Alligator in the Toilet (my first, very short story) (8-12)

I am Benjamin.
I am ten years old and I have nothing worth telling you other than that my brother Robbie is horrible.
He lies all the time, but of course I don’t always know when he is lying and I am very easily scared.
Just last week he told me; “Hey Benny, Did you know that when you open the fridge and the light comes on?...” to which I said “yes” “…You are closing a door to an alien world, and when you just about close the door and the light goes off…” to which I cried “What?” “The alien world opens up until you close the door completely”. He then smiled that wicked smile, popped the collar on his faux leather jacket and walked away in his usual, cool manner.

I don’t know why I deserve a brother like him. He is thirteen years old and has a lot of scary friends, all of which tower over me and give me that same wicked smile.
When he told me about the Alligator in the toilet I was petrified. I didn’t go for days. It took my Mum hours of convincing me that there actually wasn’t an Alligator in the toilet. So when we opened the lid to find that there actually was a real life, large Alligator in the toilet we were, let me say, a little surprised.

As usual, Mum fainted, just as she always did at the sight of something scary. So I was left alone, a small ten year old boy, confronted with an Alligator in my toilet. What I wasn’t expecting was for him to speak fluent English. Or Humanish at all. I expected some sort of roar, a growl, a croak or a snarl. To be absolutely honest, I don’t know what sound an Alligator makes, but I’m pretty sure that it isn’t English.

“Hello small human child, you wouldn't mind trying to help me out of here would you? Only I was on my way home and clearly took a wrong turn. Then I got stuck, as you can probably see. Is the older human child okay?” He spoke with such clarity and frankly, better English than my own.
“Yes, she does it all the time” My Mum at this point was snoring quietly and had turned on her side.
“So, what do you say? Could you perhaps help me with my small yet incredible predicament?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can trust you” I said, pushing my blonde fringe from my eyes.
Then he noticed my skin.

I had been locked away in the house for the past week because I had chicken pox. I don’t know why but I was embarrassed and didn’t want the other children to see me, even though they had all had them too.
When the Alligator spotted them, he couldn’t have looked more curious.
“What… is that all over your face?” Thankfully he could only see my face. I had been wearing my favorite jumper, the one with the arms that are too long and the turtle neck that comes up to my chin.
“They are chicken pox” I replied to which he chuckled. That is if an Alligator chuckle is called a chuckle.
“Are you a chicken?” He said through his chuckle.
“No” I said calmly, clearly he had never heard of chicken pox.
“Then why are you covered in their pox?” He chuckled harder.
At this point I felt comfortable enough with him that I had shortened the space between us and had begun to try freeing him.

“OUCH!” he shouted. Which frightened me so I stepped away again. “Sorry, we Alligators have short tempers, I mean you no harm… Err, I don’t know your name. Mine is Allie, of course. We are all called Allie”.
“Mine is Benjamin” Feeling a little easier again.
“It has been a pleasure to meet with you Benjamin the chicken” to which he laughed again, and this time I joined him.
“I’m not a chicken” I said through my own laugh.

After the laughing had stopped, I noticed that Allie’s eyes had drooped and hung low looking at the ground, a curious turn of emotion I thought.
“What is wrong Allie?” I asked him.
“I have a family party that I should be at, and with all the wrong turns I keep taking, I keep letting my only son down. He is twenty-seven today. So young. And I keep missing his birthday parties”.
“Oh well, then we need to get you out of my toilet and back home don’t we?” I was determined “I think I could probably just flush the toilet and you would simply slide back down”.

And so I flushed the toilet and Allie was gone. I didn’t expect to, but I actually miss him.
I found a friend that day which was nice, but I learnt something terrifying. Not everything that Robbie told me was a lie. And so, I still close fridge doors very quickly.