The Washing Machine

"It's beautiful."

"It looks noisy."

It was Karla's latest purchase. The box it came in labeled it a washing machine, but after a weekend of binge-watching episodes of Doctor Who, both Xavier and Yves were convinced it was a time machine in disguise. It didn't help that it went in a room with similar looking machines with buttons that lit up red and green and rumbled and roared like the monsters and aliens they marveled over.

For that reason alone, it had to be something worth checking out.

Yves had tried to get a better look at the thing while Saul had fitted it to the wall that morning, but Karla had shooed him and Xav away before they could get their hands on any of the parts or press the buttons.

No matter, he'd swiped the instructions as soon as his mother had left for her Sunday afternoon grocery shop, and now he was examining the schematics, while Xav poked and prodded at the actual model.

"Mom was right," Yves said sadly, "it isn't a time machine."

"Who cares?" Xav snorted, pressing a button and laughing in delight as it lit up a vibrant shade of red; red was his favorite color. "Look at all the buttons and lights, Yves. Look how white and shiny it is. I bet this one turns it on!"

Yves ignored his brother. "It says it washes better than any other machine. Whoever read this hasn't seen our laundry piles." The machine beeped and rumbled. Both boys jumped back. "Don't touch it, Xav," he said, feeling important as he reminded his brother, "it's brand new."

"I'm not hurting anyone," Xav protested, lifting the lid to the machine to peek inside. The machine was much taller than he was, so he was holding onto the machine for dear life, his long legs kicking in the air. "And it's supposed to be used, isn't it."

"We're not supposed to be playing with it," Yves chided as his legs carried him forward of his own accord to look inside. He'd never seen anything like the inside of this machine before, and his father had shown him plenty of the insides of machines - heck, he'd even helped fix the inside of a car before, and helped work on a motorcycle. He flipped through the pages of the booklet again, noting one particular object. It was called the agitator. Interesting...

"Let's turn it on!"

Yves stopped Xav pressing the start button and stood between his brother and the machine. "Let's not. It's complicated machinery. You have no idea how it works."

"You have no idea how it works either." Xav pointed out, his chin high in the air. Yves bit his lip.

"Mom is out," he objected half-halfheartedly. "She wouldn't want us playing with it." The excuse sounded pitiful to his own ears. 'Mom is out' was usually their excuse for engaging in mischief. And he did want to see how the machine worked. As if he sensed his brother's weakening defenses, Xav tested him further with an encouraging smile.

"Besides, we're not going to play with it. We're going to wash something. We're not being bad if we're washing something. That's what it's for."

Their mother was always letting them wash the dishes. Surely washing clothes could be no different?

And now Xav looked so earnest and well-meaning, Yves didn't have a leg to stand on. And he wanted to see what the machine did too.

Yves shrugged. "Fine," he said with a cheeky grin, "I don't care what you do."

With a yell of delight, Xav grabbed his brother's hand and tugged him into the garage. Their father was working on a bike, tinkering at something with a pair of pliers while the radio played loudly.

"Daddy?" Xav announced, and Saul looked up, smiling at his sons. "Daddy, can we help?"

"Sure, Xav," Saul passed the elder boy a pipe covered in oil and dirt. Yves was given a couple of rags. "You boys clean this for me, I'll give you a dollar each."

Getting to see the machine work and getting a dollar each for their cleaning skills? Yves could not believe his luck.

But before he could express his joy, Xav had tugged him into the room with the machine in again, lifted the lid and dumped the pipe in the large drum.

"Xav," Yves said slowly, "you do know this is for cleaning laundry, right? So, like, clothes?" He couldn't help the derision in his tone.

His brother turned to him, rolling his eyes in a good imitation of their mother. "So why don't they call it a clothes washing machine, genius?"

Yves had nothing to say to that. Xav snatched the instructions manual and pressed a few buttons. The machine filled with water. Yves sighed; Xav was more likely to rust the pipe than he was to clean it.

"Now comes the soap!" Gleefully, Xav grabbed the box and went to pour the whole thing into the machine. "What?" he said, spotting the look on his brother's face. "It's really dirty." He sighed loudly and stopped. "How much should I use?"

Yves decided there and then that living through Xav could be quite vivacious. As long as Xav's hands were the only ones caught in the cookie jar, Yves could maximize his mischief making potential while avoiding punishment should they get caught. The realization made Yves stand taller, straighten his shoulders. Everything was now fair game. As long as Xav believed he had come to the idea himself, of course. As such, some maneuvering was necessary.

"Only a tiny bit of soap," Yves ordered in his haughtiest tone; Xav hated it when Yves was bossy. "Not even a palm full."

"What's the point of washing if there's no suds?" Xav muttered. "C'mon Yves, you know the pipe is really, really dirty. Daddy will want it really clean, won't he? What if I only pour in half the box?"

Yves made a show of looking at the instructions. In his eagerness to use the machine, Xav ripped the instructions from his brother and tore them up.

"Never mind," he yelled, "it's an adventure, right? We're like scientists, experimenting on the washing machine! We don't need stinking directions!"

Yves shrugged, feigning indifference. He was, by now, almost bored with the machine and was sure that using it wasn't as exciting as it was when they had first seen it. "Fine. Do what you like, after all, it's your laundry."

Heaps of white powder were dumped into the machine. Xav pressed all the buttons and began to count down loudly.

"One!" He shrieked and the machine rumbled into life, grumbling and groaning as the pipe clanked around in the drum. Both boys took several steps back. A large gush of water flooded the room, soaking the floor with soap and dirt.

"Turn it off!" Yves yelled, looking for the switch desperately. An even larger gush of water swayed over the side, soaking the boys.

"Turn it off!" Xav screamed. "It'll explode and we'll die!"

"I can't - I don't know how!" Yves yelled back. "You were the one who ripped up the instructions!"

By this time the floor was filled in at least half an inch of water. Yves slipped and fell, in his shock, opening his mouth and swallowing a mouthful of soapy water.

He scrambled away from the angry machine as fast as he could, spluttering and coughing. He and Xav exchanged a panicked look and they both quickly slipped out the door, ran through the kitchen and out of the back door and into the woods with the motor still going in the background.

00oo00oo00

An angry, high pitched shriek alerted Saul to trouble before he'd even finished working on the bike. Tossing the rag down and wiping his hands on his jeans, he made a run for the utility room, where he skidded to a halt, almost falling over as he came face to face with his wife, thanks to the volume of soap and water on the floor.

His wife stood in the middle of it, futilely swiping at the mess with an already soaking mop. Saul wanted to back away; Karla was seething with anger.

"What happened?" He asked, as innocently as he could muster.

"Those stupid, idiotic sons of yours!" Karla growled. Saul resisted the urge to roll his eyes; they only became his sons when they had done something wrong. "I'm going to throttle both of them."

Saul stepped towards his wife and the machine cautiously. "Are you sure? I could have plumbed it wrong, maybe-"

"I've been shooing Xav and Yves away from this room all day." she spun to face him with her finger pointed, as if he was one of her miscreant offspring. "You were supposed to be in charge, Saul Benedict, I leave the house for two hours, with you in charge. "Stay out of trouble," I told them, "go outside and play." And I come home to this!"

Saul swallowed. "It can't have been them, I gave them a pipe to clean from the bike and-"

His wife's shriek almost deafened him. "This pipe?" She reached into the washing machine and thrust a still dirty and oily pipe in his view. "You gave my sons a pipe to clean from your deathtrap of a bike?

Saul reached out slowly to release the pipe from her grip. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'll clean this up. I'll order a new washing machine and-"

"No! No, no, no, no way! From now on I am the only member of this household to set foot in this room!"

"Okay, okay," Saul rubbed the back of his neck. "What would you like me to do?"

With no hesitation Karla snapped; "Go out there, find me those boys and drag them back here so I can wring their necks!"

Saul decided his best chance at getting dinner that night was to follow his wife's orders, and slowly trailed out the back door, turning the pipe over in his hands as he did. It wasn't hard to follow in his son's footsteps; he had plenty of wet, soapy footprints to follow. He followed it far into the woods before he came to a halt at a stream he knew flowed from the Eyrie.

"Boys?" He called, picking his way along the rush of water; suds floated alongside branches and leaves.

Xav's head popped up from under the water.

"The more I rinse, the soapier I get!" he complained in lieu of a greeting. Saul shook his head and reached into the water to yank his son out the water, and almost dropped him back in due to the suds and how slippery they had made his fifth son's body.

"Come on Xav, let's get you out of here." He looked around for Yves. "Where's your brother?"

"Daddy?" a small voice beckoned from behind him.

Saul turned, expression stern, but quickly wilted at his son's distress. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Daddy, I can't make it stop!" Yves spoke in a rush, his expression panicked. "I swallowed some soap and- and- I can't-"

A loud belch erupted from his smallest son and several bubbles dripped out of his son's mouth. Xavier laughed loudly.

"It's not funny!" Yves cried, hiccuping and producing several more bubbles. "Daddy, please make it stop!"

"Daddy, I'm still soapy!" Xav whined, wriggling and squirming in his father's arms. Saul placed him down and Xav placed his hands on his hips and glared at Yves. He was the spitting image of his mother. "And my favorite shirt is ruined!"

"I don't feel good!" Yves said miserably, hiccuping again. Saul raised his eyes towards the sky, lifted Yves into his arms and steered Xav back to the house.

By the time the three had reached home, Karla had managed to get the utility room a little drier and cleaner, and was calm enough to feel a little sympathy for the boys, who by all accounts looked very soggy and pathetic. She didn't wring their necks, though she threatened to several times and bathed them in warm non-soapy water, bundled them into warm fluffy towels and put them in their pajamas. After they were dressed and showered, Yves spent the rest of the day lying down, spitting foam and bubbles into a bucket. Xav made a big show of apologizing and hugging and kissing his mother, and Saul, for his part, moved the washing machine outside, where it would be thrown out.

Later on in the evening, Karla and Saul showed up at Yves's bedroom door, with a nervous looking Xav in tow. Saul sat in the desk chair, Karla perched on his lap and they let the boys occupy the bed.

"It seems our boys have a sudden fascination with housework." Saul said quietly. "Rather odd considering how far they run when we ask them to do their chores."

"We just wanted to see what it did," Xav hung his head.

"We thought it was a time machine!" added Yves.

"You couldn't have waited for me to do some actual laundry?" Karla asked exasperatedly.

"You wouldn't have let us touch anything, though." Xav muttered sullenly, crossing his arms and pouting.

"With good reason, don't you think? A pipe? Really?" Karla moved to the window, arms crossed.

"Daddy asked us to clean it; we just wanted to make it shiny!" Xav explained.

"You wanted to make it shiny." Yves corrected, playing with the bedspread.

"Neither of you had any business being in the laundry room. You were told not to touch the washing machine. Your mother told you to stay out of trouble before she left. And what have I always told you?" Saul asked.

"To listen to your mom," the boys intoned together.

"Did you listen to either of us today?" Karla asked.

"No, mom," they said together again.

Saul nodded thoughtfully. "Then I believe you're both due a punishment, right?"

Xav nodded forlornly, while Yves hiccuped.

"Seeing as you both enjoy the idea of washing so much," Karla said with a gentle smile, "I think you can both do the washing up after dinner for the foreseeable future."

"But I told Xav not to touch the stupid machine," Yves said quickly. Xav gave a roar of indignation and was very quickly lifted off the bed by his father, who knew when Xav was most likely to cause a ruckus.

"I'm sure you said the words," Karla agreed, taking Yves's hand and pulling him to his feet. "But I very much doubt you meant them."

Yves's heart sank, his expression faltering. "But mo-om-"

Karla knelt down to Yves's level. "Look me in the eye and tell me you tried your best to convince Xav to leave my washing machine alone and that you only stayed to watch because you were concerned for his safety."

Yves knew when he had lost the battle to his mother and pouted. "But I don't feel well enough to do the washing up."

"I'm sure you don't, darling," Karla smoothed his hair down and kissed his cheek. "That's what happens when you mess around with things you aren't supposed to and any deliberate naughtiness, like what we've discussed this afternoon, is going to result in a punishment. Alright, Yves?"

Yves nodded, then hiccuped and a bubble the size of a marble escaped his mouth.

Saul gave him a small smile. "That's the smallest one yet, I'm sure you're feeling better."

Karla led Yves out of the room and down the stairs, closely followed by Xav and Saul

"You know what, daddy?" Xav said as they reached the kitchen. "With Yves around we don't need a washing machine."

Saul looked at his son, with raised eyebrows. "Why's that Xav?"

"Cause this family only needs one agitator."