Verboten

The children crept down the dark hall together, close enough but too proud to hold hands. Their heads took on a strange glow from the lamp lights along the walls. Like three angels processing straight to the mouth of hell, they moved toward the giant wooden doors.

Suddenly an older boy leapt into their path from a passage unseen. The children screamed but didn't run, a tribute to their bravery.

"Where are you three troublemakers going?" the older boy asked.

"Nowhere you'd want to be," his little brother answered hotly.

The older boy glared. "You know this hallway is forbidden."

"Then what are you doing here?" the girl inquired.

The older boy turned red. "If you don't leave this instant, I will report you."

The three children looked at each other, then up at the boy. "Okay," they said in unison.

Paralyzed by anger and fear, the older boy could do no more than watch them walk away. Finally he slinked back into whatever hidden passage he had come from, living that they had called his bluff. He couldn't report their trespass without revealing his own, so for now their secret was safe. But not forever.