The table was shoved up against the wall on one side. I was at the end near the dining room doorway and Bobby was on the long side on the bench on the other side of Mrs. Follis. Mrs. Follis held Andy on her lap. Andy was eating too, but Mrs. Follis kept interrupting him by playing with his hair, twirling it around her thick fingers, or putting her arms around him and pulling him up against her so he couldn’t move his arms to fill his spoon.

Andy didn’t complain. He’d just lean back and wait for her to let go, then reach out with his spoon to get another bite. Andy reached for his milk in the little white tin cup and Mrs. Follis put her hand on the cup to help him guide it to his mouth.

"He’s so sweet," Mrs. Follis said. "I hate spanking him." Mrs. Follis moved around a little on the bench like she was trying to get more comfortable. First she stretched up straight then slumped back down again and rested an elbow on the table.

Bobby paused his bite, the spoon in his hand, cereal in the spoon, and he looked at me and raised his brows up and down when Mrs. Follis wasn't looking.

Mrs. Follis said, "We have to break him of it now, or it'll be a bad habit that he has all his life." She grasped Andy's head in her hand, pressing her thumb and fingers into his cheeks, and turned his head around to look at her.

She said, "Now, tell me you're going to do your best to stop this bedwetting. Do you promise me now?"

Andy stopped chewing his oatmeal, until Mrs. Follis loosed her hold on his cheeks. He swallowed what he had in his mouth, and looked at Mrs. Follis real steady. "I promise," Andy said.

"That's my boy." Mrs. Follis said. She put her hands on both Kenny’s shoulders and pulled him into her dress. She bent her head down onto his so only her brown hair and her forehead showed behind Kenny’s head.

Bobby and I looked at each other again and this time I raised my eyebrows when Mrs. Follis wasn't looking

Then Mrs. Follis lifted up her head and let Andy move again. She looked over at the coffee pot on the stove, then she looked back at Andy. She said, "You know, if you keep wetting the bed, your wee wee is going to turn green and fall off."

Mrs. Follis said that in just a regular tone of voice, like she was barely even interested, and her face didn’t have any kind of expression to it. It was like she’d said she liked bacon with her eggs better than ham.

So Andy didn’t seem to understand what she said at first. Then he did.. Andy stopped eating and he looked up at Mrs. Follis, like he expected her to say something else to explain herself. But she didn’t say anything, so Andy just shook his head back and forth, back and forth. It wasn’t true.

"Yes, it's true," Mrs. Follis said. "Everyone knows that peeing in your bed makes your wee wee turn green."

Andy kept his face turned up to Mrs. Follis’s. He dropped his spoon into his bowl and he kept shaking his head "no." Andy’s mouth was open a little and his face looked stretched like he might start to cry. He looked and looked at Mrs. Follis like waiting for her to get serious and tell him it didn’t really happen that way, she was just joking. Bobby watched her too, and so did I.

Mrs. Follis pressed her lips together, so her cheeks puffed out. She nodded her head up and down, shaking it so her brown hair bounced up and down. "Yes, it will," Mrs. Follis said.

*

Next morning early something woke me, a light, Mrs. Follis with a flashlight. Mr. and Mrs. Follis standing over Andy's sleeping bag and Mrs. Follis shining the flashlight down on him. Mr. Follis was already dressed in his flannel shirt, and overalls and boots, but Mrs. Follis was still in a long pink nightgown.

Mrs. Follis unzipped Andy’s sleeping bag and turned back the cover.

"He's wet again." Mrs. Follis said. She laid down the flashlight, right next to Andy so it shone on him still, and pulled down Andy's pajama bottoms. Andy didn't wake up, just lay there with the sleeping bag turned down and his pajama bottoms down nearly to his knees so his penis was showing. Mrs. Follis squatted down by the sleeping bag. She had something in her hand, something little and squarish, and she sprinkled something from it onto Andy’s penis. In the light of the flashlight, it looked dark green. Mrs. Follis rubbed it around on Andy's penis with her fingers, and Andy’s penis and Mrs. Follis’s fingers both turned green.

Mr. Follis just stood there looking on, his hands in the pockets of his overalls, and he didn’t do anything while Mrs. Follis rubbed the green food coloring or whatever it was onto Andy’s penis.

Afterwards Mrs. Follis pulled Andy’s pajama bottoms back up.

"That ought to scare him dry," Mrs. Follis said. She wobbled on her feet a little and she reached a hand out on the floor to steady herself. Then she turned up Andy’s sleeping bag and zipped it back up.

Mr. Follis nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He walked out to the kitchen and out the back door, shutting it slowly and softly behind him, then the noise of his last tug making sure it was all the way shut.

Mrs. Follis picked up the flashlight, pressed the flashlight on the floor as she got up so the light went bouncing on the walls. She winced just before she straightened up. She went into the kitchen while I kept watching with my eyes barely open so she wouldn’t see I was awake. In the kitchen, I couldn’t see her but I heard her running water and imagined her washing the green food coloring off her hands. Then drying her hands and all the green coming off on the dish towel, the big green stain of Mrs. Follis.

Then the noise of Mrs. Follis coming back into the dining room, and before her the light coming into the dining room, coming close to me so I pressed my eyes shut until she passed me. Then I watched her from the back, walk slowly and pause before each step like it hurt to put her foot down, her body rocking first one way then the other. She turned the doorknob of her room and stepped inside. Then the noise of the springs of Mr. and Mrs. Follis’s bed when Mrs. Follis laid back down.

At least Andy hadn’t woken up. At least he hadn’t been scared. At least Mr. Follis hadn’t used the strap on him.

The pillow wasn’t under my head when I woke again, only the hard floor and the sunlight bright in my eyes. Mrs. Follis was over by Andy’s sleeping bag where I was supposed to be before Mrs. Follis woke up to find him wet again.

But Mrs. Follis was talking in a friendly voice.

"Here, let’s get those wet pajamas off of you," Mrs. Follis said to Andy. She put one arm around his middle to hold him up while he lifted his legs up for her to pull the pajamas off.

Mrs. Follis laid his wet clothes in a pile and said, "Let me get you some nice dry clothes," and she walked across the room to the dresser, kneeled down to get to the bottom drawer with Andy’s things, and pulled out underpants and shorts and a red T-shirt. She wasn’t making any noises like it hurt her to squat down now.

Mrs. Follis wore a long skirt and the fabric clung to her knees with each step back to Andy standing naked next to his sleeping bag. All of a sudden Mrs. Follis stopped and she looked straight down at Andy penis.

"Oh my," Mrs. Follis said, "What is that?"

Andy looked down at his penis too to see what she was staring at.

Mrs. Follis said, "Why, look at that! Your wee wee is turning green."

Andy just stared at his penis. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at it and then he looked up at Mrs. Follis, and he shook his head, "No." Then he looked down at his penis again.

Mrs. Follis said, "If you don't stop wetting the bed, it won't be long before it falls right off."

Mrs. Follis started humming while she reached for Andy and pulled him in front of her, while she had him lift up his legs so she could get his underpants and his shorts on him. She hummed while she pulled the T-shirt down over his head, the T-shirt I should have already put on Andy before Mrs. Follis could even wake up and find him wet.

Mrs. Follis kept on humming while she carried the sleeping bag out of the living room door and laid it over the clothes line outside, then came back in and picked up Andy’s wet pajamas and walked into the kitchen with Andy’s wet pajamas to toss down the basement stairs to add to the laundry she’d do with the wringer washer in the basement..

While Mrs. Follis hummed, Andy stood next to the dining room table, then he pulled out a chair and just sat in it, not doing anything except just sit there. But I couldn't say anything to him about Mrs. Follis in the night, not while Mrs. Follis was there in the kitchen where I could hear her humming and she would hear me.

Mrs. Follis called Andy into the kitchen then to get his oatmeal, and Andy got down off the chair and walked into the kitchen real slow.

I got up then, and got a pair of clean shorts on and rolled up my sleeping bag.

Next to Bobby on the bench against the wall, I had to eat the oatmeal that morning because Mrs. Follis stayed in the kitchen so I couldn’t slip outside and feed the oatmeal to the pigs.

Mrs. Follis helped Andy to pour milk on his oatmeal. All the while Andy ate, Mrs. Follis kept saying things like she’d seen it happen before, some little boy that wouldn’t stop wetting the bed, first his penis turned green, then it started shriveling up, and finally it dried up completely and fell off.

I gulped down the lumps of the oatmeal, tried to eat it fast because I didn’t want it all dry and lumpy in my mouth. Ate it fast and tried not to hear Mrs. Follis, when I couldn't even tell Andy what I saw until I could get alone with him.

Andy took a bite of the oatmeal and chewed on it. Then he looked up at Mrs. Follis who was still talking about some other little boy she knew whose penis turned green but lucky for him he learned his lesson before it was too late and stopped wetting the bed before the little boy's penis actually fell off.

Andy stopped chewing the oatmeal, then he started chewing again really slow, chewing and chewing, but it didn’t look like he ever swallowed.

The doorknob from outside turned and Carl walked in. Sonny came behind him.

Sonny said, "Good morning," in his wide-awake voice, looked at me and at Andy, said, "You sleepy heads finally getting up." He turned to Mrs. Follis, "Got some of that oatmeal for me?"

Mrs. Follis said, "Plenty for everyone."

Sonny went to the cupboard and got a bowl and handed it over to Carl, then got another for himself and used the wooden spoon to dish up some of the oatmeal out of the pan. "Mm mm," he said, like he actually liked the stuff.

Then Mrs. Follis bowed her head down a little and shook it, and said, "Poor Andy."

Sonny said, "What’s wrong with Andy?" He looked at Andy. "The little fellow looks all right to me."

"Oh, no," Mrs. Follis said. "His wee wee was green this morning, from all his peeing in the bed."

Sonny said, "Oh my gosh. That is serious. Guess it won’t be long now before it falls right off."

Andy swallowed the big lump of oatmeal. His eyes were wet, and he shouted, "No it won’t fall off." Andy's eyes closed and I could see the tiny blue veins that showed right through the skin of his eyelids before he opened them again.

Sonny wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. He said, "Well, I guess it will alright if you don’t stop wetting that sleeping bag of yours. Isn’t that so, Carl?"

Carl said, "Sure enough. Fall right off." He got his oatmeal, sat down at the table next to Sonny and started eating the oatmeal.

Mrs. Follis said, "That’s just what I’ve been telling him."

Then Andy looked over to see what I would say, but I couldn’t say anything in front of Mrs. Follis, couldn’t even shake my head. With Sonny and Carl there, one of them would be sure to see me. So I just looked down at my bowl.

After breakfast I offered to bring the slop down to the pigs. The slop jar was full of left over scraps of food, mostly oatmeal, and it smelled terrible. I asked Andy if he wanted to help me.

Outside in the air the smell of the slops wasn’t so bad. Andy reached over with his little hand to get hold of the handle with me, to help me carry it, so I held the bucket out with one hand so the bucket was between us. It was harder to carry that way and I couldn’t hurry like I wanted to get away from Mrs. Follis, far enough away so no one would surprise us by coming outside while I told Andy.

I tried to walk fast, Andy hurrying to keep up, but I couldn’t, so I slowed down. I said, "This sure is heavy. It’s nice to have a little brother to help me carry things."

Andy smiled and he lifted up on the handle like he was trying to carry more of it for meand I tried to lift up too so the metal handle wouldn’t dig into his hand.

We didn’t talk until I dumped out the slops in the food trough at the corner of the pig pen and set the slop bucket down. I sat down on the ground on a little grassy hill and Andy across from me. I told Andy I never heard of anyone’s wee wee ever falling off because they wet the bed. I never heard of it happening even once. They were just making it up to scare him.

Andy said, "Then why is my wee wee turning green."

So I told him about Mrs. Follis putting on the green food coloring. But I wondered if I should have told him. Maybe he'd worry like I worried: if they’d do that, what else might they do.

So I said, "It’s just another of their jokes, Andy, like the creek."

Andy was sitting on the ground across from me, and he put his shoes up to touch my shoes, the flat of his shoes against my shoes.

I said, "You remember how Sonny and Carl said they were going to throw you in the creek, but they never did it?" Andy nodded. His face relaxed back into my round faced, curly-haired little brother, holding his hands out to me.

Andy nodded. His face relaxed back into my round faced, curly-haired little brother, holding his hands out to me.

"Don't tell them I told you," I said.

I reached for Andy’s hands and leaned back while he leaned forward, leaned forward while he leaned back, there on the grassy spot on the hill. Leaning forward, leaning back, next to the pig pen on the Follis farm and the smell of the slops that the pigs ate. Until Andy laughed, laughed so hard his hands let go of my hands, and we both lay back spread out flat on the grass.