I struggled for control, and walked stiffly over to Kaye. "Where ya going? Oh…. FanFiction?" I stared blankly at the screen. I know nothing about computers.
"Yup." Kaye was typing in a little box.
Then there was a loud scream, at which I'm sure I jumped two feet in the air.
"I found it first! Give it back! It's mine!"
"No! I found it! I get AHHHHHHHHH! He bit me!" Jacob came over to me and held up his arm. Though I looked as hard as I could, I didn't see anything. But I rubbed it, and he went back to his Star Wars game, wiping away utterly unnecessary tears.
"I'm hungry." Joseph got up and stomped out of the room, chewing on the Jelly Bean he had so valiantly fought for. Joshua got up and followed, tripping and hitting his head in the process. The babysitter in me whispered that I should go with them, but I stupidly ignored it.
After about ten minutes of blessed silence, Kaye glanced from the story she was reading.
"Been quiet too long." She followed the same path her brothers had taken, with me on her heels. At the kitchen doorway, she stopped and said something under her breath.
"Jieys!"
I blinked. Jieys?! That was something I'd never heard before. When she saw me, she grinned.
"That's the way Ronan says Geeze." Kaye explained.
"Uh, Ronan?"
"Uh-huh. An Irish wizard." She explained absently. She caught sight of my face. "Never mind. A fictional character. A kid from a book."
But I wasn't paying attention. I had seen what she had been muttering about. Joshua was sitting on a table completely covered in jam. There was jam on the walls too. And the floors.
"Oh, heck." I moaned.
Kaye gazed at the mess for a moment, then went to the stairs. "Yo, Celeste! Come get Joshua!"
"Do it yourself." It was the girl who had been on the big bed. Kaye heaved an enormous sigh, and walked down the stairs.
"Celeste Smith, you can clean up Joshua or the kitchen, take your pick."
"Joshua, come down here!" Celeste called up the stairs, never stirring from her bed.
"You shouldn't bring him in you room unless you like grape jam on your carpet." Kaye turned and left Celeste to think about that.
Then Kaye came back to the kitchen. "You'd better go watch my other brothers, or something much worse'll happen. I'll clean this up."
I was only too glad to let her.
However, only five minutes after I got back down, there was a shriek from the bathroom. When I dashed in there, I seriously began thinking of bailing out and leaving Kaye to baby-sit. She seemed capable.
The one-year-old, Joy, was in the toilet. Don't ask me how she got there, I don't want to think about it. But she was there, standing upright in the toilet bowl.