Picky

Jimmy had been picking his scabs again.

His mother had told him not to but it had driven him mad all that morning. It was a great scab. It was the shape of a heart, the colour of rust and the texture of tree. And it was in the middle of his knee. The best place for a scab. It would be wrong of him not to pick it. Plus, it was so itchy and he’d really wanted to see what was beneath it.

He’d gone out to the curb as soon as he’d finished his lunch and started winkling away at it. He’d finally got his thumb nail under the rim and prised it up a few millimetres. It had hurt a bit but in a good sort of way, like a wobbly tooth.

It reminded him of when he’d helped his dad lift up the flags in the back garden and they’d seen all the weird white spiders and millipedes underneath it. Or when he and Dave had prised up that grid and looked down into the storm drain. He’d wanted to go down but Dave was too scared (but Jimmy was secretly a bit pleased that Dave had been too scared).

He had been worked away steadily at his scab in the sun for he didn’t know how long when his knee suddenly shouted at him in pain. He looked down.

Jimmy wasn’t sure how long his mind had been wondering and wandering but there was a little hole in his knee. A real hole. Not a patch of fresh skin or a bit of blood but a hole. It seemed to go a long way down. A really long way down. He couldn’t see the bottom of it. That wasn’t right.

Jimmy pushed his finger down inside. It went in up to the knuckle.

That really wasn’t right.