“...and
I actually said the thing about living in my house and following my rules.”
“No,
you didn’t!”
“Yes
I did!”
“Oh,
God...!”
Jerry
and I were in my room sitting in front of my new entertainment center. It was a
fabulous big screen tv that
continually played favorite movies from memory. Unfortunately, that meant we got
static for the parts of the movies I’d forgotten. Presently, we were
half-watching a partially snowy image of “Ferris Bueller’s
Day Off”.
“So
what the heck am I supposed to do with the kid?” I asked Jerry. “Oh, wait, look
who I’m askin’ advice from.”
Jerry
looked over his bag of chips at me and frowned. “What the hell’s that supposed
to mean?”
“Well,
you’re only the king of juve delinquency,” I said.
Jerry
grinned with pride briefly, then added, “And you’re
not?”
“No,
I’m the queen of doing the right thing at the wrong time,” I said.
“Which
means what?” he asked.
“That
anytime I screw around, I get caught and anytime I’m behaving, no one’s there
to see it.”
“Except
for those like me who don’t give a damn,” said Jerry matter-of-factly.
“Right. But the point is, I can’t get Josh to see how
basically simple his life is. All he has to do is behave and I’d baby the crap outta him. I mean, the kid has a basically perfect life and
then he screws it up by doing dumb shit. Then he looks me in the eye and
refuses to give me the respect I deserve. I mean, hell, I take care of this
boy!”
“I
think he’s reached that point where a kid thinks all adults have it made.”
Jerry said.
“I
remember thinking that, too. God, even I begged to have a period so I could be
a woman.”
“I
wanted my own apartment,” Jerry agreed. “But it definitely means you have to
work.”
“No doubt, man. See, all we had to do was stay kids...”
“Good
kids,” Jerry added.
“...and
just suck up all the free stuff, like allowance...” I added.
“...days
off from school...” Jerry said.
“...free
room and board...”
“...summers
off...”
“...naptime
in the middle of the day...”
“...riding
bikes and swimming all day...”
“...trips
to
“We
coulda done that,” Jerry said.
“Not
me...I never wanted to get in trouble,” I said, shaking my head.
Jerry
paused, looking at me, then smiled. “Yknow what? I think you’re jealous of Josh.”
“What?”
“You’re
jealous ‘cause he’s better at getting in trouble than
you were,” Jerry said.
“Oh,
please...spoken like a true brat!” I said.
“Yeah,
something you never were!” Jerry grinned.
“Fuck
you!”
“See,
I’m right. You’re jealous,” he said.
“No,
I’m not!”
“Yes
you are!”
“No,
I’m not!”
“Yes
you are!”
“I
am not, now shut up!” I shrieked.
Jerry
frowned at me and even I got a strange sense that something was odd. “Say that
again,” he said slowly.
“I
am not...now shut up,” I said, looking at him with a frown.
“Is
it just me, or does your voice sound abnormally high?” Jerry said.
“I
was just about to ask you the same question,” I said. “What’s wrong with your
throat?”
“Nothin’, I...” he began, then he reached out to touch my
head. “Did you cut your hair recently?”
“No, why?”
“It’s
shorter,” he said. “A little softer, too.”
For
the first time during our conversation, Jerry and I actually looked each other over. I wasn’t sure
what he was seeing about me, but I was seeing the same Jerry, only...more
youthful looking. No facial hair, no squared adult male chin...just a little
boy.
“Okay,”
I said. “I take it from the look on your face that I look like you do.”
“If
you mean younger, then,
yes, you do.” Jerry said.
I
paused. “Okay, the proof is in us getting up from the chair, right?”
“Right,
‘cause this could just be a trick of our imaginations, or at least yours,”
Jerry said.
We
took a deep breath, then jumped up from the papasan sofa.
Actually,
jumping up was the intent, but falling off and having the sofa flip its pillow
and basket over on top of us was the actual effect.
I
turned to look at Jerry as I gingerly pried my flattened body from the floor. I
was briefly distracted by the fact that I hadn’t been FLAT on a floor for quite
a while, but only for a moment.
“Well,
I think this is proof,” Jerry said, his voice muffled by the cushion. “There’s
not a chance in hell that our two bodies could be trapped under this thing if
we were both adult sized. Is this you making us like this?”
“What
are you kids doing in here?” a voice boomed out. Somewhere in the
distance, I heard a combined scream that sounded like Naomi and Alan, but
younger.
“Does
that answer your question?” I said wryly.
“Who
is that?” Jerry asked.
“I dunno, but we better look. Help me...” The words “lift this
thing up” died as the whole sofa lifted off of us and into the air. A man I’d
never seen before held it above our heads and looked down at the two of us with
a great deal of satisfaction. Jerry and I blinked at the guy, then at each
other, then back at the guy again.
“Josh???”
“Joshua,” he corrected,
his voice deeper than a river.
“Hey,
I’m here, too!” protested another man behind him. He was carrying a much younger
(and half naked) Naomi and Alan under one arm. Both of them were struggling
vehemently and cursing like no child I have ever seen.
“Stevie???”
“Ste-ven,” said he,
dumping Naomi and Alan very unceremoniously on the bed. Naomi jumped up to a
standing position in defiant anger and Stevie raised
a hand. A spell slammed Naomi back down so hard that Alan bounced up next to
her. Josh picked up Jerry and I and deposited us next
to them on the bed.
“Now,”
said Joshua, his long legs pacing back and forth in front of us, “let’s just
get a few things straight before you KIDS have to go <here he smirked> to
bed.”
“Bed,”
Alan nodded, a childish grin covering his childish face. “Bed is good.”
“He
doesn’t mean like that, you idiot!” Naomi snapped at him.
“Who
are you calling an idiot?” Alan shouted back.
“The
one with the baby sized weiner, that’s who!”
Alan
turned began to gasp angrily for a few seconds, then he leapt up...and burst
into hysterical tears. “You bitch!” he wailed. “I didn’t make my weiner small! For cryin’ out
loud, we’re having a baby together!”
“Well,
now we are babies together!” she
said, pounding her fists uselessly on the bed.
She burst into tears, and they both began to swing at each other.
Jerry
and I exchanged glances. “And they fought like whining schoolchildren,” we said
simultaneously.
“Can
you shut them up?” Joshua asked Steven, pointing at the ball of fighting flesh
that was Naomi and Alan.
Steven
closed his eyes, barely blinked, and suddenly, Naomi and Alan were devoid of
sound. They kept fighting for a moment until they realized they were no longer
making noise. “Cone of silence,” Steven smiled, as they turned sulkily away
from each other.
“Josh...Joshua...what
do you want?” I said irritably.
He
smiled at me and folded his arms across his broad chest. “I just want you to
feel how I feel for a little while. So...you guys go to your room and stay
there ‘til I come get you.”
“Excuse
me...?” I said, but Jerry cut across me.
“So,
I can go to my room?” he said slyly.
“Yes...no!
Go to Daina’s,” Joshua replied warily.
I
could see where this was heading. “So we can go to my room?” I asked, smiling at Jerry.
“Yes...no!
You’re going to...my room,” he said. “Yeah, my room is good.”
“Okay,” we said, a little too easily.
Joshua
must have sensed something, but at that moment, Alan and Naomi, leapt up and
ran from the room. “Oh, great!” he said. Steven raced after them, then Joshua
picked Jerry and I up and ran down the hall after him. He opened the door to
his own room and pushed us both in. “Stay here,” he said. “In fact, I’m locking
the door.”
We
looked back, our faces the very picture of innocence, and said,
“Yes,
Unky Joshua!”
He
frowned at us, then slammed the door and locked it.
“This
poor child,” I said to Jerry. “You know, if it was you and me planning a
hostile takeover, we’d be up on all the angles, have
all this mess covered and even called in Naomi and Alan as consultants.”
“I know that’s right,” Jerry said, shaking
his head. “I say we just bulldoze him with power right now just to prove that
you gotta do your homework to take us on!”
“No,
see, that won’t solve this problem, though, it’ll just make him do it better
the next time. And we don’t want there to be a next time.” I said. “The way I
see it, we’ve got two options here. It’s Josh’s power, so we can’t change it.
We could sit and wait for him to come back and just be good...”
“Or we could be the worst nightmare an adult’s
ever had,” said Jerry with a smirk.
“Yeah,
the only problem is how to do that,”
I said, trying to think.
“So
let’s just run wild around the place, man!” said Jerry.
I
gave Jerry a look of pity. “Really, my dear boy, that
is so beneath us.”
“So’s most of our height at this point,” Jerry shrugged.
“Yes,
but we have Alan and Naomi doing that menial crap. You and I, on the other
hand, although small in stature, need to think big on destruction.”
We
thought in silence for a moment. “We could just fix the whole thing on my
computer,” I said.
“Too
easy,” replied Jerry.
“And
it’s really cheating,” I agreed. “Let’s use that as a last resort.”
Jerry
blinked at me, then began to go into strange
convulsions. “Oooo! Resort! Oooo! Oh, yes! Yes, ooo...!”
“I
take it this means you’ve got an idea?” I said, watching him. “That or I should
be telling you you’re gonna go blind.”
Jerry
pointed at me, barely controlling his excitement. “Did you not mention just
moments ago that you couldn’t get Josh to understand your point of view?” he
said, rushing through the statement.
“Yeah...”
“So
give him a taste of his own medicine! We take off and have a helluva good time for as long as we like, do all the fun
stuff we...well, you never did.
Eventually, he’ll get tired of this game and he’ll start to wonder where we are
to take care of everything. And that’s when we stay a little longer and he has
to beg to get us to come back and
take charge.”
“Well,
what if nothing goes wrong and he’s actually good at being an adult?” I asked.
“With Naomi and Alan running around?” Jerry snorted.
“Please!”
“But
what if he doesn’t panic over us being gone?”
Jerry
came over, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Make him panic,” he said.
“O-kay,” I nodded. “So how did the word “resort” figure into
all this stuff?”
“Oh.
Yes. Well,” he said, with a smirk, “I’ve figured out a place to go.” He raised
an eyebrow at me and, for a moment, I could practically see the king standing
spread eagle on his throne, crown still gleaming at a rakish angle on his head,
mischief whirling about him like a gathering storm...
Now, he thought, would be as good a
time as any to tip the scales.
He arose from his chair and began
the long walk out of the darkness, counting rows as he went. 72...71...70...69...