In case you're not a sitter, (or a sibling) three angry boys can make a lot of noise. And Jacob, Joseph and Joshua were three angry boys. Not only that, they were three angry boys who were victims of a massive sugar overdose. I think that Mr. and Mrs. Smith ought to hire those three out as haunted-house ghosts. (Or banshees)
"Staceyyyyyyy! Make her give my game back!" It was Jacob.
"No! It's my game!" Joseph.
"Mine!"
"Mine!" (Sound familiar?)
I got myself some pretty deep scratches separating those two. Joshua mostly just screamed, and attempted to drown us all. His clothes were soaking wet by the time he stopped crying.
"Kaye!" I called, "Will you please give the game back?"
"No! Not unless the idiot who ruined the tape pays for it!" Kaye could be as bad as the boys sometimes.
Jacob was more insistent. He was already barging into Kaye's bedroom, and holding up and large (toy!) truck. "If you don't give it back, I'll throw this at you!"
Kaye ignored him, but I was having a hard time doing the same. That was a heavy truck. I didn't feel up to telling Mr. and Mrs. Smith, "Well, sorry guys. I let Jacob throw this really big truck at Kaye, and now you're gonna have to replace the window in her room.
I rubbed my head, and went up behind Jacob, pulling the truck gently out of his hands. "Sorry Jacob. No way."
This was the toughest job I'd ever had, and I was sure it was about to get harder.
Joseph came pounding down the stairs (That scared me. I hadn't even realized he'd gone up) with a knife in his hands. "I'll cut you unless you give that back!" Joseph and Jacob are a lot alike. It was just a butter knife, but letting him try wouldn't be smart at all.
"No, you won't." My head hurt. "Give me that knife." I held out my hand, and he slashed it in my direction.
"Ouch!" I yanked my hand back, and examined the red line on my hand.
This would, of course, be the time that I heard Celeste yelling. "Oh my gosh! Baby, why do you do such stupid things?"
I didn't think I wanted to know what she was talking about. As I raced up the stairs, leaving Joseph and Jacob to lunge at each other again, I began praying. It didn't work.
The second I saw the kitchen table, (yes, another mess on that poor piece of furniture) I slumped against the wall, and just groaned.
The baby had managed to create chaos beyond anything even the Pikes could ever dream of. Working together. She had tipped over a bottle of syrup, and then dumped a bowl of granola right onto the syrup. This is not the kind of thing a babysitter wants to see.
Kaye had come running at Celeste's shouted question, too. When I noticed that even she looked horrified, I decided to tell the other members of the BSC (providing I survived, of course) to make sure they had a will written before they came to sit for these kids.
"Creative solutions." Kaye muttered, after she calmed down, and looked thoughtfully at the table. "Well, we couldn't make much more mess if we tried, could we? So let's try this."
As I stared at her, she causally walked toward the sink, and pulled a water pitcher out from under it. After she filled it with water, she came back to us, and poured it over Joy! Joy screamed, and struggled, but she was a lot less sticky. And so was the table.
"Okay. Celeste, go get.. um.. some clean clothes, and a big pile of tea-towels. Go!"
That baby ran through clothes pretty fast, as I learned while helping Kaye scrub at the syrup. By the way, syrup isn't exactly easy to clean. And we had a whole brand-new bottles-worth waiting for us.
The narrator has ceased to be Stacey, and now it's the humble (um?) author of this story.
All right, so I sound a bit like I'm repeating myself. But the jam episode and the syrup event really did happen to me, and quite far apart. In fact, the syrup thing just took place today, while I cleaned up an entire kitchen covered in jam two years ago.
And no, in case you're wondering, I didn't pour water on my sister. That came straight from my imagination. One of the few things that did, actually. I must give credit to my crazy brothers and sisters for diving me insane, and giving me plenty of writing material in the process. ::sticks out tongue::
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who reviewed! This story is dedicated to you.
Rose-Bud