Pocket Lint

D.W. sat on the swing at school - alone, unfortunately. Emily had been out sick recently.

Speaking of Emily, just before having left school with a seemingly severe tummy-ache, she'd given D.W. a small stone, shaped rather like a star of sorts.

"Here, it's for you," she'd said. "A Friendship Pebble."

D.W. had pocketed the Friendship Pebble with great enthusiasm.

Back in the present, D.W. sat on the swingset, but didn't yet try to move her swing. She reached her hand into her pocket to feel the smooth surface of her treasured Friendship Pebble, but instead made contact with a piece of pocket lint.

"Yuck! How does that fuzz get into my pockets like that?" she said to no one in particular, as she shook the statically-charged lint from her fingertips.

At that moment, the Tibble Twins were passing by, and heard her comment.

"Ooh, Tommy, D.W.'s got lint!" Timmy said deviously.

Tommy gasped. "No way! What kind do you think she has?"

"The calmer ones..."

D.W. tried her best to look unconcerned.

"...If she's lucky."

"What are you two talking about?" she asked, hoping she sounded nonchalant. Or annoyed, at the very least.

If anyone had seen the glint in the twins' eyes, they'd have known that the Tibbles saw the worry D.W. was attempting to cover.

"Don't you know where pocket lint comes from?" Timmy said, in his superior, 'all-knowing' tone.

"Uh... of course I do."

Tommy and Timmy exchanged glances.

"Then we don't have to explain?" they said in near unison, as mockingly as five-year olds could manage.

"No. I know, all right! But maybe you should tell me anyway, in case you two have it wrong."

If Dora Winifred Read had another middle name, it would be Originality.

"Good idea!" Tommy smirked.

"Well," Timmy started, "the lint is actually little tiny bugs and monsters, so small that they look like little fuzzy things."

Tommy joined in. "Yeah, they live in pockets."

"But at night, they grow to the size of mouses!"

"Don't you mean mice?"

"No. Mouses."

"Okay. Anyway, when you go to sleep, the bugs come out of the pockets and crawl all over you. They have parties and get germy buggy stuff all over you and your room."

Timmy nodded at his brother's conclusion. "Every night."

Snickering at the look on D.W.'s face, the twins yelled a final "Goodbye!" over their shoulders and ran off to play (or rather destroy) in the sandbox.

D.W. shook her head. She withdrew the Friendship Pebble from her pocket and looked at it, the way it fit almost perfectly in the center of her palm. She wasn't worried anymore. How could such a ridiculous story be real? Especially when it was told by the Tibbles!

But then again... what if it was true?