The Mischievous Borrowers

Once upon a time, there was a curious little girl named Emily who loved exploring the dusty corners of her family's attic. She would spend hours rummaging through trunks filled with old clothes, books, and trinkets from years gone by. 

One sunny afternoon, as Emily poked around behind an antique dresser, she spotted something odd on the wooden floor - a line of tiny footprints in the dust! Emily gasped and followed the miniature trail with her eyes. It led straight to a small hole in the baseboard near the attic window.

"How peculiar!" Emily exclaimed. She stuck her little finger in the hole, wiggling it around curiously. Suddenly, she felt something tug on the tip of her finger.  

Emily yanked her hand back with a yelp just as a tiny figure no bigger than a mouse emerged from the hole. It was a little man, dressed in a shirt crafted from a scrap of blue polka-dotted fabric. He had a pencil-thin mustache and round, wire-rimmed glasses that magnified his beady black eyes.

"A borrower!" Emily cried, remembering the storybooks about the families of tiny people who 'borrowed' items from human homes.

The little man scowled up at the giant girl looming over him. "And just what do you think you're doing, barging into our home like that?" he said in a high-pitched voice. "No burglar, no matter how big, is going to plunder the household of the Willburbee family!"

Emily raised her hands apologetically. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Mr...Willburbee, was it? I meant no harm, I was just exploring and-"

But the borrower wasn't listening. "Maisy! Maisyyyyyy!" he hollered over his shoulder. "Intruder alert! Call the lads at once!"

Suddenly, more tiny figures began popping out of the hole, some carrying minuscule spears crafted from sewing needles. A little borrower woman with a mop of fiery red hair appeared, brandishing a skewer roughly the size of a rapier. 

"Stand back, human brute!" she barked up at Emily, her eyes wild. "We'll fight to the borrowed death before we let your kind thieve so much as a tuft of our cotton rug!"

"Oh no, you've got it all wrong!" Emily tried to explain as the crowd of minuscule people surrounded her feet, shaking their tiny improvised weapons threateningly. "I'm not trying to steal anything from you. I-"

A high-pitched war cry drowned out Emily's voice as the pack of borrower warriors charged forth! Startled, the young girl recoiled and instantly lost her balance. With a yelp, she toppled over, knocking over a wicker picnic basket perched on a side table.

The wooden lid clattered to the floor as its contents – pickles, juice boxes, plastic sandwich bags and the like – spilled out in a messy heap. To Emily's amazement, the borrowers suddenly abandoned their attack and swarmed over the fallen foodstuffs like bees around a fresh blossom.

"Riches! Riches beyond measure!" the borrower patriarch called out as his people snatched up plastic baggies filled with trail mix and crumpled juice pouches. Within seconds, the tiny band had gathered up the scattered provisions and scurried back towards their baseboard home.

Emily stared dumbfounded as the last borrower, a tiny oldster with a long, scraggly beard, paused to flash her a toothless grin before disappearing into the hole with the final 'borrowed' item - a shrunken apple no bigger than a boy's marble.

The attic fell silent. Emily rose to her feet, her heart still pounding, and cautiously approached the baseboard entrance to the borrowers' domain. She gaped in disbelief at the wake of disruption - opened bags, half-sipped juice containers, and sticky spots where fruit snacks had clearly been mashed underfoot. 

"I...I don't understand," the perplexed girl stammered aloud. "They stole all that food...but why did they make such a terrible mess?"

A tiny, nasal voice answered from somewhere behind Emily's back."Silly two-leggah, that's just how us borrowers do things 'round here!"

Emily spun around to find a lone borrower, an old woman with frizzy grey hair standing atop the picnic basket lid amidst the ransacked scatter. She smacked her lips and patted her round belly contently.

"My, those sour cream'n'chive chips were just the scrumtrulligent snack I needed to put me in a proper gab!" the old borrower cackled. "Now, you jus' settle yer skivvies and lug those peepers down here, deary. Old Seezy'll splitch the whole kit'n'kabigger!"

Emily perched herself on the floor cross-legged as the diminutive elder chattered on.

"You see, we borrowers pride ourselves on more'n just borrowing, if'n ya catch me drift. Sure, we borrow your human things - a bit o' wool from a coat here, maybe a spoon or two from the kitchen drawer. But we don't leave nob blank! Oh no, no, no...us borrowers put our own little twists on the nik-naks we borrow."

Seezy swept her spindly arm out grandly to showcase the mayhem.   

"Don't these pretzel crumbs and smeared goop just set your heart a-thumpin' with deeeee-licious fear? A single shredded Fruit Roll-Up can strike more gut-terror than the hairiest, slimiest critter ever slunk outta the woodpile! And that pulpy mess over yonder...most delightful curdler of stomachs you ever did see!"

The old borrower cackled hoarsely as Emily gaped, finally grasping the situation. Instead of simply borrowing items, these tiny people took great pride and pleasure in spooking humans with their disturbing alterations and mischievous antics.

Seezy gave another cackling laugh as she reclined against the wicker lid. "You ain't seen nuthin' yet, missy! Just you wait'll Misters Willburbee and his boys return from the Dreaded Bedroom Floor with their latest 'borrowed' bundle..."

Just then, a series of high-pitched whoops and cheers echoed from the baseboard as the group of male borrowers re-emerged into the attic, proudly hoisting a dripping, filthy rag up over their heads like a banner. Emily cupped her hands over her mouth as a foul, rotten odor wafted outwards.

"Behold!" Mr. Willburbee crowed, puffing out his chest with pride as his people scrambled to deposit their 'borrowed' prize nearby. "The most abhorrent, abominable, skin-crawling creation to ever slurp from the underside of a bed!"

Emily gasped in horror and disgust as she leaned forward to inspect the sodden, discolored rag. Coiled amidst its folds was a grotesque, sluglike shape, glistening and hairy. A set of tiny black eyes blinked open to peer back at her...a look she could only describe as hungry. 

The horrified girl shot up to her feet and stumbled backwards, unable to tear her eyes away from the nauseating sight. Seezy howled with cackling laughter at Emily's revulsion. 

"Whooo-weee! Y'all's face is a real rootin'-tootin' belter, ain't it, girly?"

As if in agreement, more borrowers emerged, whooping and hollering as they tossed fresh horrors into the gruesome spectacle - desiccated doll heads, balls of tangled pet hair, sticky clumps of dust and gunk untouched for decades. Emily felt dizzy and queasy as the pile steadily expanded before her eyes.

A miniature voice nearby squeaked with mischievous delight. "Say, I'll bet she nearly blew those stockin's to the ceiling when we loosed the Underbed Wogga!"

Emily's gaze shot down to see a trio of borrower children playing among the scattered remains of her picnic snacks. One, a scrawny lad, picked up an apple core nearly as big as his whole body and lobbed it across the room to his friends.

"Think fast!" he cried, splattering Emily's cheek with sticky cider.

Here's the continuation of "The Mischievous Borrowers":

The three micro-hooligans erupted into peals of high-pitched laughter at Emily's disgust and discomfort. She furiously wiped away the cider dripping down her face, her patience finally giving way to anger.

"ENOUGH!" Emily shouted, stamping her foot hard enough to rattle the dusty attic rafters. The borrowers fell silent, their tiny eyes widening at the colossal human's outburst.

"You...you horrid little creatures!" the girl seethed through gritted teeth. "This is my home, and I won't have you...you...THINGS turning it into some grotesque funhouse of frights!"

Old Seezy snickered from atop the picnic basket, utterly unintimidated. "Is that a fact, deary? Well, seeing as how we's here first, I'd say you're the real trespassers 'round these parts!"  

Emily opened her mouth to retort, but the feisty elder borrower gabbled on.  

"Don'tcha see, girly? Humans like you and your kin are so high'n'mighty, always trompin' around without a bother for us littles squalin' about. Well, no more! The Willburbees and our ilk are taking a stand, turning your precious knick-knacks right back 'atcha with a side of skin-crawlin' loan-terror!"

The old borrower gestured around the attic at the discarded, mutated piles of 'borrowed' belongings with a toothless grin.

"Don't that just make them tootsies curl, seein' your doodads and wotsits repossessed with an extra frisson of fuh-RIGHT?"

A fresh chorus of borrower cackles filled the attic, echoing off the wooden beams. Emily looked around desperately at the horror show surrounding her, hot tears of anger and fear pricking the corners of her eyes.

"You...you'll pay for this, you terrible little monsters!" she managed to choke out. "Just wait until my parents get home and see what you've done!"  

"Oooh, somebody's cranky! I think it's past Miss Priss's nap-a-roo time!" Seezy crowed, slapping her knee gleefully as fresh gales of borrower laughter broke out. 

Emily spun on her heel and stormed towards the attic steps, squeezing her eyes shut in a vain attempt to tune out the chaos. She only made it a few paces, however, before her foot struck something soft and yielding underfoot.

A petrified shriek burst from Emily's lips as she recoiled, staring down at the unrecognizable lump smooshed beneath the tread of her sneaker. Slowly, two beady black eyes blinked open, followed by the unmistakable snapping of tiny jaws, still determinedly chewing on the mess. 

The Underbed Wogga remained undaunted despite having a near-brush with squishing, prompting a fresh wave of hysterics from its borrower creators. Emily's nerve finally shattered completely and she fled the attic in screaming hysterics.  

From the safety of their home, the borrowers of the Willburbee clan continued their mischievous torment. Over the years, no cranny or closet was spared the boogety-blight of their vile interference. Even the family cat Socks wound up with tufts of his fur woven into tangled gnarls that skittered about the carpet at night. 

According to hushed rumors passed down through neighborhood kids, the worst fate befell a nosy babysitter who broke the cardinal rule and opened the attic door alone one dark and stormy evening...her piercing screams echoing through the night before she collapsed in a twitching, gibbering heap of shattered nerves.

Some say that the old Seezy and the Willburbee patriarchs live on in borrower infamy to this day, cackling from the recesses as they gleefully hatch new and more unspeakable ways to 'borrow back' the everyday objects of human lives. All that's known for certain is that their reign of repossessed repulsion lives on...in the most terrifying of places.

That thumping, bumping sound from the attic up above? Best not to dwell on it too long. 

The dog-eared photograph slipped between the sofa cushions, now scribbled on with unknown ichor? Just slip it back from whence it fell.

And for heaven's sake...if you ever stumble upon a tidy pile of petrified banana skins and matted pet fur in the broom closet, well...

...perhaps it's best to leave that borrowed treasure be!