My name is Randy and I am six years old, and I need to talk to somebody about my mother. Don’t get me wrong I think my mom is great but lately I think she has lost her marbles. Pop is in the Air Force and he left us again for what to us is a long time but mom said it was only for three months.

                While Pop was with us we found a different house to live in till he returned, mom and pop loved this house but to me it was a big scary house and I did not like it from the day I seen it, but we moved in anyway.

                Pop left and mom put my brothers and me to work in the house right away. There was one room that mom wanted to take the wall paper off of and paint it. She worked us to death on that paper, tearing and ripping all day long. I didn’t see what was wrong with the paper to start with but mom wanted it off so off it came.

                The next day she was late getting out of bed and then she drank her coffee for the day. We were watching Captain Kangaroo when she came in and started to say something but then changed her mind, she looked at us a few minutes and started to say something again but didn’t. She finally ran us outside to the yard and told us to play outside for a while.

                She looked like she was off somewhere in space most of the day. Finally she took us and went to visit the owner of our house. I thought he was different anyway and this day I thought mom and him should get along fine just from the way she had been acting all day.

                We went home after the visit and the next day she had us removing the wall paper from the room again. Now I was confused because we had tore it all down the other day. I looked at it and back to ripping and tearing and after another long day it was all down again. We had supper and because my butt was dragging from the work we went to bed. I woke up during the night hearing sounds from down stairs, but I didn’t care, probably mom doing something so I went back to sleep.

                The next day mom went back to the room to work and when I walked in a few minutes later she was just standing there staring with her mouth open. I looked at her and then I looked at the walls again and almost jumped out of my socks; the wall paper was back up again looking like it did before we started on it.   I thought if mom has us take this off again I am going to run away. If she liked to work so much I wish she would work on another room instead of coming down at night and putting the paper back up.

                The time I told mom let’s just paint the stupid walls, that would be easier on all of us and have the same results in the end. So we headed down town and brought some paint and boy did we have fun painting those walls. My brothers and me really got into it, getting paint on the walls, painting each other when the other wasn’t looking and after a paint fight the walls were done.

                The next day I was still sleeping when mom came in and announced that we were leaving and she started throwing stuff in suitcases and boxes like a crazy person. We told her we were hungry so she slowed up long enough to feed us breakfast. While we were eating she came back through the kitchen and said we were not leaving, we were staying and she started to unpack everything again. She really is going off the deep end.

                After this everything was fine and mom seemed her old self again. The only thing different now was that the room we worked on was locked. Mom had locked it told us not to go in there. 

                Mom kept busy cleaning the house after that because the wind blew a lot and there was always dust blowing into the house. Of course my brothers and me helped a lot by playing in it while she was trying to clean it up.

                Pop finally came home and I told him mom had been acting strange every since he had left. I told him about the room she kept remodeling and then locking it up. After pop came home we moved again to a different house and mom was like her old self after this.

                The only thing was that the day we moved, mom went to the room she had locked. I followed her in there without her knowing I was there. I couldn’t believe my eyes, the wall paper was back on the walls, mom really was losing it, crazier than a bed bug, and now in the room she was talking to herself.   Call the guys in the white suits. 

                As she turned to leave I ran out ahead of her, we got in the car and drove off heading to the new place. As we were leaving I looked back at the house and standing in the window of the room looking out at us was an old man in old time clothes. He just stood there watching us go. 

                I didn’t say a word, just turned around and sat quite all the way; I didn’t need pop thinking I had lost my marbles too.