It took an awful lot of phone calls and as many bribes from Buster to finally get Rosita a willing sitter. Or, a pair of sitters would be a better choice of words. A pair of Marmosets that were very used to taking care of high-class families with many children. Rosita dreaded to imagine what they would think of her small, middle class house with the mess it was in. She would have to have a proper clean up before they arrived. She climbed into her car and headed home, mind spinning with everything she would have to do before the next day. She would need to convince her husband to let her take his work car so that she could leave the family car at home in case of an emergency. So he would have to take the bus to work for the week, she had made so many sacrifices for him, he could surely make this one small sacrifice for her. It made her feel bad but at the same time it wasn't really like she had a choice.
She headed back into the house, fully prepared for the chaos she was greeted by. She opened the door and ducked instantly to avoid the football that came flying towards her face whilst stepping to the side to let three of her children run after it. She sighed, turning after the children "Stay in front of the house!" she called before stepping fully into the house and closing the door. Her husband trailed out of the living room, a group of five of their children trailing behind him, all talking over each other.
"No, you can't have ice cream until after dinner, no you can't throw darts at your brother, darling I promise I will look at fixing the toy once I have cleaned up the water your sister spilt in the bathroom..." He looked exhausted as he tried to answer each one of them, finally spotting his wife in the corner of his eye he beamed "Hi darling!" He greeted with relief, heading over to kiss her on her cheek.
"Hi Norman." She smiled, giving him a quick hug hello before he pulled away "I have something I nee-"
"That's great darling but one of the kids has…" He went on with a list of things that had happened since she had left the house and it made her stomach knot, if her own husband couldn't handle the children for all of an hour how were two sitters going to handle them for a week?! "If you could just take care of the water then I can take care of the nose bleed." Normal finished. Rosita nodded, heading towards the bathroom.
She hummed to herself as she whipped up the spilt water, though she was starting to suspect it wasn't only water that had been spilt. The song had been stuck in her head all morning, though she wasn't quite sure of the name she did know it had a rather catchy tune that someone could easily dance to. Maybe she could ask Gunter the name when she saw him tomorrow. Oh god, tomorrow. The sitters were coming tomorrow. And this was the state of the house they were going to be practically living in for the week! She let out a squeal, quickly drying up the rest of the water before rushing out of the bathroom and into the kids' room. As expected. It looked like a bomb had flown right through the window and detonated in the middle of the room. She frantically started cleaning up the mess of toys, strewn blankets and bed covers, deciding halfway through that it might be better to completely change the bed covers.
Oh god. This is going to take forever.
…
It was 8 o'clock in the evening by the time she finally deemed the house to look presentable. She had put Norman in charge of cooking the dinner whilst she finished cleaning. He had managed to do so however a thin layer of smoke had descended over the house in the process. The smoke alarm kept going off at random intervals whenever some of the smoke managed to drift back into the hallway from the kitchen. Rosita plopped herself down in the seat by the TV. The children were in bed and Norman had said that he would grab her some of the dinner she had missed whilst cleaning.
"Here we go." Norman stated coming into the living room with a tray containing two plates of food and two glasses of wine. Rosita giggle as he almost dropped the tray whilst trying to let go of one of the handles to pass her a tray, reaching out and taking the plate and class of wine herself, nodding at the chair next to her. He smiled, taking the seat and ignoring his food in favour of watching Rosita take a bite of her food "Well?" he asked "How is it?"
"It's lovely, thank you hunny." She smiled. Norman sighed, leaning back in the chair with relief before sitting up again and digging into his food.
"You know, it's funny, I can't remember the last time I cooked a meal." He stated, taking another bite, followed by a small sip of wine.
"It was last year when I had the flu, you cooked the most amazing pie." Rosita recited, without even needing to think about it. Norman blinked at her, slowly reaching up to scratch the back of his head, the way he always did when he was nervous.
"I suppose it has been a while then…" He muttered, looking down at his plate with a thoughtful look in his eyes. Rosita sighed. Now or never.
"Norman hunny…" She slowly placed her knife and fork down, turning to look at him.
"What? What is it?" He questioned worriedly "I burnt something, didn't I? Something isn't cooked correctly?"
"No, no, nothing like that!" Rosita smiled reassuringly "Nothing like that at all! I just need to talk to you about why Buster called me down to Eddie's house this morning." She took a deep breath "He asked as all to go on a week-long group camping trip together… well… asked isn't really the right word… more like told us we are going on one." Norman looked at her, clearly confused.
"When?" He asked cautiously "Maybe I can get time off work so you can-"
"Tomorrow." Rosita cut across him "We leave tomorrow." Norman's eyes widened.
"Right. Okay." He looked exactly how Rosita had expected him to look. Total lost. "Well… darling, I don't think it's possible for me to get time off with such late notice…"
"That's taken care of." Rosita stated "Two Marmosets named Milly and Mandy Tadwell are going to be watching the kids. They're fully qualified in childcare and are highly recommended, and Nana Noodleman is covering the expenses."
"Right then… so that's sorted…" Norman muttered.
"Norman… there is one other thing… I need to borrow your car."
"My… my car?" Normal asked, clearly and rightfully confused "Why do you need my car?"
"Well, I can't take the family care in case you need it and Johnny, Eddie and I are the only ones that can drive, excluding Mike of course but his car is for mice so no one else will really fit on the extra high seats, and Johnny's truck is only a two seater so if I don't drive all nine of us won't fit between his truck and Eddie's car." Rosita never really thought of herself as a rambler, but that was the only word she could use to explain what she just did. She may have felt like she was owed a favour but that didn't change the fact that part of her felt awful for asking this of her husband, after all the public busses could be so unreliable. Normal gave a small laugh.
"Show biz is demanding hu?" He gave another laugh and then sighed "No problem darling. I can take the bus for a week."
