He looked down at the purple bottle in his hand, and without giving his conscience a moment to tell him otherwise, he quickly shoved the entirety of it into his pocket. Now if you’d asked him later I doubt he’d really even fully understand why he did it. It wasn’t so much like him to do something like that, but there were just so many of them, surely his parents wouldn’t notice only one that had gone missing, and if they did, he could always return it, no harm done.

“You need somethin Dad?” Will said as he crossed his way back up toward the computer.

“Actually yes,” he said. “Listen I printed these off.” His dad reached for a stack of sticker labels. “If you could attach one of these to each of those prescription bottles and then organize them from the lowest number to the highest that would be great.”

“Yeah, ok. You want me to do all of them?” Will said.

“Well, as many as you can finish before we leave,” his father said. “It’ll help your mother and I quite a lot. We’d certainly be thankful.”

Will just smiled and started to work. What else could he do?

It was several hours later before the two of them finally climbed back in the car and made their way home. Once in the house, Will went straight to his room, closed the door, and finally slipped the purple bottle out of his pocket. He opened up the lid, and placed the bottle on his dresser drawers by the window. Then he carefully picked out one of the small smooth orbs. He turned it around between his fingers and thumb and wondered why it felt so weird. He’d really never seen a pill like this before. Did you chew it up or swallow it he wondered?

Thunk, thunk, thunk, came a knock at the door. Will nearly jumped out of his shoes he was so startled.  Quickly, he shoved the single pill-thingy into his sweatpants and threw his favorite blue baseball cap over the open bottle on the dresser.

“Doodlebug, dinner’s ready,” his mom said as she opened the door. “Go ahead and wash your hands and join us at the table.”

“I love you Mom,” Will just kinda blurted it out. What was he thinking? Where did that come from?

“Aww, honey, I love you too. You ready?”

Will plastered a smile on his face and walked a bee-line past his mother and to the bathroom to wash his hands. His mother followed him to the sink.

“How was the day with your father? Was it exciting?” she said.

“It was good, Dad said I helped.”

“He told me that too… one of the first things he said when he got home. Being a helper’s always been one of your strong suits.”

Will dried his hands and resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be back in his room alone till after dinner. He was right. One or both parents had eyes on him till finally he had brushed his teeth, changed his shirt, and retired to his room for bed.

He laid in his bunk, perplexed by all the attention.

Then he heard it. It wasn’t easy to hear, but Will was so used to the sounds of his room he knew when something didn’t belong. It was a tiny scratching sound and it came from the window. Will waited to hear it again.

There it was.

Confusion ran all across Will’s face.

What was the cause, he thought. What possibly could have made that sound. Will got to his knees, crawled across the floor and slowly raised his head up and over the dresser drawers to peer out his bedroom window.

Will froze in place.

It was an animal. And it saw him. Instantly it saw him. Almost as if it was waiting for him. The creature was about the size of a football and had it’s face nearly pressed against the glass. It would almost have been cute if Will hadn’t been so surprised to meet its eyes.

What does this strange new animal most look like?

A lizard with round glassy eyes

A large hamster with long front whiskers

A dark and slender bird with faintly glowing feathers

This Poll is Closed