"Arianna Eleanor Fallon! Come back here now!" Natara angrily pounded around the living room, giving chase to the toddler.
"Nuh UH!" Arianna sang out gleefully, leaping gracefully over a stray barbie doll doing the splits. She dashed through the corridor, waving Natara's Android in the air triumphantly.
"I'm faster than you!" Hurtling past Melissa, Natara spied her mischievously clutching the cat's tail and giving it a good yank.
"Hey!" she cried out, annoyed. "Don't do that! The cat doesn't like it." Melissa scowled fearlessly at her and pursed her lips exaggeratedly. "The kitty loves it!" she muttered, sticking one hand out and repeating the action. Giving one loud yelp of pain, the cat hissed and narrowed it's emerald eyes at Melissa, regarding her suspiciously. "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" Natara heard her daughter shriek maniacally from the adjoining room.
"Oh, damn." She tensely ran her fingers through her knotted, sticky hair, and sighing, proceeded to cross the corridor towards the pitch black room, when she heard a miniscule, barely audible mumble.
"Oh damn." Pirouetting on pointed toes, she screwed up her face in an expression of puzzlement, and faced the tiny toddler, her body set in a decidedly furious position. "What was that?" Cocking her head, and smiling devilishly, she proclaimed loudly, "Oh, damn!" Natara hunched downwards, shoulders stooped, and brought one, spindly finger towards Melissa's face. "You can't say that again, O.K?," she patted her gently on her floral dress-clad shoulder. "Why?" she asked curiously. 'Is it bad?" Sighing, Natara rolled her eyes and muttered, "Yes. It is bad." "Really bad?" "Really bad." A moment of silence rested heavily between them, and Natara sighed again, this time, in relief.
"OOOOOOOH DAMN! DAMN, DAMN, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!" Melissa screeched in amusement, her tiny rosebud mouth forming a perfect O. Breathing heavily, Natara clenched her fists and smiled sweetly at her, gritting her teeth inside her mouth. "I thought I told you, that word is BAD," she breathed furiously. "Yeah, but I can think of more words that are even more bad, so I though that it wasn't that bad..." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah, like f..." Natara slapped her hand against her mouth in a vain attempt to stem the flow of her words. "When I remove my hand," she growled down at her, "I want you to completely stop talking, and I mean completely." Melissa scrunched up her nose, and violently shook her head. "What if I don't?" "Oh, you little... I mean," Natara flustered, "If you do talk, you'll... you'll get no snickerdoodles." "WHAT?" she gasped in shock. "Yeah, that's right." Natara proclaimed proudly. "So will you shush?" Melissa nodded her head earnestly, her dark eyes shining and glimmering. Peeling her hand cautiously away from her lips, she quietly padded across the slippery linoleum, keeping one vigilant eye on the 3 year old. "Good, good..."Triumphantly, Natara slipped into Arianna's room, and inched the door closed with a soft click.
Flicking on the light switch stand offishly, she found a gun trained meticulously on her chest, the little hand that was clutched around it wavering and trembling. "Woah..." Natara backed away into the bright pink walls, her hands raised upwards in surrender. "No need to pull out the big guns." Arianna jerked the Nerf gun upwards to her head, keeping one stubby finger firmly on the trigger. "Do you want your phone?" she rasped in a hoarse tone of voice, gesturing with her head towards her Android resting on the bed's white and pink floral bedspread. "Oh, yeah, thanks!" She casually lunged towards it, but Arianna determinedly blocked her with her tiny three year old body.
"Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?" Sarcastically, Natara remarked, "Oh, so being your mother doesn't count for anything?" A smirk slowly creeped onto Arianna's face, as she yelled, "So it's the hard way, eh? ATTACK!" The door burst open as Melissa sprinted through it, armed with a gargantuan amount of stuffed animals. "You have crossed us. YOU MUST DIE!" she hollered, chucking various animals at Natara's body, nailing her numerous times. "Stop... Stop... Stop it..." she staggered under the blows from Melissa, meeting the ground with her body. Clawing at the air frantically, she plucked out an animal and roughly shoved it in Melissa's direction. "Don't. Hit. Me. Again." She grunted, punctuating each wave of the animal with a single word. "Otherwise? You'll get it, I swear you will." Moaning, she slowly pushed herself off the ground and weaved between the stuffed toys littering the floor, finding her cellphone and throwing it roughly into her pocket. Turning around, Natara found the two girls standing as rigid as wood, shell-shocked expressions on their faces. "She... She defeated us. She was good enough to defeat us." Melissa released her grip on an elephant and let it drop silently to the floor. "That's my mommy," Arianna said proudly, running to Natara and engulfing her in a cramped hug.
Smiling softly to herself, Natara shouted happily, "Who wants snickerdoodles?"
"WE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Amy stood in front of her, leaning against the door frame as she clutched Melissa's hand tightly. "I'm so sorry for dumping her on you like that, but it was something that had to be done," she smiled apologetically. "Oh, don't worry, Amy. It was all good. It was totally fine." Natara chewed on her lip lightly, and smiled back at her. 'Well, I ought to be going. It's way past Melissa's bedtime." Amy waved in a friendly manner, and started to walk away, when she stopped and came back up to Natara. "One last question... Was she too much trouble?" Memories of Melissa swearing at her, pulling her beloved cat's tail and attacking her with stuffed animals swam in Natara's mind.
"She was an angel."
Aaaaaaaaand... That's the end! This chapter turned out quite different from how I wanted it to be, so I'm not quite sure if I like it or not...
But maybe you could review and tell me about how much you liked it and how stupid I am? :D