Let's Go Play at the Adams'

In the kitchen, Cindy self-importantly fulfilled her promise, and neatly. The realization that

adults would not be in to clean up after her was gradually imbuing her with a sense of

proprietorship. Cindy was for the moment mistress of the house and keeper of the prisoner. It

was a demanding role. When she had made the sandwich, she put the bread, jelly, peanut

butter, and knife away and wiped up the crumbs. She put the Coke in a glass with a bendable

straw and everything together on a little tray her mother used if someone was ill and had to

eat in bed. Returning to Barbara's room, she was even somewhat proud of herself.

There was a great deal of clearing things and making room for the tray and adjusting of the

light. Finally she said, "What do you want first, the sandwich or the Coke?"

Barbara drank greedily and then ate a little more slowly, Cindy administering to her as if she

were a child. After a few sips and bites, they had everything worked out tidily-no crumbs, no

spills. When they were done, Cindy carried the tray back to the kitchen, but there she

abandoned her neatness. She just banged the tray on the counter and ran back to Barbara's

room. This was fun! Or, at least, it was something. It would've been more fun if they could just

have sort of sat cross-legged on the bed and talked like real friends or sisters or something

instead of this.

"Does it really hurt that much, being tied up all the time?" Cindy sat down gently on the edge

of the bed.

"Yes.',

"I thought so." Cindy frowned as if confirmed in some private suspicion of her own that had

been nagging her. "It does me, too," she said, "or it did."

"You?"

"When we used to play that way. I didn't do it much, but once in a while they let me go with

them."

90

"Where?"

"In the woods, down in the tenant house, wherever they wanted to play Prisoner."

"They did it to you, too? You must have been too little."

"Yeah," Cindy agreed. "But everybody took turns-it was part of the game." Cindy was

flattered that Barbara suddenly looked more interested.

"What was the game, really?"

"I don't remember all that much about it." Cindy tried, however. "John was king, and

Dianne was queen, of course. And Bobby was the general-we all had things to do. We had

maps of the country and everything."

"And that's when you captured prisoners?" Barbara said.

"Yeah," Cindy twirled a ringlet of hair in her finger again. She would have put it in her

mouth if it had been long enough to reach: instead she just tugged it down the side of her

face and stared off into space a little wistfully. "After a while it got boring."

"Then that's not what you're playing now?" Barbara was coaxing.

"Um mnnn!" Cindy was emphatic. She shook her head and continued to look off

somewhere above and behind Barbara's bed. ''I guess this is Freedom Five. Paul invented

it; it's more fun. We're a bunch of guerrilla fighters living in the woods and shooting people

and blowing up trains and stuff."

''Oh .... "

Cindy smiled down. It did seem to her that Barbara more or less understood what was a

rather complicated history. "And we kidnap hostages and take prisoners and torture them

and stuff. It's kind of fun."

"Fun!"

"Well"-Cindy was a little apologetic-"when it isn't your tum to be caught. Even then, it isn't

too bad most of the time. Paul's the really mean one though. When he's jailer, watch out."

"How?"

91

"Oh ... he's always thinking up new things to do.

Once he tied me up so tight he even tied my toes together. Then he tickled me."

"But where were the rest of them?" "There. It was just my turn." "Didn't they do anything?''

"Yeah. After a while I started yelling and crying-I was littler then-and they had to let me go.

They were afraid I'd tell."

"Oh."

For a moment neither of them spoke. Pursuing her own thoughts, Cindy didn't notice at

first. When .she did, she resumed where-to her-they had left off.

"Paul likes girls' feet," she giggled. "He's the best at torturing."

"Real or pretend?" Barbara said levelly.

She really did understand, Cindy decided. That was just the way Freedom Five talked about

it. "Both," she said brightly.

"Well, they better not torture me!"

"No," Cindy conceded. "I guess not. Mommy and Daddy are coming home, and you have to

go back to college. It's too bad, though .... "

"What's too bad?" Barbara seemed like she was beginning to get mad slowly the way

grown-ups do.

Cindy sought to placate her. "I dunno. It's just

kind of fun having you here to play with us, too."

"I'm-not-playing." "Well, you are, sort of."

"I'm not at all. What I want to know is when you're going to let me go again. This hurts."

"Well, they won't do it until after tomorrow anyhow. I guess."

"Why tomorrow?" Barbara seemed to have calmed down again. At any rate she was·

sweeter.

"They're going to take off your nightie."