CHAPTER 2: The W on my chest.
You should be informed: During the production of this fiction no one was killed or maimed in any way, shape, form or fashion. The authoress does not own anything, and is making no money from this at all. In fact she is losing money because instead of writing, she should be out looking for a job. This has been a public serves announcement.
This was supposed to be an easy task. Watch a five-year-old angel for 3 hours. Relena had always loved children because of their innocent outlook on life. She loved the way they had such imagination and joy in their hearts. So baby-sitting was going to be easy and fun and totally worth not getting all her homework done, right?
Wrong…"The W on my chest doesn't stand for Wonder Woman! Hilde, you have to come help!" Relena shrieked in to the phone. She was nervously yanking at the cord while trying to pace back and forth.
'Why couldn't Milli have a cordless phone in the kitchen like normal people?'"Relena, how much could one five-year-old do?" Hilde laughed at her friend's overreaction. She had three small nieces and they were relatively good children.
Relena looked around at the destruction that seemed to follow in little Sylvia Noventa's wake. One of the curtains was half way hanging off the window, and she thought she saw the tale-tail signs of peanut butter smeared on the stairwell wall.
"You have no idea, Hilde...She's already broken three vases and finger painted the whole kitchen. She won't eat anything I fix and pulled all the film out of the video's..." Relena named off just a few of the child's exploits.
"You have to be kidding...? Right?" Hilde sounded a little doubtful that one child could cause all that trouble.
A loud crash sounded in the background followed by Relena's shout of, "No! You can't use the shelf as a ladder! You'll---Hilde, I'll call you back---fall down and hurt your self…" Hilde pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a moment. If definitely sounded like Relena wasn't over exaggerating…maybe she should go over there and help her out. Hilde signed and picked up the phone when it rang again.
"You owe me Lena...You so owe me." She said before her friend could say anything.
"Thank you, I promise I'll make it up to you!" Relena's voice was filled with relief in knowing that she wouldn't be alone with the little she-monster anymore. She hung up the phone before Hilde could change her mind.
Milli was going to kill her. The brat had destroyed his favorite video documentaries. Although, come to think of it, Relena wouldn't miss them, in fact she wouldn't even mourn. But her brother would act like a member of the family had died. Relena put her head into her palms and tried to figure out how she was going to explain half the things that had been destroyed tonight to her brother. Suddenly, the quiet in the room took on an ominous feel, and Relena realized that she couldn't hear Sylvie breaking thinks in the next room anymore.
'Oh no! How long has it been since that last crash?' she thought as she got up. Relena began to look around the house for the little girl but Sylvie was nowhere to be found. She began to feel panic flutter up in her chest.
"Sylvie, if you don't come out right now I'll...well I don't know what I'll do but you won't like it!" No little demon child popped out of the closet or bathroom cabinet. Okay. So now she was headed for a full-blown panic attack. The sound of Hilde pulling up outside was music to Relena's ears. Surly Hilde would be able to find the girl.
"Hilde! What am I going to do? Milli and the Noventa's will be home soon!" Relena lamented to her friend. She was really worried that Sylvie might have some how gotten outside somehow.
'But the doors were all locked…she couldn't have unlocked it either…I mean the chain is even above my head.'
"Don't worry Relena, she has got to be here somewhere." Hilde tried to reassure the distraught girl, "Look, you clean up the mess and I'll look for her this time. You're sure all the doors were locked, so she couldn't get out?" She asked.
Relena bit her lip and worriedly glanced around, "I thought it was locked, I mean when I checked them after she went missing they were all locked…" Hilde glanced nervously at her friend.
"Relena, I hate to say this, but remind me never, ever, to let my children stay with you longer than an hour."
Relena rolled her eyes but agreed with Hilde.
"Okay, if you're finished making me feel worse I think I'll go clean the paint from the floor.
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Hilde silently creped about in one of the upstairs bedrooms, trying not to alert the hiding girl to her presence. From the exaggerated neatness of the room she could only guess that it belonged to Relena's brother. She doubt that Relena had searched every hard for Sylvie here because the utter lack of chaos in the room seemed to testify that the little girl had never hidden here. After looking under the bed and in the small closet, Hilde noticed a doorway in the back corner of the room slightly ajar. She approached the door and found that it hid a narrow flight of stairs. She assumed as she climbed the badly creaking stairs that they went up to the attic.
'I bet Relena didn't think to check the attic…I mean what child enjoys sitting in the dark?'When she got to the top Hilde could see a faint light coming form beneath the doorway. She smiled to herself as she pushed the door open.
"Bingo!"
Lying on an old rag rug in the center of the room Hilde found Sylvie asleep. It looked like she had been playing with Relena's old Barbie Dolls. Her light blonde curls surrounded her giving her sleeping face an innocent look.
'Even devils grow angle wings when they sleep I guess… I wish I had my easel.' Hilde thought as she tried to memorize the scene for future reference. With a smile she bent down to pick the blonde child up.
'Oh my God you're so heavy.' Hilde tried to wake the child up, but once asleep Sylvie didn't wake easily. She was about to give up when she saw headlights pull into the driveway below.
"I hope Relena has a bright idea about how to explain the mess down there, or how you got up here, because I can't carry you down all those stair, that's for sure."
Hilde glanced that the sleeping girl nervously.
"Don't move from that spot. I'll be right back with someone to carry you down."
Then she hurried down to tell Relena she had found the girl.
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"I never want to do that again!" Relena exclaimed to Hilde later after everything was over and the Noventa's were finally gone. She was laying face down on her bed where she had collapsed moments before.
"Yeah, but she was cute asleep." Hilde remarked with a smile at the memory. "And she seemed to really like you a lot from the way she cried when she had to go home."
"I guess. Until I saw that she pulled Barbie's head off and put in on Ken's body." Relena answered in chagrin. "And the only reason she wanted to stay was because she feeds off my frustration and fear."
Hilde just laughed at her friend. " Hey, I think I'm going to go before Mr. P finds those tapes, alright." She said as she grabbed her coat. Relena managed to raise her head up a fraction to glare at her friend.
"Sure leave me," Relena murmured bitterly.
"Yep, what are true friends for?" She bent and hugged Relena before running out her bedroom door. Hilde had just made it out the door when over her shoulder she heard Milliardo voice raised in what could have been called panic...or at least something very close to it.
"Relena! What happened to my tapes on Life and eating habits of the Gipsy Moths?"
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The next day was Saturday. Relena awoke early to see the sun was still low in the sky. She stretched and debated on weather or not she should get out of bed. It didn't take her long to decide to be a lady of leisure and lay around in bed for a few more hours, though. Relena was just drifting off to sleep again when the phone rang.
"Err..., Go away!"
Ring"I said go AWAY!"
Ring
Ring
Ring
"Okay, Okay. I don't know why I had Milli put a line in for me..." Relena reached for her hot pink Hello Kitty ™ phone with a groan.
"Hi Rellie! What's up?" Cathy chirped form the other end of the line.
"Relena you sound like your not awake! It's noon." Hilde teased.
'Great, a three way...And there's no way in hell that it's even past 10'
" Hi, guys. I was sleeping in." Relena told them as she rolled over on her back and looked out the window again. Okay…so maybe the sun was a little higher than she had first thought.
"I guess you were right Cathy." Hilde stated with a sigh.
"Yep! Pay up!" Cathy's tone was full of gloating.
"What are you talking about?" Relena demanded. She didn't like them talking as if she wasn't there.
"Oh, I bet Hilde 5 bucks you would forget we were coming over to help you make those posters for the uniform debate on Tuesday. "
Relena moaned. "Oh, crap! I did forget. When were you guys supposed to come over?" She sat up and swung her legs out of bed.
"12:30" They answered in unity.
"Okay, I'll be ready but I need poster paper, Could you pick up some? I'll pay you back?"
The girls agreed to pick up the paper and Relena hurried into the bathroom. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Relena headed down to the kitchen to wait for her friends and make snacks.
Milliardo was sitting at the table, in his blue p.j's, staring mournfully at his documentaries when she walked in.
"Gee, Milli I'm sorry that happened." Relena said, trying to sound as truthfully as she could. She gave her big brother a big hug and preceded to tell him they were having guests soon.
Milliardo finally looked up from his ruined tapes. "If your friends are coming over, I had better go change into something more suitable for guest." He slowly got up and with one last mournful glance toward the ruined videos; he shuffled out of the room.
Relena sighed as he left the room. "Really, it's not like his best friend died or something."
By the time Relena had all the snacks ready, the girls arrived. The rest of the day was spent writing slogans for the up coming debate.
Revised 3/03/03
