cutie?” came the excited squeal of Gabby as she twirled her chocolate locks between slightly chubby fingers.  She was sitting upright on her bed and holding her legs high in the air so the tanned bare soles of her feet were fully visible as she pointed at them.

                “Don’t get too fresh with him, Gabby, he’s too much of a nerd to deserve it.  Just make sure you roll over a lot.  He likes a fun ride while he sleeps.”

                “Sounds good to me,” Gabby said with a wink, holding out her hand to accept her consolation prize for the night.

                “Could I… could I see… Janie again?” Scott asked hopefully, his voice so low only his sister heard it.

                “Don’t be stupid, weirdo.  And end up in all that danger again?  FORGET it.  I’d never let anything bad happen to you, my sweet little baby brother-boo,” Maggie chuckled mockingly, plopping her tiny brother into the waiting hand of her friend, the palm of which was clammy and damp with nervous sweat.  Scott could feel the young girl’s massive hand quivering with anticipation beneath his feet.  “You’re like a little china doll, after all.  You have to be protected.”

                “Maggie, please, just… just…” Scott gasped as he was plunged down into Gabby’s faded yellow sock covered in orange polka dots, but his final words were drowned out as the thirteen-year-old plunged her naked foot down like a fleshy weight into the sock.  She sandwiched the boy between her smooth sole and the fuzzy interior of the fabric cave, relishing the moan-inducing euphoria of the tiny body splayed across the bottom of her foot, his head nestled snugly between her thick, stubby toes that hugged him lovingly as if welcoming him home again to his true place in the world.