My Ticklish Friends

         Little Maria stood there, hands on her hips in her cute pajamas, swearing to me that she didn’t take my babysitting pay for the evening from the kitchen counter-top. I was relaxing on the sofa while she was being a total pain, standing between me and the TV, giggling and kicking at me with her socked foot, and calling ME the liar. She stuck her tongue out and kicked out at me again, but this time, I grabbed her left leg just above her ankle, and managed to hold on long enough to tickle her socked foot with the fingers of my other hand. Maria instantly let out a tiny yet ear-piercing “EEE-HEEHEEHEE!” scream from the brief tickle, pogo'ing on her other leg on the carpet before yanking her captured foot back from me, laughing the whole time. I tried not to let it be obvious, but it was tremendously exciting for me to see how intense her reaction to the brief sock tickling was. She was giggling madly, standing just out of easy reach from me, and stuck her tongue out again, blowing a raspberry at me while doing a cute sort of tentative half-kick, obviously too afraid of having her foot captured again.

         Taking advantage of the situation, I looked at her all serious and told her, “Maria, so help me, if you don’t give me my money, I will tickle you until you tell me where you hid it!”, and I did air-spiders with my fingers at her, which caused her to shriek again before scampering from the room, yelling, EEK! No, don’t tickle me! Tee-Hee-Hee! I’ll never tell you! Meanie!”. Maria ran all the way upstairs, where I heard a door slam shut, though I could still barely make out her laughing before I drowned it out by turning up the TV on the Disney Tinkerbell flick she was supposed to be watching with me. I sat there, bemused, while the dumb cartoon played, and then I decided to -