Stacked with: Hang; MoM
Individual Challenge(s): Little Tykes; Tiny Terror; Lunar Era; Old Shoes [Y]; In a Flash
Word Count: 872
When Seamus woke up that horrible Saturday, he had an idea of what was going to happen, and it filled him with dread: spring cleaning. His mum had been going on about it since January! Every year, she must've bought every cleaning supply on earth, and the whole house ended up smelling like lemons, and Seamus had to help. It was surprisingly easy; his mum could clean a hundred things in the time it took Seamus or his dad to clean two. Women! he thought, having recently heard someone exclaim this at primary school. He'd asked Brendan what he meant, but the other boy had just shrugged. "Heard it from me dad."
After a large breakfast that left him feeling sleepy, Seamus followed the first instructions of the day and opened the windows to let in fresh air and some light. He shivered. "Chilly," he complained to himself. This was the familiar start to the day: after the windows, he would move the ladder around so his dad could dust the tops of shelves, he'd find all his toys in the living room and put them back in the basket, he'd brush up all the cat hair in the living room and put her toys in the basket. He'd suffer through music his dad listened to at university. "The Beatles are lame," Seamus had pouted last year. His dad had told him off for blasphemy. He never knew what Mum was doing most of the day. Women, he supposed.
This year, Seamus wasn't helping his dad: he was stuck cleaning his own room, top to bottom. He'd always had help, but apparently he was old enough to do it on his own now. His mum had broken the bad news over breakfast, and Seamus had sulked over his eggs for much longer than years past.
Now he stood in his bedroom doorway, eyeing the mess he needed to tackle. He could take all of his dirty clothes and sheets downstairs, he thought, and then maybe put all the books back on their shelf. Toys would go back in the basket, except his favorites, which he'd have to arrange on the rest of the shelves. Then, once everything was off the floor, he had to get a broom and get all the dust bunnies out of corners and from under his bed. He groaned, almost missing his dad's horrible singing along to Yellow Submarine.
Like his mum always said, there was no way to finish with starting. He started the way he'd always been taught: opening the window for some fresh air. Resigned to his chores, he turned to start shoving the dirty laundry scattered around the room into a pile.
What was that? Seamus paused when he heard - or maybe felt? - something flit past his ear. Afraid he'd let in a wasp (his biggest, most secret fear), he looked around sharply.
His jaw dropped.
Two little… things were holding up one of his pillows. Another was patting down the sheets under it, and for a split second he thought the fairies or pixies or whatever they were were here to help. "Bitchin'!" he whispered to himself. Then it all fell apart. At some kind of signal from the one on the sheets, the other two threw his pillow across the room, and it hit the wall with a loud thud.
"Don't throw things," he whispered hatefully to the little buggers.
"Seamus, what are you doing?" his dad called from downstairs.
On instinct he called back, "Nothing, da!"
He really should've begged his dad to come look. Seamus watched helplessly as the pixies danced around the room, working as a team to make an even bigger mess than it already was. Two found his favorite book from when he was a little kid, the one that he sort of recognized them from. One each held the front and back covers, and the other flipped rapidly through the pages - he was surprised they didn't tear - before doing a quick hand signal and saying something in a high-pitched, almost chirpy voice, that he didn't understand.
He ran around the room trying to fix the messes they were making and could barely keep up. They were rifling through everything in the room; he could never catch up! What would his dad say when he saw this mess?
Like a flash, he realized that they seemed like they were looking for something! They'd pick something up, look at it, and throw it over their shoulders. He cast his eyes around the room looking for something, anything, that might satisfy them. His eyes caught on an old ribbon from when he tried to wrap a present for his mum's birthday and he dangled it from his hand for a few seconds before tossing it across the room towards the pixies.
He knew he had the right bribe when they descended upon it with even more vigor than the search. They were so caught up in fighting over it that they didn't realize he was shooing them out the window. He shut it soundly and heaved a deep breath. Finally!
His dad called to him from downstairs: "Seamus! Stop dancing around and get that room clean!"
"Working on it!"