Underwear? Missing?

• Ashleigh Bortz, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2016

I opened my underwear drawer. I heard the clank of the rusty old wheels rolling out. Routine. I reached into the drawer. Empty? The drawer was empty. How could it possibly be empty? “Mum!!!!!!!” I screamed. “Where on earth are the underwear?” No answer. I opened the next drawer, and the next and the next and still there was no panties in sight. “MUM!” I screamed with fury. “What did you do with my undies!!!” No answer. Maybe she was out for a nice morning stroll? As time kept ticking my search became more frantic. I turned my sisters room upside down, checked the laundry, my parents room. No underwear. Except it wasn’t just my underwear that had been taken, it was every one in my families! Was this some kind of sick joke? Who would do such a thing?

We had to leave for school in 10 minutes, my sister and I desperately needed our under garments. How could we go to school with our private parts exposed to the world? How could we go to school wearing dirty underwear? How could we even go to school full stop? Not when there was the crisis of the century occurring in our household. Tttcccaaaakkk claaanngg. Mum slammed the door shut and the lock clicked in to place. It was time for some answers. “Mum where are the undies?” I demanded. No answer. “Mum stop it this isn’t funny!!!” No answer. “What is wrong with you!!” No answer. Mum walked up the stairs and shut her bedroom door. There my sister and I were, standing in the hallway, lost, confused and out of clean panties.

That afternoon we bought enough undies for everyone in the family. Still in complete and utter confusion we returned home. Mum was still sitting in her room. Quiet. “Mum we’re home”. No answer. What was going on? Why is she acting so strange? Where are the underwear? For three days we didn’t know the answer to that question, and to this day we still don’t. Eventually the underwear returned to their former drawers, sitting there nicely folded like they had never left. Never gone on an adventure, exploring the world outside the confinement of their damp and dreary drawers. Strange. We didn’t know where they went, who took them (all though we had our suspicions about mum) or why they were back. We didn’t know why mum was so quiet, or why our questions were never answered. Would we ever? If we found out the answer, would that insignificant fact that seemed all consuming for two days even matter?