Free The Bear: A Novel by Claire Cameron Page B

my head under but not too much so the peeking is still a secret. And we play hot potato and you pass the potato around and pretend it’s hot even though it isn’t really hot and when the music stops everyone points at the person who is stuck holding the potato and I feel really bad. My cheeks feel like hot potatoes and someone says they are pink. Jessica’s mother told me not to peek but I still did because it was too dark and I wanted to not be “it” so I could get out from the dark. I don’t like to be “it.”
    “Get me out,” Stick yells.
    He didn’t say please but I reach and pull his arm closer to the rock so I can reach. I am taller on the rock and he is only up to my belly button so I can get the sleeves and the end of the top all together and I pull straight up and pop. The circle comes off Stick’s face and he has a red line on his nose from the neck.
    “Stop growing your head,” I say.
    “Stop it,” he says and he doesn’t speak much English but he wants to say that he is mad.
    I think Stick has English inside his head and he doesn’t make it come out loud so much even when it comes out the wrong way or backwards like my name Nana. His words are in his head and they get stuck when they swim around inside. This is because I saw a picture of a brain and there are little squiggly paths that wind around and around like worms and English has to travel through the squiggles that are like tunnels for worms. A baby can’t push their thinking because there are so many worms. Stick isn’t a baby anymore but he still is wormy gross and I tease him about worms and get in trouble when I put them in his face. I have to put them back in the dirt to let them have a nice life again. And if I chopped there would be two worms instead of one and they could go one to the house and one to the alley. That is two worms having a nice life but I still don’t like worms and not in my head but I will touch them sometimes if it makes Stick say yuck.
    Now Stick is wiggling and trying to get out of his pj bottoms just like me. I tell him to sit and I grab the elastic at the top and pull so that they come inside out and off. They get stuck at the last part of his feet. I sit down to get a better grip and he thinks I am not pulling anymore.
    “My knees are stuck,” he says.
    “Ankles, silly,” and I know it is Stick speak and sit and pull them off.
    It is easy to get them off his feet not like his head and I remember the poo almost too late but it isn’t there anymore. Or I can see a few patches but they are mostly gone and any bigger chunk is not there. That is good because those are what I hate and smell the worst. Stick’s pj bottoms do smell a little and I wouldn’t want them on my nose but far away it isn’t so bad. He rolls over and gets onto his knees and says “Ouch” on the ground and gets on his feet. He puts his feet down and his bum is in my face. He bends and I can see a red starfish and if I looked I would see right up Sticky’s bum. Yuck. Once when Sticky didn’t have on diapers and he bent down and we saw up his bum even if we didn’t mean to look because it was right there in our face. Daddy said that we could probably see all the secrets of the universe in there. I peek and no. And Daddy was wrong. There are no secrets just a little bit of poo.
    I twist his pj’s like I twisted mine and I put them on the rock on the other side of Gwen. I spread them out so the arms and legs are straight and after a minute it looks like Stick is lying on the rocks and so am I. And our pj’s are the same with ducks on them so it looks like two kids are lying on the rock except one is bigger than the other just like I am bigger than Stick. He comes up to my chest when we are standing except when I am standing on the rock and then only up to my belly button. I think his head might already be as big as mine but I hope it won’t grow anymore or else he will get stuck in his pj top forever.
    My skin feels warm now