“That old lady always wears a red scarflette around her wrist, today we found out why…” Jane whisper-shouted to the other kids nestled in the darkness of their treehouse. The neighborhood gang of decade-old ne’er-do-wells called themselves the Nitwits, making the most out of another summer’s eve by exchanging creepy stories of the old folks next door.

Jane continued after a ghoulish pause. “Me and Bucket saw her paintin’ the fence when it fell off… revealing the slimiest, gooiest, most disgusting pulsating cyst I darn ever seen!”

The Nitwits gasped (which they needed after holding their breaths for so long) and Bucket just nodded solemnly.

“Saw it move, too. It got a riggle to it,” Jane added, eyes locked on Wendy to witness how much she’d squirm.

“How long y’all see ‘t for?” Peter said, spoken with more curiousity than disgust.

“Not long, but I managed to draw up some profile sketches.”

She sprawled papers across the floor with crayon scribbles of unholy bodily sights. Wendy looked away in horror and Jane cracked a wicked smirk.

Peter picked up a drawing of a big red lump and wondered aloud “Reckon she’d pop it at some point.”

“What I think,” Jane spoke, “is that her ol’ fart of a man thinks it looks perdy on her.”

Bucket laughed at the picture of an ol’ fart as Wendy brooded in repugnance. “You’re more idiot-like than a billygoat cuz why would any soul wanna keep a big ‘ol cyst on ‘em?”

“Hell if I know! That couple is into freaky stuff. Peter saw ‘em wearin’ black leather with whips like they were off to break in a horse in the night’re somethin.”

Peter’s face flushed. Out of all the stories they’ve told, he wanted to keep that one unspoken. His eyes were bigger than his plate that night, and it was too much to see. But much to his chagrin, his secret was unceremoniously released into the groggy air by a so-called friend that pinky-promised to keep a mouth shut.