Free The Right Thing by Amy Conner

round as a bushel basket.
    Now, I knew from previous visits that the Kenmore playhouse in the Treebys’ basement was about it as far as entertainment went over there. Lisa’s allergies made playing outside impossible since weeds, leaves, and dust made her moon face swell to alarming proportions and then she couldn’t breathe. We weren’t allowed to play upstairs either because Mr. Treeby, an accountant, worked at home and any child-related racket resulted in a fearsome display of temper. Poor Mrs. Treeby would flutter and wring her hands when he ranted like a wrathful Old Testament patriarch and then tearfully beg him to calm down. No, it was the playhouse or nothing, so down to the basement we went.
    Kenmore playhouses were never made to withstand the combined assaults of mildew, damp basements, and kids who’d grown bigger than they used to be. Each was made of middleweight cardboard fastened together with tabs and plastic snaps into a top-heavy box roughly the size of a kitchen stove—Sears sold a ton of them. Lisa’s playhouse had been threatening to collapse for as long as I’d known it and was pieced together with masking tape. There wasn’t room for both of us to be inside the playhouse at the same time.
    â€œYou want to go first?” Lisa was a polite child with the kind of manners parents universally applauded. As a consequence, the other kids didn’t like her very much.
    â€œNo, you go ahead,” I said. “I need to use the bathroom, though.” I didn’t really, but I was already bored to death with the basement.
    â€œOkay,” Lisa said. She squeezed through the door opening. Hunkering down inside the playhouse, she turned around like a dog in a too-small crate while the playhouse threatened to tip over. Lisa tried to look out the window, but her head wouldn’t fit. She stuck her arm through the opening instead and wagged a finger of caution at me. “Watch out—don’t bother my daddy.”
    I didn’t know my way around the Treebys’ house very well, but I knew where the powder room was. Upstairs in the dark hallway, the door to the half-bath was shut. The door across the hall was cracked open, though, and a strange, low hooting was going on inside the room behind it. The noise sounded like a morose beagle. I knew the Treebys didn’t have a dog, thanks to Lisa’s allergies.
    Curious, I tiptoed across the hall to peek through the long strip of light between the door and the frame. The rhythmic moaning grew louder as I sneaked the solid oak door open an inch wider, then another inch. I peered into the dim room. Long olive-colored curtains were drawn over the window, the bright banker’s lamp on the big mahogany desk the only illumination. To the right, just inside the door, was a Chesterfield sofa with a large photograph book balanced on the end of its rolled leather arm. The moaning had turned to gasping and ran rough and fast now. Cautiously, I stuck my nose inside the door for a better look.
    Planted on top of the tufted cushions of the Chesterfield were two oxblood leather men’s shoes and a pair of gray serge pants bunched loosely around a pair of skinny white shins holstered in gartered socks. Wide-eyed, I slid the door open another inch and saw naked hairy thighs spread wide, an astonishing thatch of wolverine-like fur, and in the middle of the fur was a hand gripping something wrapped in a large white handkerchief.
    â€œGah!” It was Mr. Treeby’s voice, explosive as a burst gas main. His bare hips bucked in a furious spasm. “Gah!”
    In a wide-eyed, disbelieving panic, I dropped to my knees to hide. The picture book slid off the arm of the Chesterfield to the floor, falling open. Through the now-open door, I could just make out an old-fashioned black-and-white photograph of three young women in maids’ uniforms, bent over at the waist. Full skirts rucked up, three sets of bare buttocks