Chapter 3
Chloe walked into the office for another 8 hours long slog of a job. It was a city government union job so the pay and benefits were out of this world. But her job was miserable to sit their day in and out trying to keep her sanity. Sighing, she placed her work laptop on the wooden table. Work had switched to an open office model which Chloe had grown to despise. The room was a wide open office design with a central glass table with a bunch of her coworkers already at work. Suck ups. The more hours they worked the less and less job security they could keep. One of the things that annoyed her about the working world. With that she placed her 5 year old laptop on a free spot and logged in. The only time she used laptops anymore was for work after the twins were born she pretty much gave up most modern conveniences. Her and Timmy lived like they were in the 90s which annoyed their friends to no end. With that she opened up the laptop which was on a property based website. Where Chloe would spend hours scrolling through reading listings after listing.
"Busy as always I see," Chloe sighed hearing that woman's voice. Oh how she hated her with a passion. "Well then once you get some actual work done I have a list of things I'd like you to do after work Carmicahel unpaid." Sighing, Chloe turned towards the woman he utterly despised. Trixie Tang. A few months younger than her, born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Whose attitude had soured long before any ounce of kindness was there. Wearing her designer silk fathened purple shirt and white short pants with beautiful high heels. That shoe was easily half of Chloe's annual salary. And was the governing mayor of Dimmesdale at the moment. Which with their long standing rivalry made for a very unhappy work environment.
"I was looking at it last night and forgot to clear my browser. I just got here," Chloe said defensively. Not that Trixie would believe her. Since day 1 Trixie had been trying to fire her, but thanks to her strong union protections. Was unable to keep her down and so with that Chloe opened up a spreadsheet and went to work. Nothing was more fun than slogging through all of Trixie's back work which kept her busy, but annoyed. She had to be one of the most productive employees in the office which was sad as she spent half her time browsing the internet. Mostly looking up things for later or to be put away.
Chloe sighed as she walked into Timmy's house. Time to find Tammy and figure out what Tommy was doing. They couldn't leave Tammy alone for long periods of time. And the first thing she saw was Tammy standing right next to the door and upon recognizing her. Tammy froze. Looking around the living room dirt had been smeared on the wall, Scars appeared in the ground; in other words the entire front room was a disaster. Which meant someone had left her alone unattended for too long Chloe just shook her head. Tammy was still silent, frozen her blue eyes looking deeply into Chloe who just shook her head. With that she walked into the house, shut the door and took out her phone. Snapped a few photos and sent the images to Tammy's therapist. Then Chloe took Tammy's hand and dragged the girl with her into the kitchen. This wasn' the first time and hopefully a solution could be found. Tammy just remained quiet as Chloe looked around for someone. Either Timmy or Tommy should've been around.
Walking into the kitchen she found her answer as Timmy was distracted by something. "Timmy!" He stumbled back from his distraction, nearly shattering the cup in his hand. A smirk crossed his face as confusion took over, "I need the keys to the car so I can go shopping for my boss unpaid as usual. So hand them over and I'm taking a little miss tantrum with me. Don't forget to clean up the living room."
"Lovely," Timmy said. With that he threw the keys in her direction and Chloe caught them. "Seriously Tammy…well have fun. I have to get back to work."
"So do I. Come on Tammy we got a lot of things to do," Chloe said and turned around to drag the 10 year old along with her.
"Umhh…okay?" Tammy said clearly confused. "Where are we going?"
"Tammy, you can sit in the front seat," Chloe said. Once the two of them got into the car Chloe handed Tammy a giant list that Trixie had given her. With that Chloe started the car.
"I want a new care," Tammy said. "This car is haunted and it talks weird."
"Tammy, this car is old and needs to be replaced. No it is not haunted," Chloe said. "Now then I want you to read me everything on the list one by one and we go around and get them. That's all you have to do."
"Ok," Tammy said.
Chloe pulled the car to the side of the road and took a deep breath. Tammy cheeks were puffed in frustration as she was trying to read the letter. Chloe placed a hand over Tammy as she let cars pass them. "Breath. Just breathe Tammy. I know my boss is a jerk, but she is my boss. And she does put food on the table. Take a breath and then we can go over everything and figure out what we're missing. Ok?" Chloe asked the 10 year old girl who looked at her for a moment.
"Okay," Tammy said. "Well…" Tammy went into the backseat to go over carefully with the list checking to make sure they had everything. Before finally coming back to the passenger seat and she looked over. "Well we are only missing 1 thing one…one?" Tammy tried to pronounce the hand written request which wasn't great as Trixie had some of the worst handwriting in the world. At least to what Chloe knew about and that was saying something as she worked with the dumbest humans in all of the United States. "I don't know what this is?"
"Let me see," Chloe said as she took the package and looked over the final package. And she still had to get to cleaning out her house, plus at some point Foop and Anti Goldie would arrive expecting Tammy to be there. Having 2 angry kids with an overwhelmed Tammy was a recipe for misery. "Oh come on, that's halfway across town… Tammy I hate my boss so much."
"Well we should get going and we can listen to music. Listening to music always helps Tammy calm down." Tammy said with a cheerful smile.
It took them about 2 hours to get all the objects on Trixie's list, deliver them and return home. Pulling up into Chloe's house's driveway the two of them walked inside where everyone else would be. Timmy, Tommy, Foop and Anti Goldie were standing there. Foop was about the age of 8 at most, with black hair, purple eyes, a clean shaven face and wore a dark purple-blue shirt with matching pants. One of the neighborhood kids and closest friend to Tammy. They had known him for over 4 years now at this point he was one of the family itself. Anti Goldie was slightly taller than Foop, bombastic and single minded. Chloe wasn't sure if she was older or not, but Anti Golide and she would get mad if the whole 'Anti' part of her name was dropped. Anti Goldie had black hair with twin ponytails, blue eyes and wore a dark blue shirt, black sleeveless jacket and matching colored pants.
"There you are Tammy!" Anti Golidie shouted, "Prepared your-"
"Knock it off!" Chloe snapped at the girl who looked confused, "Now then come one on Tammy. That means you as well Foop."
"Hi Anti Goldie, hiya Foopy. Chloe's boss is really dumb," Tammy said. "How long have you been here?"
"Did Tammy have a tantrum?" Anti Goldie asked.
"No," Chloe said. "Someone who was supposed to be watching her wasn't doing his job. So she's a little…overwhelmed, but we are now back home. Come on, I have a special job for the 3 of you." Tammy looked at the two of them as Timmy blinked for a moment.
"Alright come on Tommy let's get started," Timmy said. With that Chloe grabbed Tammy's hand and lead the three of them upstairs into one of the extra rooms that had been prepared for them. Walking into the room Chloe could tell that Tammy's attention to the mess that was in the room.
"This is a lot of stuff," Tammy said.
"Indeed it is Tammy," Chloe said. "You see Tammy we're having this house renovated soon and so everything in this house has to be cleaned, stored, packaged, thrown away or moved over to your dads house. And your dad, Tommy and I are going to do the entire upstairs well attempting to get a chunk of it done. You three are going to clean this room. It doesn't have to be finished today, but with you three working together to clean this room. There's snacks in the fridge and the TV is on so you can watch cartoons if you guys need a break."
"Oh?" Tammy said confused.
Chloe sighed, walked over to a set of wrapping papers, took a small rubber item, wrapped it, taped and placed it in a box. "That's all you have to do so take your time. Leave the big stuff that you guys can't handle for us. And we're be upstairs if you need anything." With that Chloe fonded the remote lying on the floor to the TV, "And you guys can go and watch cartoons. Now then I have to get started upstairs moving all the big stuff out of my house."
"Okay," Tammy said.
With that Chloe left the room leaving the three of them alone. At least Tammy was being watched so she didn't have to worry so much. After entering into the attic Tommy was looking at her. "You know Tammy's never going to finish cleaning up that room right?"
"That's what I'm counting on," Chloe said. "Your dad and I set up the entire thing to do just that. Hopefully it works."