Welcome Back, dear readers.

Last time, Greg thought he’d slipped Fiona past the watchful eyes of his mother and the chaos of a crowded house. But secrets have a funny way of shifting in the dark — especially in a home where every drawer, closet, and corner seems to have its own agenda.

Let’s pick up where we left off, just as the basement dust settles and the real trouble begins.

I make my way back up from the basement and slip out the back door, circling around the house to the front, just in time to see Dad’s car pull up to the curb.

“Hi, Dad. How was your day?” I ask, trying to sound normal.

“Pretty good so far, son.”

Good. He is in a decent mood. Maybe—just maybe—when Mom tells him she’s found a men’s magazine hidden in her thirteen‑year‑old son’s closet, he won’t explode.

It doesn’t take long.

The moment Dad steps through the front door, Mom pounces. The sugary sweetness she uses when I get home is gone. “Gregory, get to your room! Your father and I have a few things to discuss, young man!”

Dad’s face shifts instantly from jovial to What does she want… now? I bolt up the stairs and into my room, making sure every trace of the magazine is gone.

Five minutes later, the bedroom door opens. Dad steps inside. “O.K., where is it?”

“Where is what?” I ask.

“The magazine. Don’t play stupid and make it worse. Your mother found it while she was cleaning your room today. Hand it over.”

(Mom cleaning my room? Not in this lifetime.)

“I can’t hand over something when I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, keeping my voice steady.

Dad’s voice rises, sharper now. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. You know what I’m talking about!”

“Dad, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you sure Mom isn’t just saying something to get me in trouble?” I brace myself for whatever might come.

Dad storms to the closet, throws the door open, and grabs the stack of game boxes. He snatches the Clue box and, in one dramatic motion, flips it into the air.

The contents explode everywhere.

The board, the candlestick, the knife, the lead pipe, Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum—every card, every weapon—scatter across the bed, the dresser, the floor.

(Looking back, it’s almost funny — the whole mystery of my ‘crime’ scattered across the room like a bad joke.)

Dad freezes. “Oh… oh.”

Everything from the box is visible. But there is no magazine.

“Where is it?” he demands again, but the fire is gone from his voice.

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say. “I met you when you came home. I’d just got home myself. What did Mom even say I had?”

“She said you had a men’s magazine. A Playboy or something like it. Now where is it?” His anger is fading, replaced by something else—exhaustion. Years of being pushed into the role of the bad guy.

We go back and forth for a few more minutes. I don’t give an inch.

Then Dad does something I never expect.

“O.K., son. I give up. You got me. Just tell me what you did with the book and nothing will happen. I’ll tell your mother I’ll handle it. She doesn’t need to know anything else.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes, son. I’m tired. I want to have supper, relax, watch TV, and get some shut‑eye. Now tell me where you hid the magazine, please.”

I see it clearly—Dad isn’t defeated by me. He’s defeated by the situation. By the years. By her.

(I didn’t understand it then, but I do now — he wasn’t angry at me. He was tired of being the weapon she handed him.)

“Give me three minutes,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

Without another word, I slip out of the room, run down the stairs, cut through the kitchen, and head down to the basement. I reach into my hidey hole, grab the magazine, and race it back upstairs.

I hand it to him. “Here it is, Dad. Sorry for giving you a hard time.”

He takes the magazine with a long, weary sigh. “I’ll tell your mother it’s handled. That’s all she needs to know.”

I didn’t tell this story for years. Not because I was ashamed of it, but because it became one of those strange, private childhood legends you tuck away in the back of your mind—half mischief, half survival, half miracle.

But eventually, I told it. And when I did, I added the postscript.

Dad kept his word.

He told my mother the matter was handled, and that was all she needed to know. He said it was a “man thing,” and she didn’t need to get involved. And she didn’t. Not another word was spoken about it.

Dad never asked where I’d hidden the magazine. And that hidey‑hole under the basement stairs? It went on to serve my two younger brothers as they came of age. A family heirloom of sorts—though not one you’d brag about at Thanksgiving.

I always ended the story the same way:

“I got away without any punishment. But I also lost my magazine—and the lovely Fiona—without ever seeing the centerfold.”

That was the truth.

Until…

Five years later.

I was getting ready for a school event and needed a tie and a pocket square. Dad had a drawer full of them, so I went to his dresser and started rummaging through the neatly folded squares, trying to match one to the tie I’d picked out.

As I lifted a stack of them, something felt… off. The bottom of the drawer didn’t look quite right.

I pressed gently. It shifted.

A false bottom.

As I lifted the panel, the thin wood gave a soft, dry crackle — the sound of something that hadn’t been touched in years. The underside felt dusty, almost powdery, against my fingertips as a faint scent rose from the hidden space — old paper and cedar, the smell of things kept secret. The air beneath the panel was cooler, untouched by the room above. Then the light from the window caught the glossy edge of a magazine, a thin emerald shimmer beneath the dull wood. For a second, it looked exactly as it had years ago, the day I first laid eyes on it — bright, forbidden, impossibly alive.

My heart thumped — not with fear this time, but with the unmistakable thrill of discovery.

And there she was.

Fiona. My lovely Fiona. As exquisite as ever.

The moment I saw her, the entire saga came flooding back—the bookstore, the heist, the dread, the Clue box exploding across my bedroom, Dad’s weary surrender. Every detail returned as if it had happened the day before.

I stood there for a long moment, smiling to myself.

Then, gently—almost reverently—I put Fiona back in her hidey‑hole where she clearly belonged. Dad had kept her safe all those years. I wasn’t about to disturb the system.

And before you ask—yes. Before I put her back, I finally did what I didn’t have time to do years earlier.

I checked out the centerfold.

It was worth the wait!

Author’s Note:

If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for sticking with me, Greg, and with Fiona. Childhood has a way of hiding things in false bottoms, stairwells, and memory itself. And every now and then, something taps you on the shoulder and says, “Remember me?”

If this story gave you a grin or a shiver, pass it along to your friends, your in‑laws, your outlaws, and anyone who ever hid something they weren’t supposed to have. More stories are simmering — come back soon.