Just Crazy (13 page)

When she hears about what I've done, she'll realise what a hero I am. She'll apologise for saying that I stink. She'll beg me to forgive her. I will, of course. And then we'll kiss.

It's lucky I did all that practice on the mirror, after all.

ut, Mum,' I say. ‘I can't look after them. I'm busy.'

‘Busy?' says Mum. ‘Busy doing what? Watching television?'

‘It's a very important program,' I say. ‘We have to watch it for school.'

Mum comes into the room.

I quickly change the channel.

‘I saw that!' she says. ‘Since when did cartoons become important programs?'

‘Ever since they were first invented,' I say. ‘But fine. If you don't want me to do my homework then I won't. I'll fail. I'll drop out. I'll become a full-time babysitter.'

‘Oh come on,' says Mum. ‘It's just for half an hour. They won't give you any trouble.'

I groan.

‘Are you kidding?' I say. ‘They're psychos!'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' says Mum. ‘Look at them. They're lovely little girls.'

She points towards the kitchen. The girls are sitting at the table having a tea party with their dolls.

‘Yeah, they're lovely when you're around,' I say, ‘but it's just an act. As soon as you leave the room they go crazy.'

Mum rolls her eyes and picks up her car keys.

‘That's enough, Andy,' she says. ‘I'm not
asking
you — I'm
telling
you. You're looking after them and that's that.'

The girls — my cousins — have been here for three days now and I'm almost out of my mind. They have been messing up and breaking stuff all over the house and I've been getting the blame. Mum is looking after them while my aunty is in hospital having a baby. I wish she'd hurry up and have it. The sooner these kids are out of this house the better.

‘Don't leave me here with them, Mum,' I say. ‘Please, I beg you . . .'

‘Bye-bye,' she calls to the girls, ignoring
me. ‘I'm going out for a while but Andy will look after you, won't you, Andy?'

She fixes me with a icy glare. I know what that look means. It means that I'd better take very good care of the girls . . . or else.

‘Bye-bye,' call the girls. They wave and smile so sweetly that for a moment I almost believe they are completely innocent normal little girls.

Mum leaves.

I go to the lounge room window and watch her back the car out of the driveway and drive away down the hill.

I look at the girls.

They're still having their tea party.

So far, so good. Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

I sit back down in front of the TV and change the channel back to my cartoon. Luckily I haven't missed too much. The mouse is still chasing the cat around, hitting him on the head with an enormous hammer. That poor cat. He never wins. He always gets clobbered. Uh-oh. Now the mouse has a box of matches. He sets the cat's tail on fire.

Wow. That's so realistic I can practically smell the smoke.

Wait on.

I
can
smell smoke.

That's not coming from the TV. It's coming from the kitchen. And what's that racket? There's all this banging and clattering. I don't think the girls are playing tea party anymore.

I jump up and run to the kitchen.

There's a haze of blue smoke and the smell of burning rubber.

Jemima's standing up on a chair next to the bench with a fork in her hand which she's about to stick into the top of the toaster.

‘NO!' I say.

She turns around.

‘But it's stuck,' she says, completely unaware of how close she is to being electrocuted. ‘It's burning.'

‘Just leave it,' I say, moving towards her. ‘I'll do it.'

‘I can do it myself,' she says.

‘NO!' I scream.

But it's too late. She plunges the fork into the toaster.

I stop. I can't touch her. She must have 240 volts flowing through her body. The electricity might go from her to me.

But I can't just leave her there.

Maybe if I put rubber dishwashing gloves on . . .

‘Got it!' says Jemima, turning to me with something black and smoking on the end of her fork. It doesn't look like toast — it's a dishwashing sponge.

‘See,' she says. ‘I told you I could do it myself.'

‘But . . . how . . . what . . .' I stutter, ‘why didn't you get electrocuted?'

‘Because I turned the switch off and pulled out the plug first, you dum-dum,' she says. ‘Everybody knows to do that.'

‘And what were you doing burning a sponge anyway?' I say.

‘It's not a sponge,' she says, talking to me like I'm stupid. ‘It's toast for my tea party.'

‘It's not toast,' I say. ‘It's a sponge and it smells disgusting!'

Something clatters to the floor behind me.

I turn around.

Eve has her dolls lined up against the wall and is throwing knives at them.

‘And what do you think you're doing?' I say.

‘I'm playing circus,' she says.

‘Well cut it out,' I say. ‘You're not allowed to do that!'

‘Who says?' says Eve.

‘I say!'

‘You're not the boss of us,' she says, throwing another knife at her doll. The knife misses the doll and takes a chunk of plaster out of the wall.

‘Yeah, you can't tell us what to do,' says Jemima, throwing the fork she was using on the toaster at me.

I duck. The fork flies over my head.

‘Right,' I say. ‘You're in big trouble!'

The girls giggle and run out of the kitchen. I run after them but they're gone. I can't see them anywhere. I walk through the lounge room to the foot of the stairs.

CRASH!

A chess and ludo set lands at the bottom of the staircase. Chess pieces and ludo tokens go flying all over the floor.

I look up.

A game of Monopoly crashes down on my head. Houses and hotels go everywhere. Monopoly money flutters down around me.

Jemima and Eve are hanging off the bannister. They're smiling and looking very pleased with themselves.

‘Get down here and pick this all up!' I yell.

They just laugh.

‘Now!' I say.

I start to climb up the stairs.