Secret Spirals

“Caroline?”

I jumped at my mom’s voice, dropping the roll of toilet paper I’d unwrapped and was trying to fix. “No!” I whispered as it hit the bathroom tiles and ran away from me, leaving a long trail of toilet paper from my toes to the tub.

“Caroline?” my mom said again, and she knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you okay in there? You’ve been in there for a while now.”

″’M okay!” I squeaked as I desperately tried to reach the toilet paper roll without getting off the toilet.

“Are you sure? Because I know you’re a big girl now, but it’s okay to ask for help.”

“Nope, nope, nope, I don’t need help, I promise I don’t.” I stood, reaching for the roll again, but only to trip on my pink shorts. I’d left them down around my ankles.

I caught myself before I fell, but Mom must have heard the noise. The door knob jingled, but I’d locked it. “Caroline, I’m being serious, now. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” I huffed as I heaved up my shorts. The bathroom floor was cold on my bare feet as I ran to the tub to retrieve the toilet paper. “I don’t need help. You can leave.”

“If I leave, do you promise to be done and out of there in the next five minutes?”

“I promise! You can go away.” My lower lip wobbled. I held the now very long strand of unwrapped toilet paper in my hands. I tried to quickly wind it back on the roll, but it looked like my blanket did when I woke up in the morning--all bumpy and crunched up. Mommy would definitely know I made it messy.

“Okay,” Mom said through the door. “But I’m coming back in five minutes. If you need help, call me.”

“Okay.”

I heard her footsteps leaving. I sucked in my breath. I had five minutes to fix everything.

I unwrapped the roll again and tried to put it back the way it was, but it looked grosser. The floor had gotten the roll wet, and little bits of icky paper had come off in my hands. Part of it had ripped.

I couldn’t fix it.

I screwed up my face and struggled to come up with another way to fix everything--fast. There was only one solution I could think of.

Hide it.

I dived for the cabinet underneath the sink. I opened it and squealed with happiness to find many, many rolls of toilet paper rolls stacked inside--all nicely wrapped up, unlike mine. I chucked the bad one in the back where Mom wouldn’t see it and grabbed a new one. Shutting the cabinet, I made my way triumphantly back to the toilet.

The little stick the roll went on lay on the floor, so I picked it up and stuck the roll on it. I walked, smiling in victory, to place it back on the wall.

My smile quickly faded. The stick was too long. No matter how much I pushed and mashed it, it was too long to fit the little wooden holes.

I grumbled in frustration, tears pricking at my eyes. I hadn’t thought of this problem, and it didn’t make any sense. How had the stick been on the wall before? I know it had been. It had been on there before I’d pulled it off to play with the roll. Had it gotten longer while it had been on the floor? What had the floor done to it?

Anger bubbled inside me and I slammed the stick back to the ground. I slammed the toilet seat down, too, and flushed angrily. Nothing worked for me. It always worked for Mom, and for Jacob, but not for me. I couldn’t fix anything.

I lay down on my back on the floor, giving up. I started to cry.

Just as the tears reached my cheeks, though, I stopped. The wallpaper had become shiny, and I didn’t remember the wallpaper being shiny. I sat back up, interested, but the walls stopped shinning when I did.

I lay back down. The shininess returned. I knew the wallpaper in the bathroom very well. There were shells, a lot of them, and sometimes little seahorses. The color of the paper was pink, like my doll Abby’s hair, and there were six different types of shells. I’d counted once. There were far more than six shells in the whole bathroom, of course, I knew that, but only six types of shells--three big ones, and three smaller ones.

I inched closer to the wall, still lying on the floor. I ran my finger over one of the bigger shells, and instantly flinched back. I realized that I had never touched the wallpaper. It was kinda bumpy, and when I ran my fingers over the shell, I noticed the shininess again. There was a silver swirl around the bottom of the shell, and that’s where the bumpiness came from.

Are there swirls all around the bathroom? I hurried to find out. I ran my hands all along the bathroom walls, every bit I could reach, and sure enough, there were--silver swirls I could only see from very close, with my nose touching the wall, or from down on the floor, lying on my back.

I thought about the swirls, and how I had never seen them. Did Mom know about them? Jacob? Maybe not. Maybe the swirls had been a secret until I’d found them. Maybe no one had laid down on the bathroom floor before. Not before me. After all, would Jacob ever think to lie down on the floor? No.

I was a genius.

I flinched at a knock at the door. “Caroline? It’s been five minutes. Are you done in there?”

I scrambled to my feet, slapping the new toilet paper roll on the back of the toilet. I’d failed to put it back on the wall on the stick, but I didn’t care if Mom found out about that now. I had something she wouldn’t find out about. I had a secret to keep. My secret.

“Caroline?”

“I’m done, I’m done!” I unlocked the door and threw it open, all smiles. “I’m done.”

“Okay...” Mom said slowly, peering into the bathroom suspiciously as I slipped past her.

I didn’t wait to see her discovery of the fallen stick. I was already thinking about my next trip to the bathroom. Next time, I wouldn’t be tempted to play with the toilet paper.

I’d have my secret swirls to play with.