Matthew left the dishes on the kitchen counter, spending the last couple hours of sunlight with Lilly and Elliot in their rooms. Their separate bedrooms were similar in proportions and design – warm wood built-ins splotched in water damage, walls the same fieldstone on two sides; otherwise, they were white-painted cinderblock. A set of doors opened onto a shared terrace. Their own miniature fireplaces were tucked into corners, stained and cracked in places, their rounded openings appearing like a surprised frown.
She gave him a tour; he told Matthew where to not sit.
Lilly's room oozed a degree of mythical and adventure, her shelves stuffed with plush monsters, leather-bound books, and rolls upon rolls of homemade treasure maps. Plastic stars and moons clung to the ceiling, while hundreds of various art supplies cluttered the desk. Four telescopes sat outside on the terrace, pointed to the outside world. Paint was strewn about the wall in an attempt to create a room-wide mural, now obstructed by the mounting toys. Books on tall sailing ships decorated the floor along with the dried paint.
Elliot's room, meanwhile, reeked of rosemary and sulfur. A cauldron filled with God knows what sat on the desk, its contents congealed into a frozen teal cascade towards the floor. A solarium for a lizard occupied one side of the desk while the other was a jar collection. Runes, spells, papers, tossed-aside books, and summoning circles were etched and scattered about the concrete floor, decorated alongside copious amount of dusty, clumpy animal poop. Books on every mythology, torture, "nerd" cookbooks, and witchcraft lined the walls.
Their rooms overflowed with toys, books, and clothes, a collage of things collected over the years. "How can you live like this?" Matthew wanted to ask, yet watching the children move so smoothly through the mess seemed to assure him that they didn't notice it anymore, the floors almost completely covered up.
Steeling himself into Lilly's small, dirty, grime-ridden bathroom, a stained skylight overhead letting in a yellowed glow, Matthew gritted his teeth and groaned. He still had the playroom to clear through. It was his second day; how had his list of "Things To Do" grown so fast?
Upon returning, he asked for any laundry they had. 'Their last nanny was here a short while ago,' he reminded himself, swallowing back the nerves in his throat.
They gave him three months worth of clothes.
In hindsight, it wasn't Matthew's best choice. Besides, he still wasn't sure where the laundry actually was.
To buy himself time, Matthew challenged them to clean the floor of their rooms. "We'll have another outing like what we did today if you can." He left them to find it.
And he did, in the kitchen, tucked into the china and silverware storage room under some boxes labeled "FRAGILE". The boxes themselves were so damp that he assumed the slightest movement would cause them to disintegrate. By the state of off-colored washer and drier, as well, it appeared as though they hadn't been touched in upwards of a decade. "How the hell has this house not fallen apart yet?" he asked openly, leaning against the top of the washer unit; he promptly kicked them. Head spinning, he whispered, "Another thing to add to the list, I guess." Hesitantly, he turned the knob of one, clenching his jaw.
It shuddered, starting its cycle. A puddle collected under it; one of the boxes sides ripped open, releasing its collection of bubble-wrapped silverware in a metal cascade. He immediately turned it off and flipped open the lid. The water was cold despite the dials set for a standard wash.
Never before had he wanted a cigarette as much as right that second.
Matthew forced a frustrated scream back into his throat, hands tensed in the air. Groaning instead, he wiped his face with his dust-covered hands and tried to steady his breathing. He popped a piece of gum. "Where's the water tank?" he whispered through gritted teeth, pushing himself up and through the door to the windowless room back to the kitchen.
He found everything he could've needed – electrical, water, and gas – in an unmarked room right next to the china and silverware storage. The fuse box had standing water in it, the box's design suggesting it hadn't been touched for upwards of five decades. The gas's gauge didn't read...anything; the dial was smashed in. The water heater shared its other utilities' usefulness in being outdated and presumably broken. The amount of dust didn't help, either.
Something crashed upstairs.
Muffling a scream, Matthew, nearly running into Mr. Yang, sprinted up the ramp.
Lilly stared at the broken lamp, bed sheet still in her hand. Her eyes were wide when she met Matthew's. "I-I didn't mean to," she insisted, climbing over a small mountain of pillows to get to him. "I didn't know the lamp was there!"
'This job's going to kill me,' he mused. "As, as long as you're not hurt, I'm okay," he told her, proceeding to clean up the mess.
"Mr. Robinson?"
Sucking in a breath, Matthew followed his employer's voice to the hall.
"May I ask why the children's clothes are strewn about like this?" he asked, arms crossed over his chest. The man's stare scrutinized him as he approached.
In response to Matthew's request to clean the floor the best they could, the children proceeded to dump every article of clothing onto the floor in the upstairs hallway. Some still with hangers and tags on them, the building mound created a veritable wall blocking off their rooms from the rest of the house. In his haste to get to Lilly, he'd literally overstepped the pile.
Matthew rubbed his face and sighed. "I asked for laundry. That was before I found that the units don't work."
"We send them out," he replied, turning to the younger man. "We have laundry units?"
His eyes widened, breath hitched into a silent scream. "You cannot be serious."
"It's not my place to know, is it?" Mr. Yang asked, his eyes narrowing in condescending agitation. Taking in a breath, he glanced back to the pile of clothes. "You also haven't looked at what's wrong with the toilet in my bathroom."
"It probably has something to do with the water tank in the kitchen," he sighed. "The electrical, the gas, all of it needs updating. The bathroom by my room, too, also ne –"
"I did not ask you what was wrong with the house, Mr. Robinson, I asked whether you had looked at the facilities in my room or not."
Matthew clenched his jaw and, contemplating cussing the man out, bit his tongue. "No, sir."
Stepping back once to pivot himself towards his room, he casually added, "We don't have gas. The appliances are all electric."
YOU ARE READING
It's Definitely Not All Mary Poppins
General Fiction[A Slice-Of-Life LGBTQ+ Story about Found Family] Matthew Robinson's career as a teacher seemed to have stalled, yet when the winds in the East suddenly lands him in the employ as a nanny, Matthew realizes he's probably signed up for more than he ba...
