Grizzly and Panda

The self-storage facility changed the quote on their sign again. On their lot stood a tall steel pole capped with blue and white cursive lettering, reading, "Cozy Storage." Next to this company name, the purring, leg-rubbing blue cat logo drew my eyes. But, beneath these, in the white space set aside for individualized messages, the sign now read, "Beware growing too impressed with your own wisdom."

Every Friday there were new quotes.

"All we have is now."

"The smarter you become the less you speak."

"You cannot fail unless you quit trying."

"Never lie to yourself."

And so on.

The sign sat on a 40-foot laddered pole along the main expressway right where the farmland ended and the suburbs began. It was large and well-placed enough to be seen coming from both directions. I saw it every day when I dropped my sister at the high school and drove into town for my college classes. On the way back, too.

The pithy quotes irked me. Always did. I didn't like the idea that the owner of Cozy Storage could foist his views upon tens of thousands of commuters and travelers every day. It wasn't so much the quotes and sayings he used; occasionally I found them a touch self-righteous, but rarely if ever downright insulting.

No, I disliked the power this guy had; he needed to be checked.

And maybe I was in a foul mood, too. I had a test that morning in Anthro--a class I had to take, had no other option but to take, and thoroughly despised. I did not put in the studying effort I should have.

"I'm going to fuck with that sign," I muttered as I drove.

Hope, my sister, turned to me. "What?"

I tilted my head toward the sign as we passed. "Cozy Storage. I'm going to fuck with their sign."

"Fuck with it how?"

"I don't know. I just don't like it."

"It's rude," Hope said.

I glanced at her.

She explained. "They should keep their opinions to themselves unless asked. Rude. I never liked it."

"Yeah," I nodded. "It is rude."

"So, what are you going to do? Spray paint it or something?" she asked.

"Maybe I'll make it say something stupid."

Hope laughed. "Oh, my gosh, you should. We should. I'll help you."

The high school exit approached. I cast a doubtful glance at her and said, "No, you wouldn't. You'd be too scared. You're the family do-gooder."

"I'd do it," she protested.

"In the middle of the night? Sneaking out? Dressed in black? Crawling through tall weeds with rodents and bugs? Climbing a tower beside the expressway to do something that's probably illegal?"

"Trespassing, at least," she offered. "And I would. The real question is, would you? Or are you still all talk?"

I brought us to a stop at the light and turned to her.

My sister was a straight-A student. In a month, she would be presented with the Girl Scout Gold Award--the club's highest honor. She was President of the school's chapter of the National Honor Society, editor of the yearbook, and the senior class VP.

And she was beautiful in that untouchable way. A long, lush-haired brunette with smoky brown eyes, she had flawless, tan skin and a face so attractive that it intimidated guys. She was tall--five-eight--and she had deceptively large breasts and a perky butt.

Her question was feisty--a jab at my own recent failures. I had promised to get my grades up during the fall semester. I didn't, despite my big talk. That failure caused our parents to pull me out of the university and put me into the community college. After that, I told the family that I would pay my own way--then I got fired from my job. My recent history included big talk and small results.

"Tonight," I declared. "Recon mission. Intel gathering. Two a.m. You in?"

"A Friday night? I can do that. Fine. Yes. I'm in."

The light turned green, and I rolled on. "Why?" I asked.

Hope said, "Because I don't like those signs either, and because you don't think I will."

"We get caught, you've got a lot to lose."

"Trying to scare me off because you're too scared?" she jabbed.

"No. Trying to keep it real."

"I'm coming."

"Two a.m. sharp. Come to my room dressed for stealth."

"I'll be there."

***

Our parents were in their bedroom upstairs watching a movie when Hope knocked on my bedroom door in the basement. She wore a tight black turtleneck sweater and black yoga pants on top of her black sneakers. She pulled her hair back in a low ponytail and wore a black watch cap.

She scanned me. Camouflage pants, black long-sleeve shirt, black combat boots, and I had painted my face and the backs of my hands green and black.

"Hey, I need face paint, too," she complained.

"Chill, girl. I gotcha," I said, reaching into my cargo pocket. I unscrewed the lids and got to work coating her face in black and dark green.

"We're really doing this," she said with some trepidation.

"I didn't think you'd actually show up," I replied. That turtleneck was really tight over her chest. A hot spark of guilt swept through me. It was difficult not to look.

"So what does 'recon intel gathering' really mean?"

Welcoming the distraction of conversation, I said, "Well, I did a little research." I gave her chin a green stripe, continuing, "Most of these signs have rows, and you slide the letters into the rows from the ends."

"Huh. I thought they were magnets."

"Me, too. No. On the ends of the rows, there's a bracket so letters can't slide out and blow away in the wind."

"Makes sense. So--?"

"So we'll figure out how big their letters are, and then I'll order some the same size," I explained. Gathering more black, I decided to give her eyes a kind of raccoon effect.

"Then we'll make it say what we want?"

I nodded. "Or rearrange the letters if we don't need our own. And we've got to figure out how the side brackets are attached--what kind of screw or fastener holds them in place--hang on." I added a bit more around her eyes and stepped back. Looking at her face, I said, "Oh, my gosh."

"What?"

"You actually look really cool."

She gasped and ran to the bathroom--presumably to see herself in the mirror. The movement drew my eyes to her ass. I quickly shut them, feeling that hot shame again. A minute later, she came back with a huge grin. "I look so cute! Thank you!"

"You always look cute; now you look cool."

Her eyebrows leaped skyward at my compliment, and her smile refreshed.

"Don't smile when we're out there. Your teeth are too bright."

Hope closed her lips and saluted me. "Yes, sir."

"Ready?"

"Wait! What's the plan?"

"I just told you," I responded.

"Who is doing what? What if we get separated? That kind of stuff. Code names."

"Code names?"

"Yeah."

I sighed. "Okay, you're the lookout. I'm going up the tower--."

"Oh, thank goodness!" she burst. "I thought you were going to make me go up."

I stopped, blinking and looking at Hope.

"What?" she asked, seeing my interest.

Her words and demeanor were curious. Although she was eighteen and I was twenty, I never felt like the older sibling and leader. Her radiant beauty, popularity, and success made my two-year age advantage disappear. On those occasions between us where I asserted myself, it was all an act; I was operating on confidence I didn't actually feel. A single act or word of defiance from her might bring the whole sham crumbling down.

Now, here she was saying "Yes, sir" and expecting me to order her around. It surprised me. For this op, Hope saw me as the leader of us, and she was willing to follow. I liked it.

"Yeah--no. Nothing," I finally replied. "I'm going up. I've got a tape measure." I pulled it out of my other cargo pocket. "And if you see anything--someone coming, cops, video cameras--whatever, you let me know." I glanced around us. "If we get separated, we meet at the silt fence behind the shed."

She nodded.

I opened the sliding glass door, and we stood on the back patio. When she turned to me, I said, "I don't know why we would need code names, but yours will be--." I looked her over. "--Panda."

She smiled. "I love Pandas!"

I liked how Hope was low maintenance for most things. Any other girl I nicknamed "Panda," even one as fit and well-put-together as my sister, would immediately have considered it a comment on weight. I said, "And I'll be--."

"Grizzly! Please?"

"Okay. I'm Grizzly."

She clapped. "We're bears! Bears are so adorable!" When she saw my annoyance, she added, "And dangerous. Very, very sneaky and dangerous."

I chuckled, and my mirth delighted her.

"Okay," I finally whispered, "Be tactical now. Follow me--Panda."

"Yes, sir, Grizzly-sir."

There it was again--Hope's strange deference to me.

And, for the covert undertaking before us, I knew I was worth following. My leadership here, at least, was no sham.

Something about being outside at night, suited up for stealth, energized me. Neither Hope nor our parents knew, but I sneaked out at night all the time when I was younger. Even when I couldn't get any friends to join me, I'd go alone, spending a few hours during the heart of night seeing and being unseen.

I grew confident in my ability to patrol the neighborhoods in darkness. I knew which houses had fences and dogs. I knew who stayed up late and who bedded down early. I learned things and saw things at night in the fields and through windows. Sometimes I carried out little missions.

One spring, a friend and I were out with some tools. We replanted Mr. and Mrs. Kunkel's garden, taking the tomatoes and planting them where the peppers had been, then switching the peppers and the strawberries. It was a stupid, meaningless prank, but we imagined their confusion the next day, laughing.

That old prick, Mr. Sutergaard, I filled his mailbox with dirt--three times. On the last one, I found a dead opossum on the way there. Running back home, I got a garbage sack and pair of Dad's disposable latex grilling gloves, and then I stuffed the roadkill inside along with the dirt.

I've got stories from the night. Those are the tame ones. I hadn't been out in more than a year when Hope and I left the house, but the minute I smelled the air, I felt at home, and I regretted not having gone out in so long.

We crept across the yard behind our shed where the silt fence spanned our property line. It was about four feet tall but stretchy. I pushed it down, and Hope climbed over. Next, we ascended a hill and crossed a road. Then, back down a hill and into the tree line.

Cozy Storage was about three-quarters of a mile from our house. A copse of trees sat between the road and the howling traffic of the expressway. We marched slowly up a long hill through the mini-forest of cedars, maples, and cottonwoods toward the crest. Our destination was just on the other side of that crest.

In the time since my last night outing, a cell tower had been erected upon the peak of the hill we continued ascending. The lights of that tower were in our view the entire time, and as we approached it, Hope and I stumbled upon one of the long guy wires securing the tower in place.

"Let's go way around this," I directed. "Could be cameras here."

She followed me back into the trees, and we gave the tower a wide berth. On the other side, we stopped together. The road leading to Cozy Storage was thirty yards in front of us. It was a dead-end road, seeing only cars that were headed to the self-storage facility. What stopped us was a fence on the near side of the road.

"Do you remember that?" Hope asked, pointing at it.

I shook my head. "It's new."

"What do we do?"

Waving her onward, she followed me right up to it. About six feet tall, it was a chain-link barrier. I knelt beside it

Hope joined me, and she bent over and pulled on the bottom of the fence. It was loose.

"Good idea, Panda," I whispered. "But, it'll be even looser in the middle between two support posts."

She smiled and followed me to a point just about dead-center between two of the fence poles. I tugged on the bottom, and it pulled up a good eight-ten inches. "You first," I said,

Hope slid down to her belly and wiggled through. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I watched her big, perky butt just barely sneak under. When she rose on the other side, she hauled the fence up for me. I went under on my back.

Once through, we both turned to look across the road, but our eyes went straight to the sign. It was there, glowing white and blue, perfectly visible in the night.

"That looks really tall," Hope whispered, and I admit I was thinking the same thing.

Between us and the sign was the road; it turned and dead-ended into Cozy Storage's main gate. There was a line of bushes on both sides of the approach to the gate. I pointed at the side closest to the expressway, checked for traffic, and darted across the street, hiding behind those shrubs. Hope followed a few seconds later.

We remained behind the hedge, stalking toward the entrance with the expressway about fifty yards to our right. The sign and its supporting pole loomed ever larger as we approached it. I gulped.

When we reached the main gate, I signaled to Hope to scan the area for cameras. She nodded. We took turns, peeking over and around the hedge.

The main gate had a keypad that controlled a rolling, spiked gate. It looked like the keypad had a camera as part of the unit. Made some sense--like an old ATM machine. Hope pointed out another camera on the main building at the front entrance.

Cozy Storage had two sections. First was a three-story building--for temperature-controlled storage, I guessed. The second area, down a short drive from the main building, was a roughly twenty-acre lot occupied by rows of long, one-story garage structures.

The sign pole was near the corner of the fence surrounding the entire storage facility--not far from us. Like the cell-tower fence, it was about six feet tall, but the storage facility's was capped with a line of barbed wire. Its support posts were closer together, more like eight feet apart--a much more rigid structure. The post for the sign sat inside this fence about four feet on either side from the corner.

Still, Hope and I had to get through, under, or over that fence to get to the pole's ladder. I signaled for her to follow me down to the corner of the fence. We shuffled down a short declivity and scanned our surroundings.

"I didn't see any more cameras," she offered.

"Probably some on the outer buildings, but I don't see one on the sign."

"Okay, so how do we get through this?" she asked, gesturing at the fence.

"Stay low and check how flexible the bottom is. You take that side. I'll take this one--and, hey, stay out of sight of the camera on the main gate."

She nodded, and we went to work.

The bottom of Cozy Storage's chain-link fence had a metal bar, weaving in and out of the last links between the posts. It flexed in the middle, but only a few inches at best.

Hope and I met back at the corner. "No way to get under," she sighed.

"And no over without getting caught up in that wire."

"What about down there?" she asked, pointing.

I looked. About twenty-five yards further along, between the highway and the fence was low ground--a drainage ditch, maybe. "Come on."

Together, we scooted down into the ravine and followed it to the low point where we found the opening to a cement culvert that ran under the fence beneath Cozy Storage's lot. There was no protective grate, and it was about thirty inches in diameter.

"Shit, should we try it?" I asked.

"You mean, go inside that tunnel?" Hope asked fearfully.

"Wait," I said, "go back up and look for an exit--might be a manhole cover or something."

Again, I caught myself looking at Hope's ass while she climbed up the ravine and peeked into the lot area between the main building and the garages. I pinched my eyes shut and swore silently, wondering what the fuck was wrong with me. She came back down shortly after. "I didn't see a manhole, but there is an opening--a storm drain."

"Could a person get through?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. It's pretty big, but don't go in there."

"What? Why not?"

"You might get stuck or hurt or something. It's scary."

"Go back up and look for cameras pointed at that storm drain."

She saluted and returned to her vantage point. Once back beside me, she said, "They're at the corners of the buildings, and they face along the fronts of the garage doors. They're not looking this way. I mean, it could work, but don't."

I glanced into the culvert. Total darkness. I felt inside. Twigs. Rocks. Dirt. "Fuck it. I'm going. How far to the storm drain?"

"Don't go."

"Hope."

She sighed. "Fifteen-twenty yards?"

"Okay, here I go." I mounted the opening, swept the debris there out from between my legs, and crawled inside. Thankfully it had been a dry spring. There was no moisture inside. After several yards of struggling with rocks, I found I could crawl along and sweep the debris to the side as I went. As long as I kept my body flat, the rocks and twigs just glided along my side until I passed. About twenty feet in, I heard Hope. Stopping, I turned to the opening.

I saw her silhouette. She was following me inside.

"You're not leaving me by myself out there," she whispered, and her voice had a strange twang from the culvert's acoustics.

"Okay," I whispered, and we continued. About fifty or sixty feet in, I began second-guessing the decision. We were in complete darkness. There was no sign of this opening Hope had seen. I craned forward and bumped my head against concrete.

"Fuck," I hissed. Feeling in front of me.

"What? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. It--it turns. Hang on--." I looked around the turn, and there was light. Not much. But there it was. I spun back. "Just in front of me, it turns about 45 degrees to the right. I see the storm drain."

"Okay."

I followed the turn, wriggling. There was more light. Quickly, I found myself in a kind of junction--a concrete box, slightly wider than the culvert. "I'm here," I said. Reaching up toward the ledge, I was able to pull my body into a squatting position.

Through the drain, I scanned the lot area for any sign of danger before tilting my head on its side and poking it into the opening. Yes, it fit, and that meant with a little bit of squishing on my chest and butt, I could probably get through.

"At least there's some space in here," Hope uttered beside me.

I said, "I don't see any trouble out there. I'm going to try to get through."

"Be careful."

I nodded, and I poked my head through the storm drain. Then my chest. It was tight. I blew out a breath and, planting my feet firmly against the side of the junction, I shoved.

I made it. Now, it was just my ass. Pushing my palms onto the asphalt of Cozy Storage's lot, I wiggled left and right, squeezing my butt through, and then I was free. I knelt down and said, "You staying or coming?"

"Coming."

"Give me your hands."

She did. I pulled her gently.

"Oh! Oh! My boobies!" she whimpered. I quit tugging. She added, "But keep going. I'll be okay."

I was a little surprised that her butt got jammed, too.

"Oh, no," she whispered. "Pull me." When I did, I watched in amazement as her yoga pants got caught by the lip of the drain. They slid over her rump, exposing the top half of Hope's tan, thick ass. Dangerous thoughts entered my mind at the sight.

"Oh, my gosh," she whined.

Suddenly the tension was gone. She was through. I fell on my butt; Hope shot to her knees and yanked up her tights. We both fought back laughter.

Regaining her composure, Hope grinned at me, and then her eyes looked past me. I turned. There was the signpost and the ladder. I followed the rungs to the top with my eyes.

"That's really high," Hope whispered.

"Panda, you're on lookout. If you see something funny, say--," I didn't finish. I thought about it, grinned, and said, "Say, 'Butt exposure.'"